Engines , Electro & DCC

My first DCC loco's

Today I received 2 Walthers RS2's one Mopac

The other Rock Island. I had ordered them with Digitrax DN163K2 decoders. After having a little trouble getting the body from the frame , first the way the manual from Walthers/Life Like said, then with a littlew help from a toothpick and a small amount of force I succeeded. Placing the decoder was easy, take out the board , place kapton tape where needed according to the Digitrax manual(pictures on the Digitrax website are much better then the manual) and then placing the decoder.

I've only put them on the track and run them with adress 03, high speed was good right from the start but slow was not, after just making laps in both direction for 10 minutes I tried slower speeds again and it was much better. Some more running and later on in the evening I had both running with 5 cars behind them at crawling pace.

Thanks to Ebay and David Dawes I now have an RDC with decoder

And a Fairbank

And on top of the world with an RS-1 with decoder

Bachmann 70 Ton with decoders off Factory

Atlas GP7's Santa Fe with decoders off Factory

Just bought 6 DCC Concepts Cobalt switching machines.

My first impression, solid, no need for soldering and much smaller then Tortoises. Now to find out if they are just as good.

Put together a programming track today to use with a Digitrax PR3

A siding with 2 flex tracks for the program track , and 2 curved track pieces on either side of the flextrack . The curved tracks are isolated on both sides and they are longer then my longest engine , this to avoid accidental damage while programming.

I used a DPDT switch and wirde it according to this scheme http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/2370

I had it working the same evening and was programming an engine using JMRI.

I added another programming track , a stand alone one , using a Sprog and JMRI

I used some pieces of KATO Unitrack, that were in a box together with the El Capitan coaches.

Atlas Rock Island VO 1000, I was lucky to find one still available.

Rock Island E6A from Broadway Limited , Sound Equipped DCC