ldoughty I've been out of the hobby for quite a few years but now have the time to devote to some serious railroading. I have lots of older N-scale diesel locos but plan on upgrading with a few new ones. Naturally, I would like to take advantage of the DCC mode of operation but have no experience whatsoever on which type or system to aim for. My layout will be a fairly small one with mostly a single operator. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks
I've been out of the hobby for quite a few years but now have the time to devote to some serious railroading. I have lots of older N-scale diesel locos but plan on upgrading with a few new ones. Naturally, I would like to take advantage of the DCC mode of operation but have no experience whatsoever on which type or system to aim for. My layout will be a fairly small one with mostly a single operator. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks
When I came back to the hobby this past June, I had to dismantle what was left of teh layout I hadn't used since 1987 and start over. Luckily I found an N-Trak club tat I could get to since it's 16 miles by car from here and there's plenty of free parking. I brought most of my old locomotives down to the club only to find what I had considered to be top of the line equipment when I bought them in the late 1970s were noe just pieces of junk and weren't worth converting to anything. That even included my 3 Trix locomotives which do run but very noisily. I spent a couple of Sundays running them on the club layout before I bought brand new Katos and retired my old ones. The Katos are now all DCC equiped and they run much. much nicer than anything I have ever owned.
I also went into a Digitrax system primarily because this is what the club uses and in coversations with lots of folks, it seemed to be better for me than anything else.
I have a Zephyr and a DT400R which makes it easy to control locomotives without being permanently tethered to the track. I've grown used to the system and it works nicely for me. I now have 6 Kato locomotives, 1 Walthers and one Atlas. Neither the Walthers unit not the Atlas unit is DCC yet. If I run into the club DCC maven on Sunday, I'll ask him if he could install a decoder (which I have already) in the Atlas unit. The Walthers will probably have to go to Litchfield Station for a decoder install since it isn't exactly DCC ready.
Irv