I'm Aboard....

My last consulting assignment was in the Los Angeles area. One of the fellows on my crew was a buff and introduced me to the wonderful world of G-Scale. I was a kid in Maine now retired in South Carolina so the road is the Penobscot (a river near my home town in Maine) and Pee Dee (a river that crosses South Carolina) Railroad.

I've been reading all winter and am somewhat overwhelmed by all I have to hook up to use DCC and a radio controlled cab! I'll get there--but will sure have bunches of questions.

Malcolm
 

Cannonball

More Trains Than Brains
Welcome to the Gauge! :wave:
There is lots of information to be had here and many knowlegeable people in the model railroading world. (Although I'm not really one of them. :D ) If you've got questions, just ask! It might take a awhile from time to time but eventually somebody comes up with an answer. ;)
 

rogerw

Active Member
welcome malcolm. a garden railroad would be so much fun but with four dogs in the yard Im thinking lots of work.:-D:-D:-D:-D
 

myltlpny

Member
welcome malcolm. a garden railroad would be so much fun but with four dogs in the yard Im thinking lots of work.:-D:-D:-D:-D
Sounds like my cats when I run my N-gauge stuff on the kitchen table. They sit and watch. Intently. Then when you least expect it, this little paw will rise up from under the table and take a swat at the "mechanical mouse". :mrgreen:

Welcome, Malcolm. Don't be daunted by DCC. You'll love it!
 
Here I go again.

The books and pamphlets that I have present what I call "semi-schematic" diagrams of layouts; i.e., they frequently show buses as a single line, etc. I saw one last night illustrating a simple loop. Ih had the polarity reversing module with two leads going to the main rails and two more going to the rails of the loop. There is no indication of a power feed going to the polarity reversing module.

Is this kosher? I've seen other diagrams where the power reversing modfule had only two leads going to the rails of the loop. [This one had no indication of power feed to the polarity reversing module, either.

Perplexed,

Malcolm Stewart
 

JR&Son

Member
Malcom
Not sure what Florence has to offer
But the most knowledgable person I have ever met on DCC
is Kim @ Trainbuddy.com
I watched him take a Walthers E8 and match it to an Athern E8
With 2 different brands of decoders!
By working the weakness of one, to counter act the weakness of the other he matched them perfectly on a running lay out of at least 100 feet over 2 levels and I can not count the curves. Took about an hour because he was playing one off the other. After 50 to 60 transits of the layout, the 2 engines stayed less than 1 inch apart.
He also offers very good prices on everything. As the crow flies he is about 2 hours north of you just above Raleigh NC. He is partial to Digitrak, but will sell you what you want, will install it for a resonable fee, and will offer free advise always
Train Buddy, Discount model railroading.  DCC install, service, repair, computers, electronics, custom builder

JR&SON
 

60103

Pooh Bah
Hi Malcolm.
All the reversing modules I've seen have 2 wires in and 2 wires out. The in wires can be attached either to the bus or the set of rails leading to the loop. They work by flipping when there's a short circuit -- interesting effect if there's a derailment in the reversing section. And you don't have to worry about which rail you wire to.
 
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