MTH starter set lashup

No.  Both engines would respond together from each command of the remote.  So you couldn't have the second F-3 start out in reverse.  You need to have the DCS to setup a lashup and have the engines respond appropriately based on that. 

Which F-3 set do you have?  G

Hi GGG,

I've got the Santa Fe F3 passenger set.

G

Could he reverse the wires on the motor of the 2nd engine so that it starts in reverse?

I would say "yes", reversing the motor leads should work. Operating the couplers would be an issue because the "front" is at each and there "rear" is where the engines connect.

If you buy an "extra" engine, make sure is has a factory reset. If it have been run on a full blown DCS system, the DCS RC will not recognize it.

Gilly

Yes, but still may have an issue if one engine misses a command.  G

If you were looking for a dummy in the first place, is it fair to say that you do NOT need the motive power of the 2nd engine?  One option is to remove the motors from the 2nd engine so that the wheel's kind-of sort-of free-run like a passenger car.  It's fairly simply to remove the motors - maybe a 15 minute job.  You can then also pull a single plug to the electronics board to turn off the lights, sounds, smoke so that the dummy does not even draw any power.

In addition to the backwards operation of the lights, motors, couplers of a 2nd powered engine, I'd think the sounds would drive you crazy.  The sounds would run in parallel but I'd think would be slightly skewed in time.  For example, when you trigger the Passenger Station Announcements, the same phrases such as "Now arriving on track 2" would come out of both engines but probably with a distracting relative time-delay.  So by the time you reverse wiring of the motors, potentially disconnect the 2nd speaker, disconnect one coupler, etc., etc., if you don't need the motive power I think you're better off removing the motors and disconnecting the electronics in the "dummy."

Thanks for all the feedback!

Jon

The Time delay is the Speed of light over the Nickle Silver rails.

You are not going to notice it.

The problem will come in if both engines do not have the exact same sound set. They will say different things and the sound will conflict.

In that case I would pull the speaker  and leave the lights running.

Missing signals is possible but that can happen in any Lashup, IT is not prevalent as long as you keep the track clean and the signal is good at that point on the layout.