I have several posts on RailMaster(pro edition) on this blog as I got more and more into it. It is simple to use and suited my needs as someone new to DCC. However I have been more and more frustrated with its reliability:

• It is not designed for Windows 10
• It has an arcane licensing setup
• It has a lot of lag on throwing points and sending functions to locos as it is working like an old dial up modem over a com port and this also means it takes ages to read and write CVs to locos
• It now has an annoying feature (aka bug) where newly added locos only go at full speed when you set any throttle at all.

I was also hoping that detection would be added one day..

However what I have seen is Hornby reverting to DC control and no innovation of either its ageing Elite controller or the RailMaster software,  so I finally decided to swap out the Horny components, but for what?

My goal has always been to run two or more locos at once  without worrying that they'll collide, derail or cause a short  as they run across points that are set against them.  I have sort of prevented this up until now by having safety track where the power is only applied if the point is set correctly, but this is crude as the loco just stops as do any sounds or lights it has.  

Now thanks to a great afternoon with Iain Morrison I have seen how detection can bring a layout to life by having multiple trains running without needing to watch over them constantly. I have pretty much decided to replicate what Iain uses, having read a lot of forums and watched a lot of YouTube.

I budgeted for £2K for this project  which might sound a lot but most of my fellow enthusiasts have spent over 10K on trains alone. I was more worried about how much rewiring I had to do which I'll cover in an a separate post. 

This is what I ended which is also what Iain has:

• iTrain Plus software for automation
• Roco Z21 and Z21 single booster for DCC control as I now plan to have a separate track and accessory bus
• 5 x Digikiejs DR5088RC detection units and a loco net hub

However I did do my own research:

iTrain Plus

My decision was based on quality, reliability and innovation, coupled with ease of use. I could have used the free jmri but the interface is awful I couldn't get it to install and the manual is a train wreck. Train Controller is way more expensive and doesn't seem to be as innovative or offer anything I need over iTrain.

Roco Z21

Not the cheapest, but supports loads of standards and it just worked when I plugged it into my home network - I did not even need to use the supplied router as I am whizz on computer networks.  I really liked how it resets a short and the booster has the option not to pass the short to the Z21 itself ( the Z21 drives the accessory bus and the booster is used for the track bus).  Plus it's got great diagnostics and update tools and just works with iTrain.  I was also impressed with its programming on main and how fast it reads cvs on locos.

Digikiejs DR5088RC detectors

They do what they say on the tin. I was impressed with the diagnostics software and if you get an isolating usb dongle to connect one of these to a laptop and have it powered to your track you can see it detecting:

 So at £90 for 16 detection points the cost seems reasonable to me

Putting that combination together I was able to quickly test that  iTrain picked up that detection information to display it on the switchboard of my layout.

City of London 3439 in siding C

There's a lot to setting up automation, but I have already seen the benefits of this new setup:

I can control my layout right near where I am testing as my laptop running iTrain is on the house  network along with the Roco Z21, so if I have made a mistake somewhere I can test much more quickly without navigating all the beams in my loft.

In the following posts I want to share my journey to make all this work, as I have noticed there is good content on each part of the system by not how they work together