How I got started in DCC

I was chatting to Gary about DCC, and thought that I'd share this.

I would say that I'm a keen collector of trains. But getting them to run together on a layout or test bench is what I enjoy the most. I was never happy with one loco at a tim on one isolated section of track.

I have been into DCC since 9/11 (I was my local model shop buying my first DCC controller when we heard on the shop's radio the news of the first plane hitting the World Trade Centre).

I now have a whole bunch of DCC stuff and fit chips to all my locos - even the kids' Thomas Tank engine locos (Thomas, Percy and James).

I started out with Arnold Digital Controllers as they were relatively affordable back then, but sadly the company folded soon after. It was not related to the products, but rather to bad management. I have two master controllers that can run trains and program the decoders and 3 extra loco controllers.

You can still pick up Arnold material on eBay quite cheaply and as it is 100% NMRA DCC compatible you can use it to control decoders from other manufacturers. Using the Arnold X-BUS it plugs in to Lenz (XPressNet) and other systems that use that protocol like Atlas, Roco and ZTC.

Check out information on Arnold Digital here.