I am thinking about buying a new Williams Dash 9 and converting it to DCC and sounds. I noticed that Lionel now sells Electric Railroad sound and control upgrades (page 89 of 2011 Vol 2 catalog).
I was wondering if anyone had any experience with Electric Railroad upgrades? Hard to inmstall?
Dep
First, ERR makes TMCC and railsounds upgrades, not the same as DCC at all.
Second, the kits are easy to install and work great.
A rose by any other name [:D] I use DCC to describe TMCC and DCS.
But thanks for the feedback on the kits [tup]
I believe DCC is used by anybody but three rail O scale modelers. It’s a totally different system used for DC powered trains.
Now, as for the ERR TMCC upgrades, they are really easy to install if you can follow instructions and have basic wiring skills. I upgraded a williams 773 hudson and it worked well (the sounds help a lot too). A williams Diesel shouldn’t be a problem.
I put ERR into a couple of engines with no problems at all. I presently have an old Williams PRR Trainmaster that I put it in. This I think was one of the first style Williams did as it has plastic fuel tank not die-cast which the later ones have. and I’m not very electrical minded and I had no problems. I also added the old train sounds module to it which is not produced anymore as rail sounds is very Superior to it.
Cool! That’s what I wanted to know. [tup]
While DCC has certainly helped shape the direction of command control operation, M.T.H. Electric Trains raised the bar by inventing an easier to use, but far more innovative Digital Command System that we call DCS. Simply stated, DCS is the most advanced and user-friendly model railroad layout control system available in model railroading today. DCS provides operators - from beginner to seasoned veteran - with the ability to achieve realistic operation heretofore unknown in the hobby.
With DCS you can control every HO, O Gauge and One-Gauge locomotive equipped with Proto-Sound 2.0 or later on your layout, independently, all at the same time. So, if you are into multiple gauges, one handheld system can control all of your trains if they are equipped with Proto-Sound 2.0 or later.
MTH couldn’t have said it better themselves. (In fact they did say it themselves, word for word: http://mthtrains.com/ho/ho-dcs )
I don’t know anyone running DCS on HO layouts, since DCC encoders are so cheap and readily available. Check into the price to upgrade HO locomotives to DCS before you jump into this pond. [:^)]
As far as ERR, I’ve installed a bunch of their kits, both the AC and DC versions, as well as the Lionel TMCC cruise control updates. ERR also makes kits for operating cars, think how cool it would be to have your log car be able to dump logs anywhere on your layout. I have one of those, and also a milk car that will spit milk cans at will.
I don’t know anyone with HO layouts [:D]
But Proto 3 for HO offers a lot of things to make it attractive. Especially if you already have Proto 2 for O-gauge layouts. It uses the same system for both.
Well, I can’t argue that ProtoSound 3 is not pretty neat, but I just don’t see it making any inroads into HO layouts. The real advantage of DCC is there are tons of sources for compatible products, which keeps the prices down. Jumping into the MTH pond puts you into a single source and they can (and do) charge anything they feel like!
**All MTH - "**PS3" equiped locomotives, now used in both “HO” and “O” products, contain BOTH the MTH DCS and the NMRA DCC decoders. No choice needed.
LOL…beat me to it [:D]
LOL…beat me to it [:D]
Deputy lets get back to the original part of this post ERR system. You can get a good deal if you purchase it thru boxcar bill his website is
http://mttponline.com/ but to be honest you would do better calling him and talking to him about it.
I was wondering if there were any deals available. The prices Lionel is quoting are full retail. Thanks for the info!