A friend of mine is looking to purchase the Walters NYC subway car set in HO, Walters #920-31016.
Does anyone know if this set is DCC ready with a 9 pin connector or do you have to wire in your own decoder.
Walters site has no information at all.
I have a set of these from back when they were made by Life-Like. My guess is, they haven't changed, but you never know. My set did not come with a DCC plug. They do, however, have a light board with easy wiring connections on it. The track power and motor wires are very easy to connect to a decoder.
You will have to look at the board and figure out how to wire the headlights, if you care to use them. I had mine hooked up for a while, but at that time they were cheap incandescents routed through a plastic light-pipe. When they burned out, I didn't even notice for a long time. The circuit on the board provides for directional DC lighting, but doesn't work in DCC.
The interior lighting for the cars is independent of the motor and track connections.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.