I am trying not to drown …..


Welcome Aboard! If you are only planning on making a small switching layout, you could probably get away with DC (as I have done so far) but might be worth it to invest in a DCC system from the start. I wish I had done this for my current switching layout but I do plan to upgrade soon so that I can enhance the experience further.

Looking forward to seeing your future projects:)
 
Bigboy57 said:
Just giving the opinion which worked best for me.
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I agree, I'm a big fan of DCC and don't regret getting into it at all, although I wish it was a little cheaper, but for some it's simply not for them, Willie's a case in point, massive layout, hundreds of feet of track, massive amount of locos and freight cars and all on DC.
 
Saaay, that's some nice layout youz got planned.
Be a shame if anythingz wuz to happens to it.
Meh, so no dcc for youz, eh.
Whatza matter, youz some kinda wise guy.
Moose, Rocko, explain it to him.
 
Rico said:
Railpro by Ring Engineering might be something to consider as well, not to scare you off but worth a look.
It’s extremely simple compared to DCC and pretty much the same cost to start.

I had to look up brevets. Lol
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Myrastation said:
So I have been slowly dipping my toes back into this weird and wonderful world, knowing full well that I really don’t need yet another way to spend lots of both time and money …. At least I thought I was dipping my toes slowly ….

I think maybe I am now in up to my waist …. Trying to avoid drowning.

I have pulled out all my old stock from the last time I ran a train - at least 45 years ago. In the interim did my BAchelor’s degree in business, my Master’s in Economics, got my CPA … spent my career doing corporate restructurings - raced bicycles for many years, raised lots of puppies, a couple of accomplished young ladies.. etc. Now semi-retired, doing lots of stuff. Woodcarving, furniture making, I ride brevets, garden, kayak, play with my puppies ….. and my long suffering spouse still puts up with it all.

I made a trip to the woefully inadequate local hobby shop which is really all about RC cars and boats and has a little corner of Rr “stuff” , picked up some cork roadbed and flex track with a view to putting together a small switching shelf layout - just to see if I remember and want to go deeper - up to my armpits ……..

Of course I still can’t find my transformers - so bought a couple from an estate clearance outfit. Postage is as much as the units, but they are just DC, which is what I want. Mark this down … I am NOT going to plunge into the DCC end of the pool. No way, that is a level of cost I just do not want to start getting back into, I can buy carving tools or hand planes for that money.

I have been pleasantly surprised to find that even though I cannot find Model Railroader or Model Railroad Craftsman on the newsstand at any of my local stores - I can get them online at my library, current and past issues. They also have British and Australian magazines, they would probably have other ones if I knew the titles. It has been fun running through those magazines - but the real danger, to me, is that the more I look at them, the more I find myself falling for those double ended locomotives in Europe, Australia and the UK. I may have to run a hybrid railroad with heavy Australian freight haulers and vintage CP passenger cars!!

Of course if I ever find an N scale version of the Swiss Crocodile - all comments above may be rendered moot.

In the meantime, I have a workshop full of rough Mahogany and a wife wondering when she is getting her new dining table …….

BTW - the username is an homage to the whistlestop station on the old Kettle Valley Railway which is in the bush about 2 km from where I am sitting to type this ….
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Well, as expected - i ordered a couple of estate sale transformers. One of them arrived yesterday. Today … what do I find? My original transformers. Now I have 4!
 
Smudge617 said:
Willie's a case in point, massive layout, hundreds of feet of track, massive amount of locos and freight cars and all on DC.
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I started in the early 80's when DCC was in it's infancy and here was no NMRA standards yet. Every system was different and components were not compatible. While many of the locos that I have purchased in the last 25 years are DCC ready, I personally don't need DCC. Why??? I am a solo operator. I could run 2 DC trains if I wanted through the use of the Atlas Selectors, but I can't keep track of 2 even if they are on different levels, (I have a double-level layout). Occasionally my grandkids ran one train on the lower level while I ran one on the upper, but that became rare as they got older. I do not like sound either, so that has no appeal to me. Then there's the cost (and installation) of 80+ decoders. Wiring is not that more complex, there's just more of it, but I got a lot of surplus wire from the place that I worked at before retirement. I have tethered walk-around memory throttles and I can follow the trains around. Yes, there are a lot of blocks, more than I really need in retrospect; but it is simple to keep every one on unless there's an engine (or lash-up of several engines) parked there. All of my freights run with double-headed or in two cases triple headed lash-ups with no problems. Note that with over 1300' of track, I don't need boosters or any of those other components that can let out smoke at the worst times.
That's just me. If you plan on operating sessions with multiple operators, I would strongly recommend DCC. Same if you're into sound.
Good luck whichever way you choose to go and always post lots of pictures for us.
 
