Lionel lashup

[srguy]

I have 2 Lionel dual motor engines of the late 80s early 90s era. Since they are of similar design, can they be run together in a lashup without doing damage? 

[Seayakbill]

Lock them in forward, put them on the same track about 1 to 2 feet apart to see if they travel at the same speed. If they travel at the same speed shouldn't be an issue.

[gunrunnerjohn]

If you want to run one in reverse, lock them that way and make sure the speeds the way they'll be configured in the MU consist still has the same speeds.

 

[srguy]

The engine I have positioned in the lead is faster. Positioned 2 straight tracks apart, eventually the faster one caught up on a 6 foot oval. What next?

[rtraincollector]

a long shot but try that engine in back but reverse face of the other as sometimes engines run slower in reverse than forward

[Seayakbill]

You need to have both locos as close to the same speed as possible otherwise the slower loco will cause additional strain on the motors of the faster loco.

[srguy]

I tried the faster loco pulling a very light car and the slower loco became the faster one. Am I wrong to think that if I run the truly faster loco second behind the slower unit things will equal out since the second loco may have more drag being directly coupled to the line of cars.

[lionelsoni]

If your locomotives have universal motors, you can couple them without any concern for matching speeds.  If they have permanent-magnet ("can") motors, then they need to run light at about the same speed.

[Boyd]

I think your tests could be more of a factor of the electricity getting to each engine than which one runs faster. The farther an engine is from the nearest track lockon, the slower it moves. There must be a reverse unit that you could wire up to run all 4 motors on both engines and probably don't have much trouble unless one drive train is not broken in and/or another one is really worn out.