that much I had figured. I know my question sounds redundant, but here's the thought process...
I am thinking about jumping into dcc in the short term with just an extremely low level system... something just to play with. get something off ebay cheap, then when I move into what I will settle with for a bit (the MRC PA is looking pretty decent for my needs I think) I don't want to lose on my initial investment, regardless of how small it may have been... maybe just use the cheapo system for something like a small gauge mine op or something... but I would like to use it for a maintainence facility control, or something of that nature. in anycase, the idea is to scale gradually, but if I cant use two completely different systems both hard wired to the same layout, I need to revamp my thinking.