Dungrange

Okay - I agree that it looks as though everyone else is sold out. Lendons allows me to add it to my basket, but I note the caveat "Please be aware that some items may have to be ordered from a supplier to finalise an order." Therefore although they might allow you to order it, there in no guarantee that it is in stock. https://www.lendonsmodelshop.co.uk/index.asp?search=Railways-20N-20Gauge&showorder=lowest&check=yes&searchme=Gaugemaster Senics

Is it just that you can't find a small enough quantity. 0.5 Kg bags seem to be on sale at https://www.osbornsmodels.com/gm115gm1901---ballast---n-scale-granite-grey-500g-45160-p.asp, although they seem to have a minimum on-line order value of £10, so you'd need to want to buy something else as well. Looking on Hattons website, GM115 seems to have been replaced by GM1901. https://www.hattons.co.uk/1189843/gaugemaster_gm1901_grey_ballast_0_5kg_replaces_gm115_/stockdetail

I agree, but the original post refers to the 1950s/60s, so I'm reading that as pre-Beeching and therefore before the rationalisation of the 1970s. Of course not all closures can be attributed to Beeching and there were closures made throughout the 20th Century, with some lines even closing before 1900. I can see the similarity. The difference is that the line through Georgemas Junction isn't and never has been double track. All station approaches are single track lines, which is the reason for the station having only one platform. To use the nomenclature of the plan being discussed, trains approach from A (Inverness), stop at the station platform, proceed to E (Thurso), return to the station platform and continue to F (Wick), return to the station platform, and then head back to A (Inverness). The line in the middle of the above picture is a run-round loop for locomotive hauled services, which these days is just freight. Rule 1 is to do what makes you happy. At one end of the spectrum, there are those who want to make a perfect scale model of location X on a particular date, operated exactly as per the working timetable and sectional appendices. At the other end of the spectrum are those who just want a trainset oval of track with a few sidings, and they don't care too much about how the real railway operates. They run whatever they like in whatever manner they like. There isn't really a right or wrong approach and it's up to you whether your preference is for realism or fun.

By and large, there will be the same number of trains in each direction, so for each E to F service, there would be a corresponding H to E service. If it wasn't that way, then you'd ultimately end up with an imbalance of trains and a lot of passengers unable to get home. I don't see E > B > C > D nor A > B > C > D as being particularly likely. If a train is going to terminate and return in the direction that it came from, the point work would normally be arranged so that the train could make the movement directly from the platform (eg through a trailing crossover at A/D). If these movements have to be made, then they should be E > B > C > J > C > D and A > B > C > J > C > D. A train can't leave the station, stop in the middle of a junction and change direction. It would be signalled to depart from the platform and would have to traverse all of the point work and continue until it was past the home signal at J. The train could then stop, the driver would change ends and head of towards D. Yes, facing crossovers (as you have at B/C) would generally have been avoided as much as possible in the steam era, but they did exist on some lines. Ultimately you need the facing cross over so that trains approaching from the right can access the single track branch (E). If you were running reasonably long freight trains via this route, it may be that the facing crossover was considered preferable to taking the trains to D then reversing into the platform to continue their journey. The issue is more where the signals are placed. If a train is approaching from A/E then it could sit over point B provided there was no intention to reverse trains at this location (ie E > B > C > J > C > D and A > B > C > J > C > D are not viable moves and neither would E > B > C > J and A > B > C > J). If that were the case, then the starting signal would be placed just before the point at which F and G diverge, in which case a unit sitting over point B would be okay. However, if you want to be able to make any of the above moves, then the starter signal would be at the toe end of point B and sitting over the point would be less likely (ie the train would have to be cleared for departure before it was able to enter the station. I see no reason why a train couldn't sit on your point connecting A and E as any train at your platform departing to the left must be heading towards E, which means the starting signal could be positioned accordingly. I think it's highly unlikely that such a station would have been constructed in real life. Most stations on a double track line would have at least two platforms, so that they can serve trains in both directions. I also don't think that trains would terminate at such a small station. I think the only justification for the arrangement you have would be that it is only used by services E > B > F and the reverse trip H > C > B > E. Any other passenger services would pass through non-stop. There is little point in letting passengers off, if you can't provide a stopping service in the reverse direction. I'm therefore proposing some long freight trains to/from E justifying the facing crossover, and some short branch line passenger service to/from E stopping at this location to justify the platform, with all other trains in the plan just running through without stopping.

