Digital Train Control

Not again!!

What scale are into?

This is something of a religous thing. If you are into N scale modules you will probably be drawn to DIgitrax since it is more prevalent, in my experience.

I prefer NCE power but, partly because the club I belong to is NCE. I run mostly Digitrax decoders.

Good luck filtering through the responses you are likely to get, Paul

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A popular book: "DCC Made Easy" by Lionel Strang (29% off list):

Another good book: "Digital Command Control--The Comprehensive Guide to DCC" by Ames, Friberg, et al:

Most orders over $25 include free shipping and handling.

BTW, I like your websites!

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire N Scale Model Railroad:

History of N Scale: Railroad Books, Toys, and Trains: to 1,200 sites:

13118

To begin, I suggest a search on "digital command controll DCC". It will give you lots to chew over, and will help you clarify your objectives.

"Best" is rather vague: best for what? would be my answer to your question. For example, what's best for a club-sized layout isn't necessarily best for a room-size or smaller home layout.

Then there's the issue of sound: almost all the most recent systems and upgrades include sound capability, but sound decoders are considerably more expensive than plain DCC. And many of the higher-end locos now come in sound-equipped versions.

Are you planning to add DCC to an existing layout, or are you building a brand new layout and want to use DCC? Do you have bunch of non-DCC locomotives and want to add DCC control to them? Or do you plan to buy only DCC-controlled locomotives? All these factors impinge on "best." Eg, if you want to retrofit locomotives, then one of the primary concerns is, Is there a decoder that fits? Another is, How much of a hassle is it to add DCC to this or that loco?

And so on.

So you see, asking for what's the best is asking the impossible. Not that some won't give categorical answers, and leave it up to you figure out whether what they recommend suits your circumstances. Some of the arguments about DCC systems remind me of the Windows vs Mac vs Linux wars now raging on several comp. newsgroups.... :-)

One thing I do strongly recommend however: no matter what, make sure the system you finally choose is NMRA compliant. You do not want to be locked into any one manufacturer's proprietary system.

HTH

What systems are 'not' NMRA compliant?

in article snipped-for-privacy@v33g2000cwv.googlegroups.com, Bill at snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote on 2/4/07 6:40 AM:

I must be getting old. I had to run the sparky the shark's card trick twice to realize what was happening. Pretty cute! Like all "magic," misdirection is king.

>

Marklin, Lionel, MTH

A comprehensive on-line primer:

's "best" depends on your needs, wants, budget, etc., etc., etc.

-- Bill McC.

Excuse me? NCE is a follower/bit player? Zimo too? Methinks I detect a troll.

I was going to ask if Lionel's and MTH's control systems were at all compatible. I guessed they wouldn't be. Thanks for the confirmation.

That's a shame. Why don't these guys get together and cooperate a little for the good of the hobby? Fear of more court dates maybe...

Short-sighted though. If someone has a Lionel layout with TMCC, the only MTH products they will ever buy would be rolling stock. And vice-versa. That is unless they want to run Lionel's system on an insulated section, and MTH's system on another. Kind of a pain with two remotes.

Hornby - decoder destroyer ~60V peaks avoid current system like the plague Alan, in Gosnells, Western Oz. VK6 YAB VKS 737 - W 6174

No, just a Lenz Digitrax bigot. Paul