Re: DCC Controller Features

Mark apparently doesn't agree with you.

I've already disagreed with you on that point.

Nonsense. The only comment I have EVER made on the relative cost of DCC versus DC is that it is a value judgement on the part of the individual modeller. What I regard as quite affordable, you may well regard as absolutely unaffordable. I've NEVER claimed DCC was superior on cost.

Why not address the arguments I put forward, instead of those of your own invention?

That's one way to read the above comments, but if you read them in context it was not about the money.

I've been addressing the arguments you have put forward.

If it helps to put cost into perspective, I have Arnold and MRC digital controllers and an encoder, as well as Trix and Maerklin Digital. I have a number of first and second generation decoders and have made a reasonable amount of hobby cash fitting decoders and converting control systems for others.

I gave DCC a try for controlling locos on my switching layout and rejected it as not offering any real advantages and because it did not give the standard of control available with my own feed-back controllers.

Regards, Greg.P.

Apparently none, in your specific case. Although I seriously question your need for 100+ locos to run your railway. But this - the cost to you of conversion - seems to be at the heart of your objection to DCC. As I have repeatedly stated, cost is entirely subjective.

Why would it? Bear in mind, I'm specifically referring to prototypical block , not non-prototypical model railroad block . Perhaps we are at cross-purposes?

OK, here's a challenge for you DC guys. Magazine Mainline Modeler, November 2004. Page 65, railroad is C&NW. Picture is dated 7-10-1931. Engines are a Ten-wheeler and a Pacific. They are being transferred and are both under steam and operating coupled tender to tender. Please explain how you do this easily with DC?

1: Rewire one of the engines so that it runs backwards, or 2: Remove the motor from one of the engines so that it is a dummy, or 3: Push the bastard along with your finger when no-one is looking, or 4: Don't model a prototype that operated in this fashion...

:-)

I make it a habit to try to avoid the "religious wars", but I don't understand this "challenge". Is it a trick question?

Two steamer models coupled tender to tender. Means the wheel pickups are reversed from one model to the other. At any of the two possible rail polarities, one model will run in reverse; one will run in forward. Coupled tender to tender the whole group will move in only one direction.

What's so hard about that? Do you not uderstand basic DC polarity concepts?

Very relevant, Terrence. Electrical blocks such as those you use to isolate individual engines in your yard have no prototype equivalent whatsoever.

Try again...

Greg, when are you going to stop resorting to this tired old furphy? Other posters, as well as myself, have taken great pains to describe their methods of operation, all of which are closely based on the prototype being modelled. No-one involved in this discussion drives trains like slot cars, so why do you persist in making this discredited claim?

Fine, as long as the point at which you first couple them up is right over an electrical block boundary (ie. so you can back one of them up while the other is standing still).

-- Kizhe

What locations would they be, Terrence?

Then you need to get out more, Terrence.

You should take your blinkers off, Terrence.

Your responses speak volumes about both your powers of observation and the extent of your experience of your prototype, Terrence. Regardless of your limited exposure to real world operational practices, all of the scenarios described take place every day, on any number of railroads.

He models a German railway of the 1930s, and lives in NZ. How much of his prototype's operations do you think he observes, Terrence?

I've listed the advantages elsewhere and would still like to obtain them!

It's a good question, and one I have asked myself! :-)

The layout itself 'needs' 30-40 locos to operate fully as intended, made up of 20+ locos and trains in the staging yard, 5-10 bankers, 3-5 trains on the main line, and shunting/switchers plus locos on shed. I 'want' to be able to represent all the commonly used locos and combinations of locos that were present on the prototype at the time, so 40 locos doesn't meet the requirement. Take for example the Stuttgart/Munich express trains: These were alternately hauled by Wuerttemberg and Bavarian locos, usually the top line express locos, the wu Class C and the Bavarian S 3/6 - I _have_ to have one each of these locos!!! Over my bank section of the line they have to be double headed, normally by a P 8 (prussian 4-6-0) or a T 5 (wu 2-6-2t) but occassionally by a Bavarian P 3/5 (4-6-0). A heavy express (holidays etc) gains a rear end banker wu T 20 (2-10-2t) or wu T 14 (2-8-2t). On occassion the rostered train .locos aren't available so the older AD or ADh locos (4-4-0) in pairs take their place. So far I'm up to 9 locos just for two return daily trains out of several hundred. I would guess the roster will peak at about 120 someday. :-)

I'm not sure it's entirely subjective, but I'm not really in favour of throwing money at a problem when the outcome does not solve the original problem and it introduces new problems.

