After building the benchwork, what is the best surace to use? My layout is mostly industrial, so a cork roadbed under the individual track would look unrealistic being raised up like that. I’v heard some people cover the whole things in 2inch styrofoam sheets, but then how to you make the nails hold the track down?
How difficult is it to convert non DCC ready trains to DCC?
Thnx a bunch!!!
How difficult is it to convert non DCC ready trains to DCC?
Not hard at all. There have been two MR articles on this very topic. Since you don’t say anything about your layout, it is difficult to give specifics. But what you do is turn all your blocks onto the same setting and run DCC.
You can get wide cork sheets from hobby stores or arts and crafts stores and use those for your yard if you like cork.
In an industrial setting like yours, I would go down to the local hardware store, and by a roll of sheet cork that is used in making bullitin boards. It is the exact same stuff as the road bed and you are able to cover a fairly large area wtih it.
In the styrofoam situation the track is glued rather than nailed down. these people are farly certain about the arrangment of track not changing in the future and thus can handle the permanance of gluing it down.
As for the the Non DCC ready trains to DCC, that varies by manufacturor. Some of the easyest non-dcc to convert are Walthers Trainline and Athearn. You have to make sure that the motor contacts in situations where the rame is used as one side of the circut, (Like in Athearn) that that contact is trimmed down, and the contact point insulated. (I used a piece of masking tape) and then you solder the leads as per decoder instructions.
(And dont give me any gruff about soldering being to hard. If my girlfreind can do it, [8D] you can to. [8D][8D])
James.
Thaks everybody. Sounds great!
You can still use cork roadbed if you want to–or you can mount it directly on the layout’s surface and ballast on top of it. It depends on how you want your track to end up–some industrial trackage is ballasted, other is buried under concrete/street surface of some sort.
If i was converting a loco from DC to DCC (which Ive never done because i run just DC right now) I would probably bring it down to my hobby shop(CUstom Railway Supplu for me) and have him show mw how.
There may be differences in track elevations even in “flat” industrial areas. The “main” tracks to which the sidings and spurs connect are often a foot or so higher. Also because of the terrain in an area there may be short very steep grades on the spurs. Usually there will be some kind of ballast, but it won’t be neat and clean (often hard to see the rock in the dirt)
In older industrial areas “main” tracks often run in the middle of streets. Spurs may be parallel to and just off the edge of the street.
Modern Industrial parks are usually neater and more organized and usually separate vehicle and rail traffic except where crossing are necessary.