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[quote user="Brendan Buschi"]I know almost nothing about DCC.[/quote] Brendan, let me fill you in with some facts about DCC. A digital command control system was developed (under contract by Lenz Elektronik GmbH of Germany) in the 1980s for two German model railway manufacturers, Märklin and Arnold . The first digital decoders that Lenz produced appeared on the market early 1989 for Arnold (N) and mid 1990 for Märklin (Z, H0 and 1; Digital=). Märklin and Arnold exited the agreement over patent issues, but Lenz has continued to develop the system. In 1992 Stan Ames, who later chaired the NMRA/DCC Working Group, investigated the Märklin/Lenz system as possible candidate for the NMRA/DCC standards. When the NMRA Command Control committee requested submissions from manufacturers for its proposed command control standard in the 1990s, Märklin and Keller Engineering submitted their systems for evaluation. The committee was impressed by the Märklin/Lenz system and had settled on digital early in the process. The NMRA eventually licensed the protocol from Lenz and extended it. The system was later named Digital Command Control. The proposed standard was published in the October 1993 issue of Model Railroader magazine prior to its adoption. The DCC protocol is the subject of two standards published by the NMRA: <a target="_blank">S-9.1</a> specifies the electrical standard, and <a target="_blank">S-9.2</a> specifies the communications standard. Several recommended practices documents are also available. In the early 1990´s Märklin decided to go their own way and developed, together with Motorola, an own, proprietary system for their 3-rail AC HO scale trains. The key issue is that DCC is standardized and has become the industry standard, unlike other control systems like DCS, Rail-Lynx, Trainmaster Command Control and Trix Selectrix. DCC is both market  and technology leader and, despite the opinion of very few folks in here being able to look into the crystal ball and tell the future, DCC will be around for many more years and will be enriched with new features. DCC is a good investment, regardless of the make you choose. My tiny layout is DC only, but if I were to buy a DCC system, I´d buy the Lenz starter sytem SET 010, as it is cheaper than any of the US makes in my country. I think a pretty basic, but quality system does the job for you. My choice would be the Digitrax Zephyr Xtra, which has a street price of about $ 170 (see <a href="http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Digitrax-Zephyr-Xtra-Complete-DCC-Starter-System-w-p/dig-zepx.htm">here</a>) I like the design of it, looking quite like a real loco throttle. The Zephyr can be expanded, if you would like to add more throttles to it, so each kid can run his/her own train.
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