No we are not at cross purposes: Other than my notorious "sub-blocks" used for linking/separating MUed locos and a couple of other exceptions, my model control blocks either equate to prototype blocks or to lengths of track separated by turnouts.

Perhaps you could picture the major section of my layout: Station - double track mainline, each track with five blocks and three cross-overs between for bi-directional working - staging yard return loop. (five loops with train queuing for 25 trains/bankers)

It's a very simple little main-line, but that return loop, the cross-overs and the bi-directional working tend to complicate things electrically. The trains leave the station and the staging yards according to timetable and effectively queue through the main line blocks and destination (seven blocks). As each train moves forward it clears the block behind for the following train. Due to the other routes on the layout linking to the main line, the right hand rail is the common rail, so bi-directional operation requires constant reversal of blocks between the cross-overs.

If I had (say) fourteen operators available, each mainline train could have it's own driver - add another fourteen banker loco drivers, another driver for the secondary main-line route train(s), a yard operator, branchline (the timesaver industrial yard) operator, a loco depot operator, dispatcher, signalman, yard turnout operators and we're in DCC operating territory - I'm not sure I have 35 modelling friends and the room isn't that big! In that case, the main line progression needs to be automated so each block needs passing detectors at each end, #1 activates the slowdown sequence, and #2 shuts down traction current to the entire block as well as operating the signal system. In addition the entire block has current detection to sense trains in the block. DCC would require those same two passing detectors and the current detector.

We're back to a $2- relay per block vs fitting every loco with a decoder!

Regards, Greg.P.

I'd couple them together in the sub-blocks in the departure track at the loco depot and then run them as one unit. If there really was a need to separate them on the main line away from sub-blocks (why would that be needed) I would halt them across two blocks (position neatly marked by a semophore signal) and uncouple them. Without over-riding the signal wiring, the forward loco could then move off while the second loco waited for the signal to be cleared.

Regards, Greg.P.

Hold on there!!! A two rail DC loco will run in the direction that the track polarity dictates - two locos coupled tender to tender will move in the same direction while the rails they are on are powered.

Huhh?

That's DCC territory!

One has to assume Jon is running Lionel or Maerklin and has no switchable blocks!

Just turning it around on the track (pointing it in the other direction) should cause it to run backwards.

Right but, the block boundary requirement is for DC no matter what direction the trains are running.

The only additional requirement for running tail to tail (as opposed to elephant style nose to tail) is that you run one engine through a turntable or a wye to get it "reversed". Then it's the same operation.

Paul

Once upon a time there was 3-rail DC from Hornby, Trix and a few others.

With the advent of 2-rail sales dropped because 2-rail was more realistic. One of the marketing campaigns described the "advantage" was that forward and reverse at the throttle actually were forward and reverse on the engine.

On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 14:42:27 +1300, Gregory Procter wrote:

It's time to forget about slot cars. It is highly evident to everyone participating in this thread that no one is operating the railroad like a slotcar race track. Great pains are being taken to operate in the most appropriate and realistic manner possible. You should realize that by now. You are absolutely not telling the truth about DCC. But you know that. So then, I am prompted to ask you to take a moment and define and clarify just exactly what you mean by "playing slotcars". I operate on a model railway that is signaled. The signals are controlled by a centrally located dispatcher. Routes are chosen and signals are cleared by the dispatcher. The routes are chosen by aligning the appropriate turnouts, but that is all. Power is not routed by the turnouts. When the route is chosen and cleared, the train proceeds under the DCC control of the driver according to the signal indication. There is no electrical linking of blocks, nor is there any assigning of throttles to sections of the track or anything of the sort. The control of the locomotive unit is inside the locomotive unit via the decoder which is in turn controlled by the driver. It is not on the tracks. Another model railway I operate on is a model of an unsignaled line. Trains are run by timetable and train order. There is an heirarchy of superiority and class, and there are rules governing who may go where, how they may go and when. There are no blocks at all on this railway other than power distribution zones so that a short circuit will not shut down the entire thing. These are not controlled in any way and are all on at all times. The trains are operated by DCC. We operate with a dispatcher who issues clearance cards and such train orders as may be needed. A clearance card is what gives a train the right to run on the main line. It is probably beyond the scope of this thread to go into greater detail, but my question is: Please explain how this resembles playing slotcars.

Regards, Obnoxious Pratt

Try reading the paragraph I responded to - is an insult in response to an insult not acceptable?

On the point of slotcar operation, the description that keeps being sent to me of DCC is that the driver of the train is responsible for safe operation, including in one instance checking the position of points/turnouts ahead of him and in another ensuring a ten minute spacing from the train ahead is maintained - now that's the "slotcar operation" I'm refering to.

Regards, Greg.P.