Thank you to all who responded to my question yesterday concerning DCC and how to begin. With the exception of one responder, the rest were all very helpful. I must admit that the subject is a bit intimidating, but I plan on forging ahead. I have been an N gauger since the Postage Stamp train days of the mid 60s, so just short of 50 years. WOW. Anyway, I would like to know about systems and maybe a good hobbyshop in Chicagoland. preferably the western suburbs, to get started with that will be helpful. I will be tearing down my existing layout soon and thought a conversion to DCC might be timely for the new one. I do have a lot of DC locomotives. Thank you again for the helpful insight.
Ted
Al's Hobby Shop in Elmhurst is probably the best LHS in the western suburbs.
A bit more to the southwest is Walt's Hobby Shop in Crest Hill, near Joliet.
Rich
Alton Junction
Ted,
You may find this helpful;
Al's Hobby Shop, 121 N. Addison Ave. Elmhurst IL. 60126 1-630-832-4908
http://www.alshobbyshopinc.com
Cheers,
Frank
I am in that area as well. Al's is good also http://www.lombardhobby.com is in Lombard and they have N. Very, very good prices. I got my NCE PowerCab setup there for $140. Timberline in Downers Grove, http://www.timberlinetrainshop.com. Des Plaines Hobbies, http://www.desplaineshobbies.com/store/department/21/Railroad-N-Scale. NCE responds to inquiries directly. The online stores can be very helpful as well such as Litchfield Station, Tonys Train Exchange, BNM http://www.bnm-hobbies.com as they all respond to questions and are very helpful.
Brendan
Disclaimer: Haven't followed your other question and thread.
If you are over the hill, say 55, please consider switching up scale. Not an improvement...one scale is not necessarily better than another, but visually the larger scales are much more appealing and useful to those of us over 55 or 60, with some variance of course. Just some good will advice to you.
You can find good prices from reputable dealers after about 15 minutes of googling that question. However, it will be hard to beat Tony's Train Exchange, Litchfield Station, or M. B. Klein's (modeltrainstuff.com), not necessarily price-wise, but for ease of returns or warranty problems, they'll be good.
Count on needing about 1.5 amps for a non-sound locomotive pulling a hefty 35 car train of free-rolling cars on the level. If it is a sound-equipped engine, and a savvy user would not want to exceed that same amperage continuous, about 25 cars. If you have grades, you'll have to add amperage or lose cars.
I would advise a newcomer or someone who is going to start running DCC to consider an absolute minimum of 2.5 amps, with up to 5 amps being useful at some point if you are going to be building a layout with over 50 feet of track and running up to three heavy locomotives at a time with consists approaching 30 -40 cars on grades over 2%.
-Crandell
Methinks most N scale locos would be smoking, even diesels, if they were pulling 1.5 amps. Even my cheapy bachmanns in the early 70's didn;t draw that much. Some older HO locos might get up that high, but ,ost any current loco, even with sound, is below 1 amp. Outside of that bad run of Proto 2000 E units with the near 3 amp motor, modern HO is much more efficient than it was. Half an amp per non-sound is a more reasonable number - I was able to run 8 HO locos, 4 with sound, on the 2.5 amps of my Zephyr. 5 amps should be plenty for a rather large N scale operation.
A bif difference when it comes to DCC is that N scale decoders are more expensive and espeically with older locos are more work to install. If you have a wide variety of locos, you will almost definitely have to mix and match decoder brands to get the proper ones for each loco - not every manufacturer has decoders for all N scale variations. Not that this is an issue, the DCC standard allows any brand system to control any brand decoders, but it may preclude standardization. Most somewhat modern N scale locos have at least one brand available as a board replacement, though even then, some soldering may be required. Some locos have no option but to have the frame milled - if you aren't comfortable doing that there are several firms that offer this service, you strip your frame and send it to them, and they send you a replacement with the decoder space milled out. It's a lot of working with tiny, short pieces of wire in a very confined space. As a counterpoint, a local friend of mine has more than 10 years on me (he's in his late 50's), and he goes so far as to scratchbuild some very small N scale steam locos, and manages to cram in some tiny decoders. I consider myself pretty good at soldering all sorts of things, but I've looked at his locos and just wondered how the heck he got the decoder hooked up without melting something. He also handlays his track, with Code 40 rail, and originally built his layout to 9mm finescale standards - scale flangeways and such, with scale wheels, no pizza cutter flanges and very narrow treads. And it worked, very well.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Ted!
