I've been doing a lot of question asking and research on powering LC and LC+ engines over the past year. After hearing what I had from lionel techs, and techs at my local lionel repair shop, and other electronic folks, I say run them on DC. More than likely (#1 failure in LC-LC+) capacitor, which cleans up the DC after the bridge rectifier (#2 failure) converts it from AC to DC to run the DC motors, sound, and lights in the engine. Even the Lionel folks that run their displays are turning the voltage down to between 6 and 9 volts AC to run the LC-LC+ engines. Lionel also guided me NOT to buy a ZW to run them. To hold off and run them with a DC power source that at the time they didn't have. I just ordered 2 of the 72 watt DC power sources for my layout. I have two CW80s that I quit using, Had been using the 10.8 set power packs. 1 on each main of my 17x10 around the room layout. But they were getting warm. I think the 72s will do a great job seeing the 10.8s worked for me. The engines may be cheap to fix if you are talented enough to do it yourself. But if it aint broke you dont have to fix it!
Jim
