The current issue of Garden Railways has a great article about DCC.
The author wrote a clear and easily understandable introduction to DCC.
I only take exception to one item. He cited cost as a disadvantage. Obviously he flunked math.
While adding DCC to a railroad with only one loco does not make economic sense, for multiple trains, DCC almost always comes out ahead. The more locos you want to run, the more DCC has an advantage.
Many people fail to look at the total price. For example; for an analog DC block system you need to add up all the wire, toggle switches, power supplies, control panels, connectors, rail insulators etc. DCC will come out ahead with it’s simple two wire connection to the rails nearly every time.
When comparing DCC to battery/RC it’s no contest for anything over two or three locos. Especially when you consider that most LGB locos have a free DCC decoder installed right out of the box. You can buy a 8-amp DCC decoder with diesel sound for under $50.00 USD while most battery/RC setups without sound will cost $150.00 USD and up.
Anyway, It was still a great article. Take the time to read it if you haven’t.
Thanks Garden Railways for a great article.
B0B
This business about saying DCC is more expensive is rubbish, MORE EXPENSIVE THAN WHAT?
Before i decided to go that way, we did a costing and it is definitrely cheaper to go to MTS rather than an ordinary DC system, when you take into to account the complexities of doing anything much as your layout gets bigger.
I believe a lot of people who write these articles are basically ignorant of general things.
In the good old days scribes used to be very knowledable and you could take notice of what they said, but these days I just don’t know how they got their jobs.
Here in Australia I read an article by a young female reporter on a big Sydney newspaper and don’t recall what the article was about, but she made a nosensicle remark about “Ike” and she didn’t know who he was, some American WW2 general she wrote. How bloody ignorant, Commender in Chief of the Allies in Europe for the invasion and went on to become president of the USA, even here in Australia how bloody ignorant.