Pete the Elaner

That's a very good accident! I felt that getting the tunnel portals just right was key for my layout. I went to the length of buying a laser cutter to do this, which has furthered my eye for tunnel mouths & bridge arches. You have done a really good job with this.

That looks really good. I can see you've correctly mis-aligned each row of bricks with the adjacent row. How have you achieved this?

Window seats are a problem because many of them are not lined up with windows at all. You would think they could get direction & window/aisle right though. This is why many reserved seats seem to be free; those who have reserved them sit elsewhere making a mockery of the whole system. I frequently travel from MK to Euston in the early morning. Most seats are reserved, many of which are empty. I often sit in a reserved seat but rarely get asked to move.

I heard they were ZImo, so maybe they have changed yet again recently? That's the problem; they tend to change without notice so by buying Bachmann, you don't really know what you are getting. Both my Bachmann decoders are relatively old now. 1 is 21-pin & the other is 8 pin but both ignore CV3. For me, this makes them completely useless as a loco decoder. They seem to be ok controlling lighting in my DVTs though. They have put me off from buying Bachmann decoders for good.

I think you're going to have some fun with this. Adjusting these & seeing the results was what made DCC the right choice for me. There is no right or wrong about how you set these 2 variables up. It is a matter of personal preference.

Have patience. I could not get it to work first time either. I have no idea what I did wrong, but they seem to work ok now. Consist is actually a real railway term, not an NCE one, although I never heard it until I started to use DCC either. There are 2 types of consist: standard & advanced. Standard is done on the system. You create an address which sends out the same command to the 2 members. Advanced is more flexible. You effectively give the members a 2nd address which they all respond to.. Hornby R8249 & TTS do not support advanced consisting. I do not use the function regularly but I think I addressed the leading loco of my consist & they all move. Some functions are still individually controlled like lights & horn sounds. I think you can turn the sound itself on/off (engine startup) individually but once on, they should be synchronised with each other. Take your time & try to enjoy the learning experience.

You really need to start by identifying the decoders. They all have manufacturer & version ids. Some manufacturers do not use their version ids very usefully though. I am not sure if the Bachmann EZ controller is capable of reading decoders in order to find this out.

It is not actually NCE who call them a consist. On the real railway, any train made up of individual vehicles is called a consist. For some reason, modellers have never used the term before. What type of consist are you using? Standard or advanced? Standard is managed by your PowerCab. You define an address & the system sends a command individually to each loco. Advanced adds a second address to the decoders. They should both respond to this address but it seems to be a little more complicated than that. The system knows about the consist so you can make them move by addressing one of the individual locos. Some sounds are activated from both & some from the leading one. Example: This is from memory so may not be 100% accurate but will hopefully be good enough to get you started. I want to run Black 5s 5000 & 5020 together. Their addresses are 5000 & 5020. When creating an advanced consist, I give it the address of 120. In order to drive them, I just communicate with 1 (usually the 'leading' one, which is the first defined in the consist). So they should both respond to 1240. I think both respond to turning on their sounds individually but once running, they respond together. Playing the horn only plays on the loco you are talking to. Hornby standard chips do not support advanced consisting. TTS chips are effectively standard Hornby chips with added sound, so these do not support advanced consisting either.

It looks like each new post generates an entry in this list. Very much a feature, possibly not switchable & not to everyone's liking. It does highlight the most popular threads, which you (& I) may appreciate with time.

That's very thin. I would expect it to break cleanly once you have scored it once or twice with a scalpel. Don't worry about not having a laser cutter. I would expect it would warp acrylic that thin. Mine does.

The staff member I spoke to at MR Scotland confirmed this. The standard of models is ever increasing. I hope this sets a new standard. As Richard pointed out, the downside of this is that the more switchable functions there are, the more decoders will need to provide. This is ok with a sound decoder but non-sound ones typically have only 4 function outputs.

I am particularly disappointed about the HEA. The HAA looks pretty good but I only ever saw these run in bulk loads of 20+ hoppers, which in O gauge terms is huge. HEAs on the other hand regularly turned up in smaller numbers making them much more suitable for a small yard. For this reason, I would expect these to sell better.

That is a very good point. Justifications for choices can be helpful Bachmann decoders: I have 2. I understand they re-badge others so I don't really know the origin of what I have. I do know that both (1 8-pin, 1 21-pin) ignore CV3, even though I can confirm it is set correctly. I steer clear of these now. The old Hornby chips (R8045???) were not fully NMRA compliant. I had one factory-fitted & it would only work in 1 direction with my NCE. Hornby discontinued these years ago but it has tarnished the reputation of their decoders. R8245. I have had no issues with these. They do everything they are supposed to but lack a few features which I find useful. No advanced consisting & minimal motor adjustment. These were only £8 each when I bought them but now they have doubled, there are much better value alternatives. Sapphire: More features than R8249 including a shuttle mode which can be quite fun. I have one & the locos lights turn off after about a minute. I have no idea why. Factory resetting the decoder did not rectify this. I believe you can get other decoders with shuttle functions if this is what you need. Zimo: MX600 cost just a little more than Hornby's R8249 but I feel these are much better value. Good motor control out of the box & very tweakable. Support advanced consisting too. DCC Concepts Zen: My first runaway (after a short was cleared) which was cured by disabling DC running. No other issues but didn't look as good as mi Zimos. TCS: I have 2 of these in Hornby class 86s. These ran well on DC but struggled to move at all with these decoders. I have not tried any other TCS decoders but my ZImo MX600-fitted Margate Princess performs a lot better.