Welcome to the forum!
You will get lots of advice here, most of it good, but there are a few who don't mince their words. Bottom line is that if you don't like the tone of an answer ignore it!
If I can make a suggestion, once you have started a thread you should post your updates and comments to that same thread. That allows your readers to see all the related comments in the same thread. Otherwise, in order to follow what has been happening, a person will have to search for the original thread to fully understand what has been discussed.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
hon30critter You will get lots of advice here, most of it good, but there are a few who don't mince their words. Bottom line is that if you don't like the tone of an answer ignore it!
I went back and re-read the OP's other thread, and I am not sure why he felt that one responder was not helpful. I think I know which reply he was referring to, but that reply seemed fair to me. It added perspective to the whole issue of understanding DCC.
Let's face it. Not every reply to every question on every thread is necessarily helpful, but as long as the reply is not mean spirited or unnecessarily negative, what's the difference?
I have a lot invested in N gauge and like it but I don't consider myself at 57 over the hill. ***, I am just getting started. Thanks, man.
Rich, I know what you are saying. I just thought his smart butt comment - what is there to understand? just hook two wires up and turn to channel three - was off putting. I don't really care what the guy said or how he said it, but there are other places probably more well suited to him. In my daily life, I deal with much worse.
Thanks.
Thanks. I realize in all avenues of work and hobbies, there will be people who are just full of themselves and have no filter in what they say. But attitudes like the one guy can turn people off from hobbies. I am in the transportation business and deal with much worse than that guy every single day. But in my hobby, I guess I would appreciate a nicer ton, like yours and all of the rest of the responders.
Rich:
I agree that the post in question was actually to the point and factual, however apparently the OP, being new to the forum, took the post as being critical of his question. Since he apparently did take the post negatively my comment was intended to encourage the OP to continue participating in the forum.
We all have to remember that the printed word doesn't communicate tone of voice or emphasis very well so when we write a post we should be careful to take that into account. In my opinion the post in question didn't do a really good job of taking that into account. With all due respect to the poster, it could have been worded somewhat more softly to make sure it wouldn't be taken the wrong way.
Dave, I fully support your point of view, and I agree with all of your comments.
When I made my reply, it was directed to the OP to give him a sense of comfort that the comments of that one poster were not intended to be offensive. My comments were not intended to challenge your reply in any way.
Speaking of that one poster, he is one of the more respected members of the forum, in my view, so my sense is that he was in no way trying to be offensive or condescending when he replied to the OP.
Just so you all know, I appreciate all the good help that has been offered. I will visit my two fav hobbyshops, Lombard Hobbies and Walt's, and see what they can tell me. The thing is that I have locomotives active on my layout that have been around for 20 or more years and as some have said, converting them to DCC might be challenging. Some of the newer Katos are a synch. I have no idea as to cost or anything so I might need smelling salts. Ya never know.
Ted, I cannot recall if you mentioned this or not, but are you interested in steam engines, diesels, or both?
I am in N gauge and have been since the mid 60s, remember the postage stamp trains era? I have both diesels and steam, I run a stacktrain, coal train, mix my diesels up from RS3s to the new SD90MAC with paint schemes including Rutland, B&M, D&H, ATSF, BNSF, CNW, UP, NS, BN, CP, have Rutland box cars next to autoracks, run cabooses. I follow no prototype at all as I am an equal opportunity model railroader. I have worked for a railroad and now in the transportation/logistics business. I will be investigating DCC.