Power district

[Michael Hodgson]

22 minutes ago, WIMorrison said:

IIRC it was actually the advertising for Hornby Zero One that used the 'only two wires' statement 😁

Indeed, but that was just a proprietary form of DCC that didn't conform to NMRA standards.

[WIMorrison]

Not sure that the NMRA DCC ‘standard’ existed when Zero 1 was conceived 😀
 

just checked and NMRA published their DCC ‘standard’ in October 1993 - which was 14 years after Hornby started selling Zero 1 😏

Edited April 28 by WIMorrison

[Michael Hodgson]

NMRA was founded before WW2.  Zero One was 1979, but there were a number of early electronic/digital systems, mostly incompatible with one another (just like OO couplings!)

 

Not sure when the Americans decided that a common set of standards for this would be a good idea.

[Oldddudders]

And before Zero 1 there was Astrac, developed by General Electric. I think C J Freezer did an exposé on it in the early '60s in RM. 

[WIMorrison]

28 minutes ago, WIMorrison said:

just checked and NMRA published their DCC ‘standard’ in October 1993 - which was 14 years after Hornby started selling Zero 1 😏

 

11 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Not sure when the Americans decided that a common set of standards for this would be a good idea.

 

😇

[WIMorrison]

4 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

And before Zero 1 there was Astrac, developed by General Electric. I think C J Freezer did an exposé on it in the early '60s in RM. 

 

ASTRAC by GE - The DCCWiki

[Nigelcliffe]

31 minutes ago, WIMorrison said:

Not sure that the NMRA DCC ‘standard’ existed when Zero 1 was conceived 😀
 

just checked and NMRA published their DCC ‘standard’ in October 1993 - which was 14 years after Hornby started selling Zero 1 😏

 

Published seven years after Hornby __stopped__ selling Zero 1.

 

    

 

 

Edited April 28 by Nigelcliffe

[IRC]

I’m toying with the same scenario currently. I am just about to wire up my oval that could have four trains continuously running plus some shunting in the yard or depot and have bought a digitrax PM74, as I was planning on separately wiring my running lines via the PM74, but as it’s just me, I have come to realise that I need a LOT more bus wiring. Three times as much in fact and I’m not sure it is worth it? 

[Ron Ron Ron]

3 hours ago, IRC said:

…….. I have come to realise that I need a LOT more bus wiring. Three times as much in fact and I’m not sure it is worth it? 

I don’t know about your example, but generally speaking, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it would require that amount of extra wiring.

You can be imaginative in how you divide your layout into Power Districts and how you route the track bus wiring.

The idea that you must run multiple tracks of bus wire to be able to adequately feed all sections of rail, is not correct.

While you can route the track bus wires to follow the rails, you can also use branches and spurs, or root and branch, or combinations of all types of bus wire routing.

That opens up the scope to be a bit creative and minimise the amount of wire needed to feed all the rails in a Power District.

 

How you divide the layout into separate Power Districts, can also have bearing on how much wire will be needed.

 

 

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