Now, this isn't intended to be a contentious post - not at all. I'm totally sold on the benefits of DCC, and indeed my American layout wouldn't work without it. But one of the unexpected delights of the past few months has been the rediscovery of the simple joys of operating the 4mm layout on plain DC. As mentioned, I'm trying to save time, money and frustration by reverting all my pre-Nationalisation models to DC. This has worked well because all of my sound-equipped models are either diesel or (in a few cases) BR steam, and most of my problem-case models - those that would prove difficult to convert to DCC - can be reworked to suit the pre-BR era, if they aren't already. As I've de-installed DCC in the pre-Nationalisation engines, too, I've been free-ing up decoders for use elsewhere, so it's really been a win-win situation.

However, I'll admit that I still regarded DC as the slightly old-fashioned, less satisfying option, but that's not been the case at all. There's something very enjoyable about just driving a train, without having to remember the loco number. With modern motors, and a decent controller, the performance also shouldn't be too adversely compromised, if at all. It's true that I do now have to remember to select isolating switches, but that quickly becomes a matter of habit, and it's really no more bother than entering digits on a DCC handset. And although this might seem counter-intuitive, I like having to do stuff before I move a train. It slows the pace down, makes it feel more "railway-like", for want of a better term. I sometimes think that we can lose track of this in our quest for ever-more streamlined, one-click-does-all operation. Also, while proponents of DCC will argue that they are driving the train, not the track, in my experience there's no real difference once you're into the immersive mindset of an operating session. You're still turning a knob and making a toy train go along, after all. Does it matter if one system controls the train via a digital signal, and the other by varying the amplitude of the track voltage? With sound and lights, yes, but perhaps that's more of a concern for diesel and electric operation. To reiterate, I'm not knocking DCC at all, but it's been a real eye-opener to go back to DC.

In other news, we have a name! Unfortunately, it's not a very original one!

Being a fan of Thomas Hardy, I liked the idea of basing the station name around one of Hardy's fictional, but geographicaly precise place names. There are good lists of Hardy's locations on the internet. Scouring one of these lists, I chanced upon King's Hintock as a name that immediately sounded nicely plausible for a sleepy GWR station somewhere in Dorset. Signs were duly made up and installed! It was only then that I realised that Hintock, of course, is the name for John Flann's fine GWR terminus, which is featured elsewhere on the forum, and which has been in print several times. Oh well, the name isn't identical, and given that neither of our layouts are on the exhibition circuit (mine certainly won't be, and I believe John's is based in America) there shouldn't be too much danger of confusion.

In any case, this isn't the name of the layout, so much, as the station when it is in West Country GWR mode. Over the next few months I hope to build some of the infrastructure to enable the long-promised change of identity, and then it will have a different name. For now though, for better or for worse, it's King's Hintock.

cheers, and thanks for reading.