I am looking to add my first diesel locomotives to my layout, in particular Broadway’s E7. Since it is common to run diesels in combinations, my question is how do most modelers accompli***his? Do you run all powered units or do you have one powered and the rest dummies? Since I was looking at the BLI E7, I also wondered what effect two powered units would have on their Quantum sound system? Thanks for the help.
I run shorter F units on 10-15 car trains. Because I don’t have steep grades, I run one power unit with one dummy.
I cannot answer the sound question as I have moved in that direction yet.
Ken
Unless you are running DCC, you cannot mix BLI powered locmotives with other brands, due to the manner in which the sound is controlled on DC power. See the BLI website for a detailed description. http://www.broadway-limited.com/
At the club, I was often running trains with three, four or five locomotives (on DCC), with 30 to 50 cars in the train. The grades on the layout worked with well with about 10 cars per locomotive. All powered, no dummies.
I have a stable of 15 vaious diesels still analog DC. I just got my first BLI e-7 and have a second one coming the end of Jan. What a difference the sound makes for realistic operation! Don’t forget to program the bell and whistle off in the additional units, but by all means go with all powered. On my DC I have a 4- unit FT and 2-unit FT, by Stewart, all powered. Not only can you pull longer consists, but if they are matched, you can run some mid-train or tail helpers. In any case they don’t work as hard sharing the load so will last longer. Why pull the extra weight of dummies? However I will soon be switching to DCC and have to add sound to the Stewarts. Any ideas or advice on that out there? John Colley tholcapn
John;
Soundtraxx, give Tony’s a call for specifics. http://www.dcctrains.com/index.html
For a four unit lashup you may want to consider making one a dummy, and putting a sound only decoder with a couple of amplifiers, a large decoder (like a NCE D408SR or Digitrax DG583AR) and a couple fo speakers, then run wires to the other units for motor control, power pickup and speakers. Something to think about…