Any use - https://www.macintoshrepository.org/1448-appleworks-6-for-windows - looks like it might be v6.2 (Download link #2 halfway down the page)?

Okay. As I piece of infrastructure I'm unlikely to use (especially if it terminates at Old Oak Common) I've not followed the development twists of HS2 too closely. However, there were plenty of railway companies in the Victorian Era, which were named as the A B and C Railway Company, which never got as far as C and sometimes never even got as far a B before they ran out of money and the scope was cut. Another company was often then formed to 'extend' the original line to what was originally conceived as the target destination. I suppose my questions would be: Is a new high speed line between Birmingham and Leeds really the best answer to the transport problems in Yorkshire? Is a new high speed line between Birmingham and Manchester really the best answer to the transport problems in South East Lancashire? I believe that the construction of a new line between London and Birmingham is needed and that HS2 is an appropriate / the best solution to the capacity constraints on the southern portion of the current West Coast Mainline (WCML). What are the benefits of continuing construction of the line northwards, where the WCML is less congested? As two of the largest cities in the UK, Leeds and Manchester make sense as end points and with a high speed line all the way to London it would become easier for residents of those two cities to connect to what someone else referred to as 'the shop window of the UK' (ie London), which is where most international business is conducted. I suppose the point I'm trying to make is are those legs of the scheme the best solution to the problems in these areas? My perception (which may be wrong) is that money for 'The North' (which is 200+ miles south of me!) would possibly be better spent on improved east west connectivity rather than a faster trip to London. However, it would have been more difficult to justify a new line solely between London and Birmingham, because more trains are required to use the line to make a business case for the southern section (ie Phase 1), hence the push to take the line further north. That is, because of the appraisal process, which places undue emphasis on travel time savings because they are easier to quantify, it becomes easier to justify high speed rail between London and Birmingham, if the line is also stated as serving X, Y and Z.

Politically yes. However, if the project had started at Leeds / Manchester, then the most appropriate solution to capacity issues in the north may not be a separate high speed railway, or certainly not one running in the direction of London. I think the problem with the HS2 extensions that are under threat is that they are trying to sell the southern solution to the northern problems.

