Well I took the DCC plunge today. Went to the Ft. Worth train show and walked around for a couple hours. Really a small show. Not much there of interest. I saw 3 places that had the new Bachmann DCC for sale. 2 wanted $140 and 1 had the DCC and Loco for $90. Sounded like a good deal. The guy demo’ed the unit for me with a BLI E7, a larger steam engine and the GP40 from Bachmann. Everything looked good and sounded really good. Sometime next week I’ll get to play with it. I finally saw and heard the difference. I don’t know if the prices are really worth it yet. He had a pile of Bachmann DCC FT’s at $29.99. I bought 3 boxcars used for $5 and a great CAT backhoe that was just awesome.
Bachmann’s DCC system seems interesting, but does it give the full control of other more expensive DCC systems? Is it that cheap cause its ability is limited?
if that is the Bachmann E-Z Command system then I think you found a decent deal… it is advertised in the Nov 2004 MRR issue — $95 USD for the system, or $150 USD for the system and a loco (from various selections)
I have no personal knowledge of this DCC system, but it interested me also - I considered it entry level DCC and that was fine for me. I have not yet “plunged” in this fashion.
let us know what you think of it RMax
re: the CAT Backhoe - very nice piece, I bought it last summer for $20 CDN after taxes (approx $15 USD), there are several (5-6) other pieces in this collection for approx the same prices - hobby shops , or the CAT / Finning Dealerships can also help you out here.
There was some good places to shop and one place was completely N. I model HO and found some good stuff. Very little of the stuff I was looking for but if you were flexible soem great prices. There was a guy that had a ton of old beat up boxcars for $2. Good stuff to practice weathering. Some Proto 1000 RDC’s for $25 which is not bad and some Proto 2000 GP30’s for $39 which is good for around here. Several old tyco kits. There where a bunch of the larger LGB type scale stuff going on.