NMRA British Region Forum

I am looking at buying the Kato EMD F7A/B - CANADIAN NATIONAL 9080/9057 (DC,DCC & SOUND) these will be fitted with Loksound - please can anybody advise me how to set these up to run together ? I thought that a simple consist where all decoders are programmed with the same address would work but I am willing to accept further solutions...

You can of course use the same address for both locos, that will work just fine (provided they are speed matched of course). While this is a very simple solution, it will have both locos have the same active functions (lights, horn etc).

If you use CV 19 (DCC Consist), there will be some more CV programming involved but you are rewarded with the option to define functions for each locomotive. For example you can have both engines have the prime mover sound but only the front loco have horn and bell. You can also set one loco to be running in reverse.

If the locos are always going to be coupled together the making them the same address would work, but if you wanted to change any CVs on the main in one loco the other would have to be removed. There are ways of locking decoders with different codes to get around this.

Setting up CV19 as Shepard said would be better, but depending on the system you use you may have to use that address to control them so pick a number such as the last two numbers of the lead unit to make it easy to remember (CV19 can only be two digit). These first two methods have the advantage that they will work if the locos are operated on another layout or system with the caveat that some systems will not give full control options if they don't know the CV19 consist exists.

The final option is one that just works on the layout or system being used at the time, that is a system consist, called different names on different systems such as double header on Lenz, simple consist on Digitrax. Here the command station sends the same commands to both locos, this works well if using Engine Driver with JMRI's withrottle. In this case the consist will transfer if the same phone / tablet is used as the throttle remembers the consist.