Pete the Elaner

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?

Go for it. Like most things, airbrushing nicely takes practice. I need a lot more! You do not need a hugely expensive airbrush either. Avoid using aerosol propellants because they do not last very long. A compressor is definitly a good investment. As for the model, Hornby did it with the MU cables removed & the TDM cables in the later position (The stowage sockets at the bottom were initially the other way up). It would look nice with a set of MU cables stuck on but I can certainly understand some modeller's licence in leaving the TDM cables alone. Thinking about it, I may do this to one of my Swallow models.

That looks rather nice. Rail blue looked very different depending on the ambient light. Who is to say what is wrong or right? Looks good to me.

I agree with every single word of that. As for your old track; use it. Build a simple layout with what you have then decide what you want to do. Peco streamline may look nicer, but it sounds like you would not be too bothered about this at the moment anyway. Seeing something on your own layout for the first time is hugely satisfying. The more simple you keep things, the quicker you will get there.

That reminds me of an old scenario at work. We were looking to upgrade from Windows 95 / 3.1 to NT4 which makes it about 20 years ago. One site chose to hire in contractors to do the work at a cost of about £250,000. My manager approached our director & suggested that if she spent £20,000 on training the 4 of us, we could do the upgrade ourselves & would have the knowledge to troubleshoot anything ourself. I think with OT, the final bill was more like £300,000 v £40,000, so we spent at fraction of the other site & our network was the most reliable by a huge margin. So it may be worth spending some time learning before diving in & getting someone else to do all the work for you. MK have a DCC-only club (Silver Fox DCC) as well as a large general club. I remember you saying you were in Leighton Buzzard, so only 2 stops away. I got a huge amount of my knowledge from getting 'stuck in' at a club. It really is a great way to learn.

Hornby have been a common entry point into the hobby. I feel that SK's disappointment with the tooling scrappage inferred that this could have been used for Railroad models which are exactly the models which can draw more into the hobby. Gerard came across with a sadness that the only Hornby model on his layout was the 08. I think this was deliberate & well put across.

I agree. As far as commuter trains are concerned, these have lengthened recently. Some stations on the WCML were lengthened c2005 to accept 12 coach trains. The extra-long Calendonian Sleepers only fit in 3 platforms at Euston. Birmingham New St cannot be extended. The Coronation Scot was 9 coaches. I know there may have been some which were longer but were they really typical? Slightly short trains usually look acceptable on a model railway. Most layouts are compressed & running scale length trains can emphasize this. I sometimes run a full length HST on my layout, which is a scale model of what is probably the smallest urban WCML station. Although it is as accurate as you are likely to see on a OO model, it looks way too long.

Control system is a very personal choice. Compatibility with friends may be a factor, but if it is not, then you do not really want to be locked in to something you are not really comfortable with. Many operators at shows will be more than happy to give you some hands on time on their layouts, so don't be afraid to ask. What I would advise is to design the layout in small sections. They are much easier to troubleshoot. You cannot easily add a section break but you can join sections together.

This all sounds very complicated. Surely DC is used to avoid some of the complexities of DCC? Please avoid mixing DC & DCC on the same layout. You can't be there every week & you are likely to come back to a couple of very broken controllers/locos with everyone denying any knowledge of doing anything wrong.

Anyone can post on a forum & claim to be qualified in this or that. The number of times you have mentioned the scientifically incorrect phrase 'bipolar DC' proves that the second part of this statement is clearly wrong, so presumably the first part is too. I have better things to do that continue with this futile bickering. Please continue to live in your world of DC DCC if that makes you happy.

More complex than what? AC simply describes a circuit where the supply causes current to flow in both directions. It is bad to assume that AC must always be a sine wave. Beyond this it could be anything. Square wave, sine wave, saw tooth wave are all forms of AC. The term 'Bipolar DC' which you insist on adding to almost all of your posts is complete nonsense. 'Bipolar' & 'DC' are opposites regardless of where you are reciting it from.

Quite likely. It has unfortunately promoted poor terminology like 'modifying a point for DCC' which I find infuriating.

No perhaps about it... that is infinitely better! DC by definition describes current flowing in 1 direction, which DCC does not do. Alternating DC is therefore scientifically incorrect.

I agree with everything except "an alternating DC waveform". This term is completely contradictory.

That's complete rubbish because the two terms contradict each other. DC by definition is "a unidirectional flow of electric charge". If it alternates, it is not unidirectional. I can understand not referring to a pulsed signal as AC, because it is usually (& wrongly) assumed to be sinusoidal AC.

I have one of Biff's chips in my HST. It is boxed up right now but I am sure I could read CVs with my PowerPro. I'll dig it out later & give it a try. There is a warning on DC Kits' website that there is an issue with the PCB of Hornby's HST, which is why they recommend either keeping the 125 address or placing it in a different loco or on a decoder tester in order to change it. I wonder if this is causing your issue?

I don't see that it matters too much. I have seen it mentioned that a decoder supplies PWM. Many DC controllers do too. I know that models often have a suppression capacitor but this is only to reduce interference with other devices. Decoders can be tweaked to cope with different motors anyway, which is similar to using a specific controller for a particular loco. If a decoder is damaging to a fresh commutator, then surely it is also damaging to a not so fresh one? If a brand new model ran poorly, would you take it back or try to fix it? I would take it back. I would not want to open it for a second time to remove the decoder I had just fitted, so I test it before taking it apart. Some models are a right pain to fit a decoder to, requiring some cutting which I am sure would void any warranty. This means I need the DC test box. Once the DC test box is out, I may as well leave the loco running for a while longer to let the gears bed in.

I agree. NMRA do not help matters though. You would think you can trust those who set the standards but I found this on their website: "The DCC signal is an alternating DC waveform, which contains the digital information". I wish they would take that rubbish down because the terms 'alternating' & 'DC' completely contradict each other. Current is either alternating or it is direct. I read somewhere that some electrical engineers do not like a square wave described as AC, presumably because it confuses people into thinking it is a sine wave. I think they prefer to call it a bipolar signal. A digital signal can be encoded within DC, but the DCC we all use does not work like this.

If they have moved it to the tender in later models (which would not surprise me), then I welcome this.