When would you propose freight be allowed to run on the WCML? If all freight traffic had to be conveyed overnight, then when would maintenance work be undertaken? Making the trains run in a different order doesn't solve the capacity issue. If the Government is serious about the decarbonisation of transport and meeting net zero emissions targets then there is a need for more freight to travel by rail (not less). Restricting the times that the rail freight market can operate would be wholly counterproductive to the bigger picture of achieving mode shift. That is an option, which may have been considered long ago, but for those living along the line of HS2 who object to the construction of a new high speed line, are they going to be happier with a freight line? Would they be happy with the construction of a new rail freight terminal near to their homes, since the existing ones near the WCML wouldn't be as well suited to the new freight only alignment if you're banning freight from the WCML? Some might complain about the lack of a station near them on HS2, but they would complain a lot more if they were told that a new rail freight terminal was being built a mile down the road! However the main reason this suggestion doesn't make as much sense as HS2 is that as @Pete the Elaner has highlighted, the way to maximise capacity on any rail line is to reduce the differential in train speeds. Freight and local stopping services can quite happily share the same infrastructure: it's the higher speed limited stop services that cause the capacity problems, so it makes more sense to move the fastest trains somewhere else. Either way, you're still suggesting the construction of a new line between the London area and the Birmingham area, which is what HS2 is. Ultimately, taking fast passenger services off the WCML frees up the existing lines for slow passenger and freight, which is a better option than taking freight services off the WCML so that fast and slow passenger trains can be mixed. That's why HS2 is progressing and a freight only alternative isn't: HS2 is the better option. You ask "How would you get that approved?". Well, to be honest, I think that is part of the problem and it's skewed transport investment for decades, favouring roads over rail and passengers over freight. For publicly funded projects there is a desire to demonstrate 'Value for Money'. The main metric here is the Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR). In essence it is quite simply a ratio of the monetised benefits of the scheme divided by the cost. If the value is greater than one, then the benefits are worth more than the cost. How do promoters demonstrate this Value for Money? One way is to underestimate the cost at the outset, which makes the scheme appear better value for money than it actually is. I'm not saying that there is a desire to deliberately deceive, but there is a phenomenon known as optimism bias, meaning that those who prepare the initial cost estimates are inclined to underestimate the cost of various unseen risks (eg dealing with objections) and the complexity (and ultimately cost) of some of the engineering works that are ultimately required. However, it's the benefit side of the equation that is perhaps as much at fault here. There are many benefits that arise from a project such as HS2, but the easiest to monetise is travel time savings, which typically make up the majority of the monetised benefits of most transport schemes in the UK. How do you maximise the travel time savings? There are two obvious ways to push this number up. 1) increase the travel time saving per user (which means designing as fast a route as possible) and 2) encourage as many people to use the infrastructure as possible (which is what's driven all the extensions from Birmingham to X, Y and Z). Ultimately, it appears that scope and costs have both spiralled over time. Make the route as straight as possible with as few stops as possible (to increase travel time savings) then add on extra spurs to various places (to increase the number of trains). All of these changes deliver on the desire for more benefits, but of course they also push up the cost, which means that even more benefits need to be generated to justify the higher cost. It becomes a spiral. I'm not saying that it's wrong to extend the project beyond Birmingham, but I suspect that some of the extensions are not necessarily the correct solutions to addressing transport problems in the north. In some respects this is one of the differences between HS1 and HS2. HS1 was never considered to be anything other than a link between London and the Channel Tunnel, whereas HS2 is seen as London to 'The North' with a poorer defined northern end point. The other point though is that many of the benefits of the scheme are not captured in the appraisal process, because there are corresponding costs that are also not included in the current HS2 cost estimates. The biggest benefit to building HS2 is not the travel time savings but the increased number of available paths on the southern section of the WCML. Infrastructure on it's own doesn't have an intrinsic benefit. The benefits arise from it's use and it's not clear exactly what trains will use the additional capacity created on the WCML once HS2 is operational. This means that the economic benefits of additional local passenger transport aren't captured in the appraisal of HS2 because the provision of these services is outside of the scope of HS2. Similarly, the economic benefits of increased rail freight on the WCML are not captured because again these services sit elsewhere in the private sector and not part of the scope of HS2. However, just because these benefits can't be monetised as easily as travel time savings doesn't mean that they are not of value. Unfortunately, a tendency for decision makers to focus on the BCR means that they tend to focus on speed (because it's an easily monetised benefit) and passengers (because it's easier to forecast how many people may use a line in 20 years time than it is to forecast what freight trains are likely to use the network). The appraisal period used for transport projects in the UK is 60 years. What freight services are likely be running on your new freight only line in 2085? It's much easier to state with confidence that HS2 will have a regular non-stop service between London and Birmingham than it is to define what freight trains would use a new freight only route, and therefore even if it were a better option than HS2 (which it isn't), it would be almost impossible to get the Government to commit to funding it because it would be very difficult to demonstrate Value for Money.

If by 'we' you mean you, then why not? Someone has to take the lead. Produce something based on the combination of locomotives and decoders you have, along with your recommended CV settings. See if other people find it useful. If they do, you may get other collaborators. If not, it's an idea that will just die off until someone else asks the same question in a few years time.

Which are largely personal preference. Some people like their locos to respond as they did on DC (ie near instantaneous acceleration and braking), whereas others will prefer long slow acceleration as per the prototype, as though the train was hauling a heavy load. The size of layout will also have a bearing on the values chosen. If you're constrained to a small end to end layout, setting the acceleration at a value where it would take three times the length of your layout to reach running speed wouldn't be particularly useful. If we compress model distances, then we need to adjust CVs to suit our layout. That would probably be your start point. If anything exists, it will be someone like yourself who has has undertaken comparative testing and then posted the result on their blog. Maybe there are only 750 model locomotives, but different generations of the same model will perform differently (so you can probably double that number) and then you have not just different decoder manufacturers, but different decoder versions, with different firmware versions. Multiplying all the various combinations may get you closer to a million than you think. I agree that it would be simpler than mapping the human genome, but what modeller can be bothered to purchase one of every locomotive version and try it with all the main decoder options available in the UK. It would be an expensive, time consuming exercise, which would be of little value to whoever created the database you seek.