Heathcote Electronics do a 4 aspect signal driver with detector. When several are used together, they communicate with each other so as the 1 clears from red to yellow, the previous clears to double yellow etc. I have seen this demonstrated at an exhibition. I believe these are sold as ready-made instead of kits. If you like electronic kits then MERG have some products which will achieve this.

I used 8 points all fitted with PL-13s on a layout a few years ago. 2 of these failed at a show. I felt a 25% failure rate was disappointing. I have never tried a PL-15.

I have not looked a the compatibility options of JMRI but I would expect it to work with Digitrax. It is free so you have nothing to lose by trying it out. The beauty of it is that you do not need to remember any CV's. DecoderPro shows everything in plain English.

1. Either that or just try it. Disabling DC can sometimes cure a problem like the loco shooting off at full speed after a short circuit has been cleared. Some people disable it as a routine, but others do not. 2. What colour are your Gaugemaster controllers? Black ones have feedback. Decoders do not like these. The cream-coloured ones are ok. I have occasionally seen red Gaugemaster controllers but I have no idea what this range is for. I think the combi is a cream one isn't it? DCC locos on DC have a slightly higher start voltage on than those without, but some claim they actually run better than non-fitted locos. I can't vouch for this because I can't remember the last time I ran one of my locos on DC.

Forgetting Hornby's TTS for reasons which would take a bit of explaining, then about £130 including the speaker. If you are running longer trains in O, then you may need the higher current decoders which are more expensive.

3 states? All points set to straight. The crossing can be dead for this. As long as it is isolated, does it matter which way it is powered? All points set to crossing. Top rail needs to be the same polarity as top rail & bottom needs to be same polarity as bottom rail. 1 crossover straight & the other to crossing. Why bother? Every usable scenario has just been covered.

Ask a friend for some time operating their layout & try running a 2 locos up & down a short length of track. I was really sceptical & had to buy a cheap DCC 'troller & 2 chips to try it but this didn't cost a lot. I liked the freedom of running trains completely independently of each other without having any section breaks to worry about. Within 5 minutes, I found myself wanting to experiment with acceleration. If after 15 minutes you really don't see much difference, then it probably isn't for you. If your layout is intended to be for just 1 or 2 locos*, then you don't have to choose DC or DCC now. Isolate all points & feed all sidings from section switches. I would recommend this as good practice for any layout. If you want to use DCC, simply close all the switches & you will have converted the layout to DCC. *With a larger layout, you should consider a DCC bus with higher current capacity, but this is overkill for a small layout with low current requirements.

I fully agree that only 2 states need to be considered: All straight & all crossed. Any others involve running in to a point not set. With all points set to straight, the crossing needs no power at all, so I would isolate all rails. YOu only then have to consider how the crossing needs to be wired when the points are set to use it. You do not need to take power from any switched frogs. If you only consider the crossing with the points thrown, you can take the feed directly from one of the main line feeds. If you have cab control, you could choose which circuit to include the crossing in. So I would ignore the feeds from the frogs to the crossing, which are wrong anyway.

This is getting horrendously complicated. Route setting including the signals. A mimic panel. It will need programming then when a Windows update screws with a setting (which does happen occasionally), the whole thing stops working. Who will be there to fix it? I am going to cause offence here, but anyone who builds layouts for a living will not be able to do this to an acceptable price. It will cost a fortune. I don't want to dampen enthusiasm but that's just it. Seeing a train move under its own power for the first time is a huge boost for your enthusiasm. Go too ambitious & you will run right out of enthusiasm before you get a train running then you will pack up the hobby for good.

DC cannot tolerate bad wiring either. Because of the lower voltages involved, it is actually less tolerant of high resistance connections It is the recommendations for better wiring practices when people ask about DCC which colour this argument. Most who run DC just carry on with their techniques (some of them good, but they do not have the issues).

But DCC gives you the choice of doing this...or programming the loco to respond more closely to the real thing. So I don't understand your point.

Absolutely it can't cope with operator error, which is a good thing because trains do not either. With DC, I can stop my trains from a scale 40mph in a scale 50 yards quite easily. How realistic is this? Even with a simulator, you can whack on the brake & the trains stops more or less instantly. You can do this with DCC if you want, but there is another option. Real trains take long distances to stop & this varies between trains. An HST will be very different from a class 31 on a freight. If you try to drive a 31 like an HST, you will SPAD quite regularly because they need to be driven differently. If you fail to apply the brake far enough in advance, you will fail to stop. DCC allows you to set different acceleration/deceleration for different trains. These are very basic settings too. So basic that even the Hornby Select can do it. Giving locos different characteristics is a choice unavailable with DC & generates the debate of driving the individual train instead of whatever occupies the track. Sound, lights & point control are just added extras. I used to agree that sound was just a gimmick but guess which of my locos get the most use?