Re: DCC Controller Features

In that case, the dispatcher controls the entry of a train into a block, whether real or notional, using various systems such as train orders or even simple radio transmitted verbal permission.

I'm never likely to be qualified as I'm not a loco driver nor dispatcher. Do you consider that I have to be employed in some task before I can have any knowledge of it's operation? I've controlled container ships and containers world-wide and yet I've never sailed anything larger that a two masted yacht and never physically loaded any container or railway wagon that has travelled outside NZ.

Regards, Greg.P.

I regularly share information here. At present, model building, layout construction, layout wiring, computer interfacing, programming etc are sufficient hobby activity. The loco decoder is a later stage and so far I have only looked to see if my ideas are feasible, not to try to created a finished version. I did look at the possibility of using an existing commercial decoder and using a function output to switch traction current on/off, but while certainly feasible it looks to be too expensive.

Regards, Greg.P.

A piss poor attempt at distorting what I wrote, but you are wrong YET AGAIN, you poor dumb bastard. As far as I can see, the only person pretending anything here is you. If you had even one poofteenth of the knowledge you pretend to have about the way a real railway works, you'd avoid making such pathetically stupid statements as this.

A signal engineer is one who designs and/or builds signalling/safeworking systems. They are not normally required to be qualified in safeworking, since their job does not entail operation of the signalling or safeworking system under operational conditions.

Operating employees - guards, drivers, signalman, shunters, station masters and other employees as required - are qualified in SAFEWORKING. To put that in terms even a chronic dope such as yourself will understand, they are trained, examined and qualified in the rules and regulations governing the operation of a particular signalling/operating system. Safeworking qualifications have nothing whatsoever to do with being a signal engineer.

Do us all a favour. Grow a brain.

Dolly the Sheep's practical knowledge of electronics, and model railway control, exceeds yours.

Anyone who designs systems had better have a full understanding of operation of the signalling or safeworking system under operational conditions!

In certain specific instances, yes. An interested observer on the outside is unlikely to ever gain the amount of understanding and insight that a professional railwayman has of safeworking. I'll grant you that you have some knowledge of the subject, but you continually misrepresent key elements of it. Whether you do so out of ignorance or sheer pig-headedness I can't determine. Either way, if you had practical experience of safeworking, you'd likely not do this.

I also made that particular remark in response to you telling another poster that "I know enough about DCC to attempt to design my own variants of decoders - get back to me when you've finished reading the boxes your's came in". So from this I take it that you consider one cannot have any knowledge of DCC unless one has designed one's own system? :-)

An interesting comment. So, how seriously would you take me if I started telling you how to control ships and containers, if my only knowledge of them was as a hobbyist?

Agreed, but that is not at all the same thing as being qualified to operate said system. That was the point I was making. I stated that I am qualified in safeworking. I did not state, nor seek to imply, that I am a signal engineer.

The Chubb control system suffers from being overly complex from a hardware and wiring point of view combined with poor software development. Unfortunately it is a computer controlled cab selection system. If he had built an automatic block control system, there would have been less wiring, and less cost involved. I don't know of any prototype situations were several locomotives operate over the same track in yards at the same time. Several locomotives working in one yard means a large yard, with plenty of scope for appropriate DC electrical blocks to be installed.

Like all Mark Newtons posts on this subject, irrelevant. There are plenty of DC systems that automatically select the blocks.

Then produce the evidence that DC control does not represent railway blocks expert. Answer the on topic question.

Thanks for arguing very well your qualifications are irrelevant to the design and operation of DC or DCC model layouts. As you model a US fiction your qualifications are irrelevant to your model, just as they are irrelevant to my NSW prototype model railway, because the safe working system was different to when you were employed as a shunter. You have minimal knowledge on how to design or wire a model railway using DC or DCC, evidenced by your question in earlier posts on how to wire a turntable.

Another post from Mark Newton the DCC expert who earlier in the year did not know how to wire his turntable.

Never seen an engine terminal?

All along I've said that DCC is suitable for some prototypes and situations while analogue is better suited to others. If you have no blocks and do not wish to emulate a prototype that has them, then DCC is for you. If your prototype is otherwise then analogue may be better suited to your needs. In the case of the prototype operation I am modelling, the wiring is equally complex either way but DCC requires expensive and unrepairable off the shelf decoders while analogue requires (in my case) fairly complex PC programming.

