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When the current railroad was started in 1989, it was wired and set up for DC cab control. I had several tethered handheld throttles and had plugins located around the railroad with block control selector switches located near by. In 1993 I began the conversion to Dynatrol command control system. I rewired the railroad using heavy gauge bus wires around the railroad, divided into power blocks. This made debugging simpler, and changes were also easier. Because of the increasing number of diesels on the railroad, and the limit of 18 channels on Dynatrol, I had to install on/off toggles on staging tracks to hold engines with duplicate channel receivers, and I had to develop a somewhat elaborate scheme of controlling which engines could be on what trains at a particular part of an operating session. In 1998 Dynatrol and North Coast Engineering (NCE) began a arrangement for infra-red operation using dual mode decoders that allowed using the NCE command station, along with the Dynatrol stations, so that I could run Dynatrol receivered diesels along with DCC decoder equipped diesels. This meant I could reduce the number of Dynatrol receivers but it still required a system to keep track of what system was in what diesel. At the same time I began adding NCE handheld throttles along with the NCE bus control line. In late 1999 I decided to bite the bullet and go straight DCC. The Dynatrol command stations were replaced with NCE boosters, and the Dynatrol was removed completely. The single mode decoders were a lot less expensive than the dual mode, plus I had choices of sizes and manufacturers. Today, in year 2007, the railroad is totally NCE-DCC as far as command control. I do have an even mix of Digitrax, NCE, Lenz and TCS decoders, plus the ever present Atlas. Currently, I have a total of 14 of the CAB throttles (with knobs), plus three procabs, which do not get used except for any programming functions and engine terminal work. Radio control has been installed since 2003 on the railroad, and almost all cabs have the radio module installed. While the NCE radio system is not totally goof proof, we have very little problem with it in operating sessions. I do remove the batteries in most cabs between sessions. |
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