DCC decoders have “Back EMF” which is sort of like a cruise control in a car, only you don’t have to turn it on and off. So once you set the engine to a certain speed, it keeps running at that speed whether going upgrade, downgrade, around a curve, etc. until you change the throttle setting.
Many also have “keep alive” capability, where the engine will keep going for up to 10 seconds if it loses power. That is very helpful in older steam engines where the engine picks up power from one rail and the tender from the other, and if you have a layout with unpowered frogs.
I would argue that with these two things alone, it is possible that a DC locomotive will run better if changed to DCC.
Great info. I agree about the cost of converting to DCC. I think the best idea with this layout is to replace a couple of the turnouts and keep everything as orgianlly built and run it on DC? The train do operate on the fairly well. Seems like the locos will slow down/loose power when going into a new power section. Also, I do have a problem with some of the cars de-railing. Do you have a recommendation for this? Add weight? Any other recommendations you have for getting DC to operate better?
Thanks very much for the information. Great stuff. I think I would like to restore the layout to its former glory. Won’t take too much much, because everything already ‘mostly’ works. An6 recommendations for restoration?
What kind modern and more reliable DC components are you referring to upgrade this DC layout? I am going to keep this layout DC with the possibility to make a new modern DCC layout. The wife will ‘love’ another train board…
If you mean: entering a different block, then I would suspect your feed to the track is inadequate, or you are depending on rail connectors to transmit electrons or your track is dirty. I am not a fan of soldering all the rail connectors because I once experienced kinked track. We are big into feeders with DCC.
As for the derailing we need more information. Old and new cars are often underweight by NRMA standards. Put a light flat car in the middle of the train and you will get a stringlining derailment. It also could be just certain cars or related to the direction of travel. A NMRA gauge is very useful to detect wheel sets that are out of spec. We had one person who asked a similar question and he posted pics of his layout and there were obvious kinks.
I agree with the points made above. The joiners should be tight. If the layout is “permanent”, soldering the joints is the best solution. Leave some gaps if you don’t have good climate control (high heat will create expansion). Otherwise, make sure your joiners are tight - remove and squeeze them lightly with pliers to make the fit tighter. Adding more power feeders will also make a huge difference.
About the cars, do you mostly run them forward? If yes, then adding a bit of weight will make a difference. The best weights are sold in hobby stores, but you can glue your own, such as fishing weights with hot-gun glue.
If you do a lot of backing-up operations, then you might need more complex surgery on the cars for reliable operations. Removing the offending cars from the layout is the easiest solution. Otherwise, check the cars and see if the couplers are connected to the trucks (vs. the body of the car). Body-mounted couplers perform better when backing up. If you really want this, you will need to buy Kadee couplers, with coupler boxes, and install them on the body of the car (not the truck). You will need to clip off the coupler box from the truck, and install the coupler box on the underside of the car. This is better done with a 2-56 size screw. You will need a Kadee gauge to check the coupler height. Of course, this assumes that your cars have Kadee couplers (or something compatible). If you have horn hook couplers (google it!), then backing-up will be difficult whatever you do…