Regards, Greg.P.

Ahhh, the engineer who designs the system doesn't have the specific document which would allow him to operate the system (except if he was testing it's function)

Are you suggesting that there is an internationally accepted qualification for "safeworking" or is this a qualification specific to your railroad?

Regards, Greg.P.

I'm modelling 1930 German railways - I can't travel back in time and nor can I talk to a knowledgeable professional who would be over 100 years old. I mix with knowledgeable NZ signalling (and other) engineers and operators so I'm not completely ignorant of modern practices.

There isn't an "it", there are multiple different systems - I just ran foul of Keith by presenting a greatly oversimplified version of the British GWR in-loco system of 1912 when what I was attempting was to show just how long in-loco systems have been around.

Definitely ignorance!

No, that was a refutation of the corespondent's allegation that I know nothing about DCC.

We're discussing controlling model railways as model railway enthusiasts with reference to prototypes. If we were discussing the control of model ships and containers as model ship/container enthusiasts with reference to real ships ... then I would consider your comments as being relevant and worthy of consideration.

Regards, Greg.P.

Even there locos rarely operate on the same track at the same moment.

...Or a hump yard? Spent several hours watching the BNSF yard in Galesburg, IL. - There were locomotives moving all over the place. Trains in, trains out, hump these, work the other end with those, service the others, clear the turnouts where the car stalled...

And guess what... they use radio controlled locos to work the yard... for all the world just like DCC!

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 16:07:54 +1300, Gregory Procter wrote:

So far so good. At this point you are spot-on

Here is the part that makes no sense. There is no full size prototype railroad in the world upon which the trains are controlled by routing electrical current to the tracks and/or varying the amplitude thereof. Even totally electric railroads do not control the speed and direction of the trains by messing about with the electrical feed. It is there and on at all times. All the control takes place inside the locomotive unit either by the engine driver, or communication between computers, or some such arrangement. The DCC unit uses the decoder to perform exactly this function. It emulates the engine driver or the control computer inside the locomotive unit. In the real world, a locomotive that is controlled by an engine driver may move upon any track, in any direction at any time. Only the knowledge of and obedience to the rules of operation prevents chaos and injury. On a DCC model railway the same is true. This is precisely the feature that makes it so great. I do not know why you want to think that because the engine driver has complete control of, and responsibility for his charge that we are children racing slot cars. We are most demonstrably not. In fact, operators in our modeling group are required to pass a rules examination every year. Since we no longer rely on electrical blocks and power routing, cab selection and all the other DC accouterments that were so restricting, we can concentrate on refining our operations to a much higher level of realism. On some layouts, routes are selected by a dispatcher and signals are automatically set by track conditions existing within the route selected. On others, everything is manual and signals are controlled by conditions on the tracks. On yet others, everything is manual and there are no signals. However, the current and voltage to the tracks is never affected. It is entirely the responsibility of the engine driver to know and obey all operating rules and to know whether the route selected is the correct one for his train. Engines working in close proximity, such as in yards, must keep their wits about them and be aware of what is going on around them. No one has exclusive right to any piece of track other than by verbal or written order. There is no shutting off of the power or cab selection. This is the purest emulation of real world, full size railroading I have yet seen. I presently have a small switching railroad that is built in a 22 X 24-foot room. It is a model of an urban industrial district. There is no mainline track and operation consists of setting out and picking up cars from a number of industries. I can operate five locomotives simultaneously with five operators without one single switch or device of any kind that has to be controlled by either an operator or a computer. I do not own a computer other than the one I am using now and it has no connection whatever with my model railroading. I operate on another layout that is in a

2200 square foot room. It too has not a single point of interface between the electrical system and the operator, other than jacks for the handheld units to plug into, of course. Many operators have infrared or radio units that do not require even that. All in all, it is a most delightful system that relieves everyone from learning how to operate the electrical system of the layout and concentrate on a higher level of prototypical operation of the trains that run on it.

Decoders are not expensive. We can argue that forever, because it is a matter of perception. You think $15 is expensive, I do not. There is no end to arguing that point. Decoders are not unrepairable. Anyone who can build models can repair a decoder unless the microprocessor fails. If that happens, you have to replace it. I have never had that happen to me yet, and I've been using decoders for almost ten years now.

Regards, Obnoxious Pratt