Hey Guys,
Well, I have finally had enough of that "bloody" digitrax - it is gone, and I DO mean gone! All this time I thought I had screwed up my track and wiring to find out that there is nothing all that wrong with it that some "closer cleaning" wont fix.
How do I know this? The answer is simple - the digitrax crap is some where out in the front yard, I didn't stop long enough to see where it landed (yeah, I was pissed). Once that had been disposed of, I connected up an old MRC Railpower DC Controller, stuck my little GP35 on the track and away it went, and I DO mean away. That little thing really moves along and had no problem pulling half a dozen or so cars behind it with a track cleaner in front.
Once it started I let it run for almost 45 minutes and not once did it stall, derail nothing - it ran incredibly well considering the track isn't 100% clean, AND that includes my ripping out a section of track and "loosely" dropping in another Wye for another siding. Needless to say, I am very happy at the moment
So, the digitrax is gone, am running straight DC at the moment and will until I can find my NCE System which I will then setup. Now before anyone jumps up and down and gets all emotional about the demise of the digitrax stuff - it NEVER worked properly from day one, well perhaps week one. It would not reset to factory defaults, it would not program an engine to an address - not even 03 - it was nothing but a huge pain in the rear end and I DO think (now) that was the main problem - NOT the track or the wiring - the Digitrax.
So, at the moment I can only run one train at a time but who cares - I can finally run a train around the layout that I built and that is all that I care about for now.