And that is why the name "High Speed 2" is misleading: it implies that the railway is being built for speed, whereas in actual fact, it is being built to create additional capacity on the southern sections of the West Coast Mainline (WCML). Taking an existing four track section and expanding that to six tracks to create capacity for additional local and freight services isn't feasible in many locations (unless demolishing thousands of homes) so the solution is to take the new fast tracks and put them somewhere else. Those new tracks are being called HS2. If the people using the trains that will travel on these new fast tracks are making long distance limited stop journeys then they don't really care about the route that they take, so the alignment of HS2 can follow whatever route is cheapest to build / least environmentally destructive between A an B without having to route between smaller settlements to pick up passengers, which is what the WCML does. Improving local services is the ultimate aim of HS2, but you can't increase the frequency of a local service from hourly to half hourly unless you can find train paths for the additional train that you want to run every hour. The way to do that is to reroute some of your existing services, which in this case is onto a new line.

I note that it doesn't state what the scale is (just that it is a perfect scale model), but 94 carriages for the equivalent of 37 pence would seem like exceptionally good value. Unfortunately, it seems like the exchange rate is incorrect as there are only 1096 North Korean Won to the pound! £81 million is a much less affordable train set.

I agree that HS2 is a very poor name for the project. It's created the idea among the public (because of stories in the media, probably because of appraisal methods) that all that matters is high speed and therefore if a settlement between Birmingham and London doesn't have a convenient stop on the new line, then the residents are missing out. The same is true for those of us who live in Scotland, who tend to moan that it's not coming all the way to the Scottish Central Belt. However, the primary reason for the scheme is to create additional capacity on the southern part of the West Coast Mainline (WCML). A new route alignment should be cheaper than an on-line upgrade of the WCML due to the constrained environment around through urban areas. The driver of the project is capacity and you're right, there is no great clamour for extra trains between Birmingham / Manchester / Leeds and London. The extra capacity is needed for slower moving trains (both freight and stopping passenger services) between London and the English Midlands. How do you create additional capacity on the southern part of the WCML? The most appropriate answer is to separate the faster and slower moving services (because you maximise capacity when all trains travel at the same speed). The WCML remains as 'the slow lines' and the new HS2 alignment becomes 'the fast lines'. By getting all the long distance trips / higher speed limited stop trains off the WCML, you free up capacity on the WCML to introduce more stopping local trains, benefitting all of the local communities along the southern section of the WCML. But that is the whole point of HS2. Get the long distance limited stop trains off of the WCML and you free up capacity to run more stopping services on the WCML to provide enhanced service provision for those using Birmingham International, Coventry, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Watford etc. All of these settlements will be served as they currently are, but with the possibility of running enhanced stopping services on the WCML. If you add too many stops along the line of HS2, then it no longer becomes the new WCML fast tracks. Again, another moan from those in the north of the country. The reality is that if HS2 reduces journey times between London and Birmingham by X minutes, passengers travelling onwards to Crewe, Manchester, Preston, Carlisle, Glasgow, Edinburgh or Aberdeen will all get a similar journey time saving. The basis of the complains from the northern parts of the county are due to the fact that in percentage terms, that journey time saving becomes less significant the further you travel. Cutting 20 minutes from a two hour journey (a 17% reduction) seems more significant than cutting the same 20 minutes from a five hour journey. The notion among the public is that what is important is high speed and therefore if those in Central Scotland aren't getting the same 17% reduction in journey time to London as someone travelling from Birmingham, then all they've got is 'crumbs'. However, the reality is that even if the line is truncated at Birmingham, everyone in the north will still benefit from a faster journeys between Birmingham and London.

