I am interested in purchasing a TMCC set from Lionel. I want to know if you can run TMCC locomotives with regular locomotives at the same time? I mean can I have a Command locomotive at the front with say either a (diesel, Steam, or regular electric locomovites) behind them. The reason I ask is that the command locomotives are rather expensive and I don’t want to have to spend $300 or more a pop for say an extra 3 or 4 locomotives. Also, does anyone have an idea where I can find a site that consists of track layouts. Like inclines, declines, turns, tunnels, trees, buildings, walls, etc. where I can get a full look at the layout so that I can decide how I want to lay this out. I am probably looking at about a 10’ x 10’ layout area. It’s gonna be in my garage. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I also want it with switches eventually but not right away. I want like one track on the outside, 1 on the inside and switches running between them. If at all possible, any bridges would be cool as well. Any help, send me an email to bigdaddygoboom@yahoo.com
You cannot run a TMCC engine (in command mode) on the same track, at the same time with a conventional engine. Running in command mode requires the track to be powered at 18v which would cause your conventional engines to start zooming around your pike.
Oh yes you can. First get your conventional loco moving then address your command loco and off she’ll go. You won’t be running at 18v cause the conventional will take off but the command engine will run with less than 18v. The couples won’t open and if its steam you won’t have much smoke. You will need to operate your layout with transformer (zw,kw etc.). Actually it would work with lionel brick with a TPC300/400. Now if you are talking about lashing up a command and conventional loco, forget it.
Yes it is true. The Powermaster (or TPC) allows the CAB-1 to remotely vary the voltage to run conventional engines. TMCC engines will not respond in command mode in this environment (they will, however, run in conventional mode).
ZW is correct, I run my P/W stuff with my TMCC stuff all the time. My P/W berk runs at a nice speed at 14 to 15 volts so the command eng has plenty of voltage to operate. my spur drive locos use lower voltages so I just add more cars to the consist so it needs more voltage. they run well together.
To answer your question, you can run TMCC locomotives with conventional locomotives on the same track at the same time, but it’s kind of tedious. First off, you can’t have your transformer set to maximum output, because your conventional locomotive would zoom down the tracks at uncontrollable speed. Second, you have to control the command locomotive with the CAB-1 remote, and the conventional locomotive with your transformer’s throttle. This means if you have both a command and a conventional engine in a lash-up, you’ll have to change the speed of both engines when you want to go faster/slower - which means you’ll be returning to your transformer controls often. If you’re running the engines on two
Unless I missed it, some thing that I didn’t see anyone else mention, is that TMCC locomotives will respond just like a conventional locomotives when there is no TMCC signal present. If You have both conventional and TMCC locomotives and want to run them together, either as separate trains or in multiple unit consists, run them in the conventional mode and they will work fine together, just make sure that the TMCC system is powered down to operate this way.
another option would be to wire it like cab control with toggle switches and power blocks, but instead of using two conventional transformers, use the toggles to switch the blocks that you are running in between conventional and TMCC. This should not be any more difficult than standard cab control/block wiring you just have the TMCC system wired to one side of the toggle instead of a conventional transformer, an exisisting layout wired for cab control could easily be converted to this method by replacing one conventional transformer also. This set up would allow you to get the most out of all your locomotives whether they are conventional or TMCC.
I have not tried this, but see no reason that it shouldn’t work just fine. If anyone on the forum sees a reason not to do this hopefully they will chime in on why it wouldn’t work
Like others have said: I run Tmcc with regular engines all the time. Start the regular engine first get the speed you want then start the Tmcc engine. You will then need to adjust the voltage so you have enough to run both engines.
EDIT and I hope this is clear, you cannot stop and start the train running with the regular engine, that would also affect the Tmcc one. You can let the regular train run at the pace you want and then the Tmcc can be controlled in the usual remote manner.