DCC For N scale

I am sure that you will get many different opinions on this one, John. Each person feels their own system is the best. For clarification purposes, do you equate beginner with ease of use or with minimal amount of investment to get into DCC?

For minimal investment, take a look at the Prodigy offered by MRC, or the Zephyr from Digitrax. Both are under $200 for the base system, excluding decoders for your motive stock. Likewise, both have more limited capabilities than their more expensive counterparts. The MRC. The Prodigy offers a tethered walk-around throttle that you can move from plug to plug around the layout, while the Zephyr has the throttle control built into the base unit, more like a traditional DC transformer. Both offer the capability of attaching additional walk-around throttles.

If you are looking for expandability and 'bells and whistles', then consider the Digitrax Empire Builder, the Lenz Set 100, or the Pro system from NCE. Street prices range from the mid $200 level to the upper $400 level for the basic sets. These prices do not include things like power district controllers, reverse loop controllers, decoders for your motive power, or power supplies to attach to the DCC sets. (Only the Prodigy and the Zephyr come with power supply as part of the basic package.

There are a couple of other DCC sets I have not mentioned, including the one from Atlas. This does not mean that they should be ignored, rather that I know nothing about them.

Check with your local hobby shop to make contact with other model railroaders to see what they are using and try to actually see the sets in action, and better yet even use their throttle on their pike. This gives you much of a better feel for what you might like and might not like. Check to see if there is a model railroad club within driving distance that is set up for DCC and hosts open houses, or will let visitors attend operating sessions to ask questions and such.

Go to each of the manufacturers websites and read their information. Also, check out the web site at Tony's Trains. He has some good information on DCC as well as on the individual items.

If you know absolutely nothing about DCC, try to get a copy of the book DCC MADE EASY by Lionel Strang. It is published by Kalmbach Books. It is an easy read in layman's terms and is a good starting point.

A more technical book and good reference book is The Digitrax Big Book of DCC. Lots of good technical information, and while it is put out by Digitrax and is slanted towards the Digitrax product line, the basic information is appropriate across the board.

Hope this helps. I spent months researching, asking questions, visiting layouts and clubs before I started building my new n-scale layout, which is being built for DCC from the ground up. Based on that, I picked a system that fit my pocketbook, and that had the capabilities that I was looking for. I am not going to mention which system that was because three different people could do the same research and then make three different decisions.

Hope this 'dissertation' helps.

Now let the discussion begin!

....Fred

I would personally not recommend the original Prodigy - MRC has finally seen the light and will be releasing the Prodigy Advance in the near future, and it supports just about every important feature the original did not - like 128 speed steps.

Thanks for the replies....

-John