Splitting up MTH ABA sets

Classic Toy Trains Forum
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I just acquired an MTH premier southern pacific ABA set in black widow colors. Both A units are powered. I was really only looking for one engine, but I got it at such a great price I couldn’t turn it down. Here’s my dilema. I would like to split them up and operate them separately.

My most immediate problem is the rear coupler on the lead loco. I have a spare remote firing coupler from a PS2 upgrade kit. I would like to take the non-operative coupler off and wire it in, but don’t know the wires to pull off the harness to make it work. Has anybody else done this? I would also like to put a remote firing coupler on the back of the B unit as well.

As for the other powered A unit, I quickly discovered that while it is indeed powered, it apparently doesn’t have a complete board set that can be separately addressed through DCS. Unless anyone know differently I will need to spring for another PS2 upgrade kit to make it fully independent.

I figure if I want to run them all together I can just make a lash-up in dcs and get the best of both worlds. Thanks for any help that anyone can offer.

John Miles, San Lorenzo Ca.

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Far as the A units try to address each one seperately into the DCS handheld and that should work for the DCS part. MTH should have put DCS or PS-2 into both A units or provided a tether wire from one A unit to the other.

Hope you know the cost of a new DCS unit or upgrade kit, it is not cheap, at least not from TAS. Wanted to put DCS into a K-Line GG1, TAS said it would cost about $320.00 plus shipping both ways.

Lee F.