I doubt the information is out there. It would be an interesting survey for Kalmbach to run. Just a check box, sumarized in a graph, no salesmanship.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Informal counting in Great Model Railroads and Model Railroad Planning would tend to support the idea that Digitrax is on top, with NCE second. But that's a small sample size and also limited to those whose layouts are good enough and/or were able to write an accepted article for MR.
And what about the ones who use NCE to drive the trains but install Digitrax for the signal and detection side of things? How do you count them? There are several on this forum who do just that, and there is a large club locally that was recently featured in MR who does the same. And what about the lub I belong to, we have essentially two Digitrax systems, one to runt he trains and one to run the signals. Do we count as 2 Digitraxes?
I'm willing to bet that if you grouped all their systems together, MRC may have sold more DCC systems than anyone. Some of those would be 3 systems to the same person as they grew their layouts and the older MRC systems didn;t scale, you had to buy a completely new one to get more features. And lots of people were using MRC power packs for their DC layout and went to MRC when they converted to DCC.
Bottom line, pick one, they all work, and generally are reliable. There's a reason there are a lot of Digitrax systems installed alongside some other for signals and detection though - they still have the most capable control bus, and there are more components (Digitrax branded, third party, and DIY) that work witht he Digitrax bus than all the others combined. This despite the Digitrax bus not being 100% open (commercial vendors must pay a fee for the rights to distribute Loconet compatible products, and they need to be certified by Digitrax).
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I find that areas of modelers will generally purchase the same brand of DCC system that others in the area run due to the fact that they then have others that can help them through problems
and they will aslo have a throttle to take to others Layouts to use and not have to rely on the Owner of each Layout to have enough Throttles to run trains!
I run Digitrax on my home layout and I probably was the first one in the area to have DCC!
So as most others in the area decided to change over to DCC, went with what I was running!
This way they had their own Throttles to use and I could help them install and trouble shoot problems!
I am now a member of an OPs Group and we will travel to many other layouts all over the area and these other layouts don't always run Digitrax.
So I have purchased my own NCE Hammerhead Throttle so I now am sure I will have a throttle to use at these other layouts!
As for the largest Manufacturer of DCC systems - Digitrax is probably the largest only because it was one of the very early entries into DCC.
When I was looking at converting - they were well ahead of everyone as they had a Real Radio System and this is what I needed with my large walk-around OPs Based layout.
NCE is probably second and moving up fast.
MRC is a good system despite what some would say as I run on a couple that just work great!
Lenz - just never seemed to catch on in my area as I know of only one - which doesn't say anything bad about them - it just doesn't seem to be as popular.
I always read the Layout articles in Model Railroader to see what type of DCC system they are using which is always interesting.
BOB H - Clarion, PA
I don't think it's possible to get an accurate answer, because the DCC companies don't publish sales figures. Anything else is speculation.
My club uses NCE. It seems to have been a good choice. We had a problem with our DCC system at the 2013 Amherst show in Springfield and one of the guys from NCE came over to our layout and helped us sort it out (someone swapped wires inside the connector end on the control bus wire). I plan on purchasing a NCE system myself once more of my home layout is finished.
Regardless of the brand of DCC command station that you personally own, or even if you run in DC, what do you suppose is the most popular brand of DCC?
NCE? Digitrax? Lenz? MRC?
Personally, I own an NCE system, but my sense is that Digitrax is the most popular among model railroaders.
What say you?
Rich
Alton Junction