Good grief. I decided to take the locomotives out and see if they ran. So I set up a couple of lengths of flex track on my workbench and very quickly caame to the conclusion that at a minimum I need to have a full loop so that I can actually run the engines, not just run them back and forth on my workbench, but actually run them in and see how they do.

No problem says I - I will just go and dig around in the box and get some track. Except I apparently didn’t have any, so back to the inetrnet to order a track package, but if I’m ordering that I should get some switches too, because then if I get more track I could have a double loop and run two engines in at once ….

So, back to the internet …..

I said to my wife last night that so far this has cost about twice what I thought it was going to ( I wasn’t being strictly truthful on the “twice” part ….)

You do realize all of this started because my wife, innocently I thought, said “wouldn’t it be neat to have a train running around my Christmas Village for Christmas …..”

And here I am. Now sitting here thinking do I treat it all as sunk cost and move on with other stuff, or do I shrug my shoulders and dig in ….. (I think we all know what I’m probably going to do…)

I blame my wife for this.
 
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Myrastation said:
I said to my wife last night that so far this has cost about twice what I thought it was going to ( I wasn’t being strictly truthful on the “twice” part ….)

You do realize all of this started because my wife, innocently I thought, said “wouldn’t it be neat to have a train running around my Christmas Village for Christmas …..”

And here I am. Now sitting here thinking do I treat it all as sunk cost and move on with other stuff, or do I shrug my shoulders and dig in ….. (I think we all know what I’m probably going to do…)

I blame my wife for this.
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From little acorns ---
 
santafewillie said:
I started in the early 80's when DCC was in it's infancy and here was no NMRA standards yet. Every system was different and components were not compatible. While many of the locos that I have purchased in the last 25 years are DCC ready, I personally don't need DCC. Why??? I am a solo operator. I could run 2 DC trains if I wanted through the use of the Atlas Selectors, but I can't keep track of 2 even if they are on different levels, (I have a double-level layout). Occasionally my grandkids ran one train on the lower level while I ran one on the upper, but that became rare as they got older. I do not like sound either, so that has no appeal to me. Then there's the cost (and installation) of 80+ decoders. Wiring is not that more complex, there's just more of it, but I got a lot of surplus wire from the place that I worked at before retirement. I have tethered walk-around memory throttles and I can follow the trains around. Yes, there are a lot of blocks, more than I really need in retrospect; but it is simple to keep every one on unless there's an engine (or lash-up of several engines) parked there. All of my freights run with double-headed or in two cases triple headed lash-ups with no problems. Note that with over 1300' of track, I don't need boosters or any of those other components that can let out smoke at the worst times.
That's just me. If you plan on operating sessions with multiple operators, I would strongly recommend DCC. Same if you're into sound.
Good luck whichever way you choose to go and always post lots of pictures for us.
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I just watched a youtube video on someone wiring a 1’ x6’ HO switching layout for dcc. If that was the only choice, I would be making a trip to the landfill, none of that is why I am looking at getting back into this. That is a level of complication, cost and potential annoyance I can do without.

Like Willie, I am going to be alone operating this. Simple transformers is all I need.
 
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Smudge617 said:
Well if she complains about the time you are spending on this project of hers, you have the excuse, "but darling, this was your idea", mind you I'd be running away while saying it. 🤣
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She has a brand new 5 figure embroidery machine to add to her quilting habit ….. She is not going to commenting on my time spent on anything…. I am not actually even sure she even knows if I’m in the house most of the time.
 
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