Running analog locos with NCE Powerhouse Pro

Nope- NCE deliberately chose not to take that approach with the PHPro. Off the top of my head, I can think of three good reasons why they might have made that decision:

• If you use address 00 as the one for non-decoder equipped locos, you can't use it as a short address for a decoder-equipped locomotive.

• They understood, as many Digitrax users have found, that using "zero-stretching" to run a non-decoder-equipped locomotive on a DCC system can cause a significant performance hit to everything else that uses the track signal.

• The oft-cited "coreless motor problem", where a locomotive that has no decoder but has a coreless motor could be damaged by the digital signal on the rails. Frankly, I'm not certain that there are that many locomotives out there that have coreless motors that I'd consider it a concern, but I'm not a manufacturer who has to deal with that. NCE apparently thinks this is an issue, as they mention it in one of their manuals.

If you really, really want to run an analog locomotive using a PHPro, you won't be able to do it from any of the stock NCE cabs. There are instructions for building a throttle that you can plug directly into a PHPro and which will permit you to control an analog locomotive, starting on page 17 of the manual found at

-fm Webmaster, Rails on Wheels, Washtenaw County, Michigan's HO Modular Club, at

The address in the header of this message is deliberately bogus to foil address-harvesters. See my web sites for my real address.

I remember reading that in the manual but didn't think that was the only way to do so. Since this isn't a big issue for me, I don't think I'll be building a new throttle any time soon, but I sure do appreciate your explanation!!!

There may be some assistance here. Lenz is developing/has developed a filter for analog motors:

amd click on "Digital Filter", but this raises two points:

1. I don't have analog loco's.

1. If I'm going to strip a loco down to install a filter, why not just put in a decoder?

Does not address your other points, either. But, it may float someone's boat.

Steve Newcastle Oz