I can't help but smile ...

....

Do try harder.

Simon

"simon" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@bt.com:

My post may have been a little TIC but the issue is real enough, why fork out an additional several hundred pounds on even a small layout on new technology - that appears to have no *enforcable* standards - and is thus very limiting when existing technology actually works and is 100% reliable?

Sorry, thought it was completely TIC - i smiled as i read it.

but do keep up, budget hornby system £50, budget decoders approx £12 .

A few ideas as a start.... Smoother speed control.

2 or more locos on same electrtic poewr supplied track doing different speeds and in different directions. simpler wiring doulbe heading/banking with different types of locos but running at same speed.

Otheres could go on.

Simon

[ re DCC ]

Try triple (or more) heading [1] them, or banking....

I couldn't see the benefit until I started to think of all the problems the 'traditional' cab control (etc.) system has!

[1] as anyone running trains made up of DMU/EMU set would.

"simon" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@bt.com:

Weell perhaps a little more that a little :-)

"budget"? = limited use methinks.

Nothing a good DC PWM controller couldn't provide.

Er ... crash!

Ok you got me with that one.

Make sure they'e coupled and the faster one will help drag the slower one ... almost prototypical :-)

No doubt they will :-)

"Jerry" wrote in news:45678c63$1$97215$892e7fe2 @authen.yellow.readfreenews.net:

...

Sorry don't do trams. :-)

Yep, get what you pay for, but £100 or so for the Elite from hornby is lots less limited and still less than several hundred.

Yep, but it happens on real railway too !

But not good for the engines or track,

Route setting and associated signalling without complex electronics or wiring. (please Terry dont have a go at me, I agree with you completely but want to play with my computer).

Simon

The sound side intrigues me, the rest I am happy with plain DC for. On ballance I am with Chris, not least due to costs, however I am tempted to get an OO 08 chipped for sound and a few wagons for a little shunting layout.

Mike

I am with Chris but understand Simon's attachement to his computer (I suppose if he were youger it would be an iPod and mobilefone competing for the spare ear space), but I find that my CD player slung under the trestles provided quite adequate ambience but cannot cope with the curses arising from mechanical disobedience!

The Scalefour group also seem to generally agree, especially in the power takeoff arena. I cannot see any technical reason for DCC superiority for any given motor and gearing. Their concensus lies with springing chassis and multiple power pickups. Perhaps the better approach would be radio power transmission -- I can recall a time when our 16KHz xmissions from Rugby ( S/M comms ) were almost absent over one sector because a guy living nearby had made his loft into a huge coil aerial and was using the derived power in his domestics!

In message , simon writes

I shan't as it would eat into valuable modelling time.

The track on my garden railway in Bristol served as one half of a very large di-pole aerial for the ham-radio enthusiast in the flat above, apparently allowing him to have spectacularily long distance conversations about how good his signal was- and people say railway enthusiasts are bad! As to DCC.. I fear I spend too long on the computer at work, trying to use sub-optimal solutions for relatively simple tasks. The idea of running two trains at once seems quite seductive except that, as I understand it, there has to be a point when, if sending a command to one, you briefly have to not have control over the other (even if it is still moving). This tends to fly in the face of what I've always been taught about railway operation. It seems, at least from what I've understood, that it is perfectly feasible to send one train into a section already occupied by another- whilst I might have derived some pleasure from this as a six-year-old, such pleasure has been replaced with abhorrence as I've 'matured' and realised how much the stock costs to repair/replace. I could see some virtue in the idea of a system where the 'timetable' is programed in, and sets routes/supplies power etc, and the 'operator' drives accordingly, but this does come rather close to the system I have to work with. Brian

I think the issue here is retrofitting, if starting from scratch, DCC is a good option as it flattens (somewhat) the electrics learning curve involved in a model railway.

However if you have the block sections and all the wiring done, the changeover is a big issue to do, to go from a working setup to a working setup.....

Jane Sullivan wrote in news:0Eth2du8+$ snipped-for-privacy@yddraiggoch.demon.co.uk:

....

By "valuable modelling time" do we mean retrofitting stock with little black boxes before they can be persuaded to move along the scale replica of the west coast main line you happen to have in your back garden?

"BH Williams" wrote in news:ek93iq$rdh$1$ snipped-for-privacy@news.demon.co.uk:

...

As I'm going to have to shortly concede to Simon I can see this as a real advantage and I can imagine having some fun shunting a yard in between scheduled movements along the main line that will occur whether I?m ready for them or not.

But for all practical purposes would I be playing trains? Well the answer is no, I fear not. I?d be programming a computer or taken at its best scripting someone else?s computer program. I wouldn?t like that, I?d miss the involvement of actually taking part in the operation of the layout. Heck if I wanted to simply watch model trains go round in circles I?d spend my all my time at exhibitions and let my own layout fester.

"simon" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@bt.com:

...

Yup compared with a diode matrix and auto-slow/stop fittings dcc does have a massive advantage over a DC system. But unlike you when I play trains I want to play trains not space invaders. :-)

"Chris Wilson" wrote

Yup compared with a diode matrix and auto-slow/stop fittings dcc does have a massive advantage over a DC system. But unlike you when I play trains I want to play trains not space invaders. :-)

Chris Wilson

Chris, I don't mean this in a nasty way, but have you tried (had a go) with DCC or are you just going on what you have read so far ?

Some pluses of the system are just not writable - Like sound !!! Not cheap, but it doesn't half put a smile on peoples faces at exhibitions !

"Andy Sollis CVMRD" wrote in news:ek9hnd$b3g$ snipped-for-privacy@aioe.server.aioe.org:

Yes, granted far from extensive but I've had a play on two or three layouts now and to be frank I just didn't like the feel - tell an engine to stop and it slows to a crawl through one of umpteen steps and comes to rest where it wants. OK I fully accept practice makes perfect but it's as though I'm not driving the train, no interaction, little skill - no feedback.

Oh granted, but for the typical enthusiast with his or indeed her layout at home is it really worth it? No sorry, at least not yet.

In message , Chris Wilson writes

On my garden railway, oh yes it is!

In message , Chris Wilson writes

It's not the west coast main line: no catenary :-)

I like to think of it as the south Wales main line, with a branch up into one of the valleys. Except when I'm running American, Australian or BR(S) stock, when it's somewhere else.

Currently I'm working on the trackwork: having recently installed a couple of 1 in 10 live-frog points I now need to install some sort of means of changing the points and switching the current to the frog. Now where did I put that reel of green wire? Why green? You use green wire from the frog to the switch that changes the frog polarity, because frogs are, well, green. (With apologies to Tony Koester, Model Railroader, September 1998, p.113)