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Thanks for the comments everyone!Joe: You've got yourself a standard hard-wire installation ahead of you. I'm assuming that's the Walthers Trainline GP9m? One of the easier locomotives I've ever installed DCC in. (The really early P2K Geeps are a huge pain! Especially the ones with the truck bolsters that somebody screwed up by swapping them with Athearn ones and totally messing up the whole loco! Try soldering tiny jumper wires to flat, smooth metal on the sides of the trucks sometime!)What you need to do is purchase a 9 pin plug decoder, which comes with a harness with a bunch of colored wires coming off it. These colored wires each correspond to part of the locomotive. Rail A, Rail B, motor +, motor -, front headlight one, rear headlight one, and headlight common (ground for both headlights) are the main ones. Hook all those up to the right places (the decoder package includes instructions), plug in your decoder, and then get the shell on (pretty easy in the Trainline GP9m, but much harder in other locos) and you're in business!You'll need a soldering iron, rosin-core solder (very fine for electronics work), a damp sponge for cleaning the iron, electrical tape, and some extra small wires for jumpers between each truck (same side) and a jumper for the headlight common between the two bulbs. A soldering stand (with clamps for the wires to be soldered) is helpful if you haven't soldered before, but I've been soldering for years and never used one, so it's not necesary. But if you're wary of the heat of the wires (they do get a bit hot if you heat them for long enough) and the solder, they do add for peace of mind.
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