Consisting

[Dean]

When you set up consisting, one engine is set up as 'lead'. When you get to the end of a run, you can 'run around' the cars and either reattach to the cars you just pulled in, or attach to a different set of cars and take them back.
Should you break the consist and make the engine that is now out front the 'lead' or can you run with the former 'lead' at the rear of the consist?

[nodcc4me]

You can run it just as is, but you may have to adjust the lights on the new lead loco. If the original lead loco was the only one with sound it will still work but the new lead may or my not have sound, depending on your configuration.

Consisting takes so little time that you may just want to redo it in those situations.

[William Brillinger]

I just go to the loco selection screen and choose the new lead loco... it's good to go. No problem!

[nodcc4me]

That works too Bill, but the followers generally run without lights. When you just change the lead I don't think that automatically changes the lighting setup on all the locos, does it?

[William Brillinger]

i don't really know, as I'm not running with lights yet, but it seems to me that it should since you'll be using the light button on the correct loco.

[G8B4Life]

Lighting control is independent from the MU itself. You can select any loco in an MU and control the lights for that loco at will. The only automatic lighting is if a loco has auto reversing headlights enabled, which I imagine most would have turned off so you would need to turn the lights off in the loco you were driving, walk to the other end of the MU, climb aboard (select the loco in the HC) and turn the lights on for the trip back.

The think the word lead is a bit of a misnomer in this case. Perhaps Ring should have used the words first, second, third etc for setting up an MU as once the MU is set up as far as I know you can drive the MU by selecting any of the loco's in the MU. No need to break it up.

All this is from memory of watching Kevin's videos. Kevin can you chime in and confirm the above?

- Tim

[KPack]

You can control the consist from any loco in the consist.  Each loco has full control of its own features.... Meaning you can control each locos lights and sounds individually.  Try doing that with DCC in a consist.  You'll be stabbing your eyes out by the end of the day.  As far as lighting goes, switching the lead loco does not automatically turn the lights on in the new lead loco.  You turn on what you want, when you want it.  No arbitrary and unrealistic on/off.  The control over lights really comes in handy when running a DPU....I just set whatever light is on the end of the DPU to "dim", just like the prototype.  Again, try doing that easily with DCC.

The only thing you can't control from a follower is manual notching.  That is only controlled from the lead.  I use only manual notching so I typically redo my lead locomotive when I change directions (except when doing switching ops).

You'll find that larger consists work better when the lead loco is swapped.  For switching ops it's usually fine, but for longer trips you'll want to swap the lead.  Automatic load sharing is based off the lead loco and the rest of the followers adjust accordingly.