Control IDs: find, plan, record and print

Open your private Control IDs roster from My Collection. It lists your physical Lionel and MTH copies separately, including copies acquired in sets. Two pieces with the same SKU are still two physical copies.

The app does not program locomotives, discover hardware or send commands to a base/controller. Recorded IDs are manual references, not confirmation of what a physical locomotive is programmed to do.

Find an engine

Search by railroad/road name, road number, class, Whyte/AAR arrangement, SKU, model/name or recorded ID. Searches are literal and display-only. Numeric spellings such as 2 and 02 can find each other without changing saved strings. MTH's explicit Copy ID scope also searches the displayed copy identifier or full Piece ID; All identifiers does not search hidden IDs. Lionel and MTH filters and pages are independent.

The Lionel address board shows complete current occupancy. Inspect an ID to see all companions, including copies that do not match your search.

Review the whole owned Lionel profile

A Lionel profile has three settings: motive, control and sound. Suggestions are starting points, not hardware facts: CAB1 suggests No Sounds, R100 Rail Sounds, TMCC Rail Sounds 5, and Legacy Legacy Rail Sounds. Modified electronics and earlier sound systems may need different settings. Consult the documentation for your actual equipment rather than inferring capabilities from the model name.

In Piece Edit, review all three settings and explicitly confirm the whole owned profile. Changing settings clears prior confirmation; an unchanged save retains it. Every newly acquired copy needs its own confirmation.

Catalog profiles are separate templates. Use catalog profile explicitly stages all three settings for Save and resets confirmation, even if values match. It never copies a catalog control ID, actor or confirmation date. Cancel saves nothing. General catalog sync does not overwrite owned Lionel profiles or IDs. Explicitly cleared/unknown settings stay unknown; catalog edits do not silently replace a previously saved owned profile.

Preserve or rebalance

Preserve existing IDs is the default preview mode: it keeps valid existing assignments and prefers unused addresses before sharing. Full rebalance is an explicit alternative that can renumber engines. Review the entire Current -> Proposed change list, not only the visible page or matching search. Cancel preview performs no writes.

Missing or unconfirmed profiles, conflicting shared profiles and malformed IDs are review items, not permission to guess. Identifiable unresolved occupants hold their addresses for review; unknown physical occupancy can block new allocation throughout the pool. No safe proposal never means clear the recorded ID. Excluded and outside-pool copies remain visible with reasons.

Delivered, For Sale and For Trade copies can participate. Out for Repair, On Loan and Missing copies reserve current occupancy without receiving new assignments. Sold, Pre-Ordered and Waiting on Delivery copies are outside the operating pool. A separate or conflicting general control system may also exclude a copy; a Lionel profile does not override that classification.

Lionel address limits and safe operation

01 is reserved for factory-default arrivals; 99 is reserved for system use. Only 02-98 are assignable: 97 IDs. Existing reserved values are displayed for review, not silently preserved as valid assignments.

Four locomotives per ID is a soft target, not a guarantee. Sharing requires an exact confirmed motive/control/sound profile. The 388 figure is only a theoretical four-per-ID ceiling; profile fragmentation can lower capacity. For example, 96 singleton profiles and one five-engine profile need 98 IDs at four per ID, despite totaling only 101 engines. More than 97 incompatible profiles cannot fit. Preserved placements may be less efficient than rebalance. Above-target groups are reported and require acknowledgement before recording.

Same-ID locomotives powered on the same system may respond together. Shared IDs support rotating a collection, not independent simultaneous operation. A free-looking tile is not evidence that the physical layout is clear.

Record deliberately

Review and confirm the full proposal to record IDs in the app. Search and print scope never change the recording pool. Recording still does not program hardware: follow the manufacturer's instructions for your actual equipment. Expired or stale previews require a fresh preview and another review. If a recording response is lost, the outcome is unknown; inspect refreshed recorded values or use the explicit same-preview retry offered by the app. Do not assume that a failed response means nothing was written.

MTH is read-only

MTH lists nonblank IDs saved on your own ID-bearing locomotive or rolling-stock components, at every collection status. It has no catalog-ID fallback. Recorded control ID is a generic per-piece value, not a separate TIU unit address. MTH has no allocator or Lionel profile/capacity restrictions here. Values such as 1, 99, 100, leading zeros and legacy text are retained. Numeric IDs sort first, then legacy strings; same numeric recorded-value companions are context, not a hardware compatibility assessment.

Print a complete reference

Choose Report mode (Recorded or Latest reviewed Lionel proposal) and independently choose Report scope (All copies or Current filters + all companions). Then choose Prepare report and Print / Save as PDF. Each manufacturer has an ID-ordered roster and railroad/road-number index. Proposed Lionel output prominently says Proposed - not recorded/programmed and includes Current -> Proposed changes; MTH stays recorded context only.

Printing uses an immutable copy of the complete displayed snapshots, never just 50 visible rows. It does not refresh or reallocate. Each brand states when its data read completed; the document separately states when it was prepared. These are historical references, not live revalidation. Refresh deliberately before preparing if current data is needed. A change in another tab is not detected merely by opening the print dialog.

Current filters mean each brand's search and Lionel's recorded-state filter, not the inspected address or current page. Full shared companions are added, including transitive current and proposed companions in draft mode. A narrow search can therefore produce many rows: counts distinguish matches from additional companions. The roster and index cover the same physical copies.

Blocked previews can print diagnostics, but do not become recordable. Expired, invalidated or replaced proposals cannot be prepared as current proposals. Back never restores invalid recording authority.

Preparing, printing, cancelling the browser dialog and Back to Control IDs perform no domain writes. JavaScript is required to prepare the complete report. Ordinary browser Print before preparation displays instructions instead of silently printing an incomplete screen page.

Save as PDF is handled by your browser. Keep downloaded PDFs private; the app cannot retract paper or files after printing. Use Letter or A4 with normal scaling and inspect the preview; background graphics are not required.