# MU locomotives



## SoCalRailfan (Feb 23, 2014)

I was wondering about MU-ing locomotives and if it's at all possible?


I tried it once, with Bachman locomotives, and it didn't work out well. For one thing, one of the locomotives that I tried it with, came in one of Bachman's "sets." The other, was a Bachman "stand-alone." The stand-alone was definitely slower. The one that came with the set, was much faster and lighter. 

What ended up happening, was I would put the two locomotives together and then start to apply power (accelerate) and after a minute or two, one loco would break free of the other (even though they were coupled.)

Then, I tried alternating the arrangement and the lead locomotive STILL broke free of the other locomotive. Now, neither of these were equipped with DCC; they were just plain 'ol DC and I was doing this with Bachman's "EZ Track," on the floor, as well. I changed the arrangement a few more times and inevitably, still wound up with the same result. For my next layout, I'm planning on going DCC and using KATO locomotives; this would also be for an N scale layout, whereas this attempt with the Bachman', was HO scale (if that even has anything to do with anything.)


Still, I've seen videos of people running trains with multiple locos and they seemed to all be powered.


Any thoughts?


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## raleets (Jan 2, 2011)

Guess I'm just lucky. 
I've got two Bachmann Spectrum locos hooked up rear-to-rear for my long Amtrak consist and they work just fine together.


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## Bone1977 (Jan 17, 2014)

I had the same thing with Bachman, then I bought a few Kato's and they work fine together, the rear one even knows to turn off the headlamps when running in reserve. If you get Atlas make sure they have the same drive types. I have two Atlas Classics and two Atlas Kato DC units and there is a big difference between their speeds so I run them in pairs with the same style hooked up.


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## SoCalRailfan (Feb 23, 2014)

raleets said:


> Guess I'm just lucky.
> I've got two Bachmann Spectrum locos hooked up rear-to-rear for my long Amtrak consist and they work just fine together.


I had the two in my experiment hooked together at the lead of the consist. The other issue, is likely that the one that was bought after the set (the "stand-alone") was heavier and a bit slower; however, either way I had them coupled, the lead always broke away from the second one.


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## SoCalRailfan (Feb 23, 2014)

Bone1977 said:


> I had the same thing with Bachman, then I bought a few Kato's and they work fine together, the rear one even knows to turn off the headlamps when running in reserve. If you get Atlas make sure they have the same drive types. I have two Atlas Classics and two Atlas Kato DC units and there is a big difference between their speeds so I run them in pairs with the same style hooked up.


On my next purchase, I'm definitely getting Kato locomotives. I really like their quality, consistency, and variety.


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