Hi Shawn.
LGB locos generally (the mogul included) soak up the first 5 - 6 volts from an ESC so that you can have lights and smoke when standing, whether you have the smoke unit turned on or not. They do this before the motor sees any voltage from the ESC. Although the motors are quite happy with 14.4 volts 5-6 volts has to be added as well, meaning you will need around 18 volts. That means a physically bigger battery pack and there may not be enough space in the tender.
I would suggest you try the loco on track power, measure the voltage on the track going to the loco at the top speed that suits you. Add a volt or so and that is the voltage of the battery pack you need.
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The really easy way out of that is to have everything inside a trail car and power the LGB loco from the trail car. That way you can have quite big capacity batteries for a longer run time. Most LGB locos also have a socket on the back of the loco which can be used to connect the trail car to the ESC.
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If you want everything on board the loco and are comfortable with some rewiring, what I normally do is isolate the motor from the LGB electronics and power it only from the ESC. Then you could power the LGB electronics direct from the battery pack. There would be no lag from applying the throttle and the loco moving.
You will be faced with this choice no matter what brand of R/C ESC you choose.
Plus you must isolate the loco from the track. All you would have to do is remove the loco bottom plate, remove the two metal strips under the motor to isolate it from the track and replace the bottom plate.
For both methods, apart from the batteries, you will also need an ON - OFF switch, suitable fuse and a method of actually charging the batteries without removing them from the loco/trail car.
I offer kits for that purpose. Different ones for on board and trail car.
Air Postage would be free.