There is no difference between DCC and DC wiring, apart from the fact that section switches and isolating sections are not required in DCC. Just wire as per good practise in DC and then when you want to switch, unplug the DC controller, turn all the sections on and then plug in your DCC command station. The only point worth highlighting is to avoid using the thinnest of wire. 7/0.2 'layout wire' is rated at something like 1.4 Amps, which is okay for most DC controllers, but a bit on the light side for a DCC command station that may be rated at 3, 4 or 5 Amps.

Okay, but @pauliebanger, who is far more knowledgeable on the subject than I am, has stated that the decoder should automatically disable the values in CV3 and CV4 when operating on DC. Of course, as you've highlighted, the original user may have changed the settings, so we can't guarantee that it is or isn't the decoder settings. However, we probably need to jump back to the DC controller that you are using. You've described it as a basic Hornby train set controller. I've got one of these (it's about 35 years old now) and it's rated at 0.25 Amps. If your sound fitted unit is trying to draw say 0.5 Amps and your train set controller is only capable of supplying 0.25 Amps, then it will never go at more than crawl simply because it's not getting enough power. Unfortunately, the Hornby website is next to useless when you go to Technical specs. It claims that a wall mounted transformer is 00 gauge, but doesn't give any details about voltage, current or power. Some of Hornby's controllers are more powerful (eg the HM 2000 is apparently 2 Amps), but it may simply be that the unit is trying to draw more power than the controller you are using can provide. Do you have a multi-meter?

Is that not part of the job description? 🤣 Being the party of Government seems to make them worse. We might be better off with "other, please give details" on the ballot form, but alas we have to just pick the best that is on offer.

Of course when you go and vote in the next general election, you won't be permitted to cast your vote for "other, please give details". Your choice will be limited to the candidates on the ballot paper. The same applies for this vote too. Obviously no-one nominated Derails.

Okay - in DCC there are many Configuration Variables (CVs) that are used to control how the unit will respond. CV3 sets the rate of acceleration. A value of zero would mean that there should be an instantaneous response to a throttle change (ie it should behave just like driving on DC). However, if it has a high value then it will take a long time for the vehicle to begin moving and it will take a long time to reach maximum speed. With a non-sound decoder, you can set the value in CV3 as you please. However, because you have a sound model, the acceleration rate will have been chosen by whoever created the sound project, so that the rate at which the model accelerates matches the way the prototype from which the sound files were captured accelerates. This therefore forces you to drive in a similar manner to how you would drive on the real railway (which is not 0-60 in 2.5 seconds). If you can set up a circle of track and test it on that, I'm hoping that it will work - you'll just find that it might take 20 seconds to be going fast.

What is the Hornby controller that you are using? The DC output should normally be marked as 12V, not 16V or 19V. 16V is normally an uncontrolled output for accessories. However, it's actually the current output that is more important than the voltage. This will either be given as, say 0.5A or it will give the power rating in either Watts (W) or Volt-Amps (VA). A 12V output with 6VA would be 0.5A (ie 12V x 0.5A = 6 VA). However, apart from the very basic train set controllers, I wouldn't have expected a problem - ie I wouldn't expect it to be drawing more than 0.5A. I would expect that you will have to turn the controller up further than you would with a DC locomotive, as you normally need something like 7 V to 'wake the chip up'. Once the voltage is high enough to power up the decoder, the sounds should start and after the start-up routine is complete, it should begin to crawl forward, accelerating gradually until it reaches maximum speed. I note you refer to an APA box in your signature. Over what distance as you running this unit?

I think this is just a 'standard' NEM pocket. I think NEM 363 is the standard for connecting the pocket to the rolling stock. NEM 362 is the standard for the pocket into which a NEM 362 coupler can be fitted. An example would be Hornby part X6354 - https://www.petersspares.com/p/Hornby-x6354-nem-pockets-pk10 Alternatively - https://westhillwagonworks.com/coupling-accessories/33-nem-sockets-to-fit-bachmannhornby-10-pack.html

There is a separate sub forum dedicated to track / layout design, which many people post their proposed plans on to get views (as you have done in this thread). Some members are known to prepare plans based on a users requirements because it's something that they enjoy. The key is to understand what you are trying to create - what are the important things that the layout must do? - but also be aware of your constraints: you can't build a convincing model of Crewe on an 8' x 4' baseboard (or at least not in 00). https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/66-layout-track-design/ A layout doesn't need to be something in the centre of the room - it could be shelves around a room. My first layout (the one that wasn't successful because of the gradients) was on a 6' x 4' board and was operated from outside the oval of track. However, my subsequent attempt was a circa 12" wide shelf along two walls, with a temporary section that could be added across my bed to provide a continuous run. If you could accommodate a round the walls layout style, then there becomes more scope for longer trains and access can be easier (apart from the need for a lifting section or duck under at the door). An 8' x 4' layout is unwieldy, so perhaps difficult to move about (especially if you are on your own). That's fine if it's permanently erected, but is this to be housed in a dual use space?

No - the image is just lifted from this website - https://freetrackplans.com/034-8x4-wraparound.html

I agree entirely, which is why I asked the question below. Children grow up quickly - over the next few years your son's interests will change and it's highly likely that he'll have lost any interest in model railways before he finishes primary school, simply because most teenagers don't think model railways are 'cool' - they are just for 'losers'. They probably have different words nowadays. My daughter told my wife last week that only old people refer to things as being 'fab' - ie my wife and I are old and out of touch with modern youth culture. You said that the plan presented You haven't said anything about your own expectations or desires (beyond computer control). I'm sure that the 8' x 4' plan presented would have appealed to a six year old me, but it doesn't appeal to the 52 year old me. If we accept that it's primarily designed for your son (and so that you can spend time together), then you're probably looking at scrapping this layout in maybe five years maximum. If you think of the expenditure as having a short life, then perhaps spending upwards of £1,000 on DCC sound, and computer control are not the way forward. It also means that you need to progress quickly, and trying to read up about DCC and automation, and different buses (eg LocoNet vs XpressNet), along with the difficulties in converting older models etc will just put additional pressure on you. As @The Johnster highlights, the 0-4-0T in the Blue Highlander is not a candidate for plug and play DCC. Conversion from DC to DCC will require soldering a very small DCC locomotive decoder into a very small space. How good are your soldering skills, or would you pay someone to undertake the conversions for you? That becomes the opposite of a bargain from E-bay. You seem to have purchased a number of train sets (eg your Blue Highlander), which should have a DC controller in the box. It therefore means that going DC is potentially a near zero cost option for you. Build the baseboard, lay the track (but I'd rework the track plan to get rid of the gradients) and then it will be relatively simple to wire up as a DC layout. The two of you could be 'playing trains' together later this month. If it takes too long to be operational, then your son's interest may wane. Use that time playing with a DC set up to learn about what you want from the hobby. If DCC computer control is what you want, then you can upgrade once you've done a bit of research. Unplug your DC controllers and plug in your new DCC command station. You can then use the layout as a testbed to learn the principles of automation before embarking on something new that will really interest you. Whether that is just you, or both you and your son will depend on how much fun you have now. As others have said, I'd also start with DC and take tings from there.

Two questions: 1. Who is the railway really for - you or your son? 2. Why computer control?

It might have been better to start more than one thread as you're covering a lot of ground. Track plan - assuming the purple lines are retaining walls, I think I understand the concept of the plan. First question - what is the radius of the inside track? Many of these plans are drawn with first radius curves (371 mm radius), so your tracks at the left end are potentially first, second and third radius. That should be okay for the small 0-4-0T in your Blue Highlander pack, but most modern locomotives won't go round first radius curves. Second radius (438 mm) is normally the design minimum for most stock these days, so unless these curves are second, third and fourth radius, you may have a problem, which means you can only run older trains. Gradients - I understand the appeal of gradients - they were a part of my first layout as a teenager. However, they are difficult to get right. Mine were a disaster as the locomotives I had struggled with two coach trains and I've never considered them since. They work better if you can achieve the headroom required by dropping one track, whilst raising the other as that keeps the gradients more manageable. The problem is of course that the baseboard construction becomes more difficult, as you're looking at open frame construction. How good are your woodworking skills? Some will find this straightforward, others less so. The set-track track centres are much wider than scaling down the real railway, because the curves are much, much tighter than anything on the real railway. The space between tracks is designed to ensure that two items of stock on different tracks won't touch. In your case, it would likely be the front end of Flying Scotsman on the inner track coming close to the centre overhand of a Mark 3 coach on the adjacent outer track. They won't touch, as they're designed such that you have something like 5mm clearance between the items of stock. However, that won't leave you much room to build whatever retaining structure and parapet walls you think you can fit in that space. It's easy enough to draw a purple line on a plan, but not nearly so easy to construct a retaining wall in exactly the right place. Platforms - these are very short - ie between two and three feet. They would look okay with a small tank locomotive and a couple of older coaches, but not really suitable for an HST (even if you are running a seriously short model). Look at the stock that you already own and measure how long the trains you plan to operate are. I note that there aren't any freight / goods facilities. That may not be a problem if you're just running trains round and round, but I like shunting. As has already been mentioned - do you have access all round the baseboard? You're only going to be able to stretch around two feet from the baseboard edge, so ideally you'll have access from both sides. If you don't then access for track cleaning and derailments might be a problem. As for control, if you're a 'complete newbie' then computer control is a massive step unless you work in a tech field, in which case you may learn quickly. Yes, DCC would be the way to go, but there is a lot you are going to have to learn first. To get started in DCC, all you need is a DCC command station and a locomotive decoder fitted in each locomotive. If you want DCC sound, then you buy sound decoders, which can set you back £120 per locomotive if you look at ESU or Zimo decoders. However, the Hornby TTS offerings are cheaper. If you want to operate the accessories using DCC, then you will need to buy accessory decoders for each accessory you want to operate (eg point motors, signals etc). Some accessory decoders will change several accessories - eg four points. It depends on the accessory decoder you choose. You can construct a layout control panel with switches and LEDs that will send a signal to the DCC command station to tell it to operate whatever accessory you have selected on the panel. Something like what Megapoints offer or the DCC Concepts Alpha Mimic panels might provide you with what you need. If you want to head down the computer control route, then you need to divide the track up in to sections and fit feedback modules to each section, which will identify whether that piece of track is occupied or not. You'll then need a laptop and a proprietary piece of software such as i-Train. You are then looking at i-Train sending instructions to your DCC command station, which sends out the command to the track and accessories, with the feedback units detecting where your trains are, relaying that information back to the command station via whatever form of control bus you want to use to the command station and then back to i-Train. There is going to be a lot of hardware there, so you're probably looking a four figure sum for your computer control. If you are serious about computer control, then that will restrict the number of DCC command stations that you should be looking at. You'll also need to look at the whole system design - there is little point in buying feedback modules which use LocoNet if your command station uses XpressNet as it's command bus. As for a DCC Command station - you really need to visit a retailer and try a number of systems out. Do you like knobs or buttons? Do you like something you can hold in your hand, or would you prefer something that's panel mounted? Do you want something that is touch screen? Would you want to be able to run trains from a mobile phone? There are endless possibilities, but the choice of a human machine interface is generally a personal preference. I have the Sig-na-trak ACE2 (the ACE3 is due out shortly), but if I were starting again, I think I'd be tempted to go for a Roco Z21. However, it is possible to introduce automation without going DCC, by using relays to turn track sections on and off as required. That is, when a train passes sensor A, a relay cuts the power to section B, thus stopping the train. One of our club layouts uses a bank of relays to automate the fiddle yard of a DC layout, but I'm not entirely sure how it works other than conceptually, so don't ask me to find the fault when something doesn't work as expected. The choice between DC and DCC is therefore also related to how comfortable you feel with each technology. If the lights you're envisaging are say buildings, street lights etc, then it doesn't matter whether the layout is DC or DCC. Similarly, locomotives with lights will still work on a DC layout, it's just that you can't turn the lights on an off by pressing a function key, as you can with DCC. I hope I haven't confused you more than you were when you decided to start this thread, but I'm sure you'll have plenty more questions now.