Programming Model Locomotives

Bachmann, O scale, narrow gauge,
4-6-0 steam locomotive.

I've been trying to get up to speed with Digital Command Control (DCC) for model trains for the past few months. Well... I started trying to educate myself a couple of years ago but have had difficulty grasping how to fully utilize DCC without having a locomotive to program or even a DCC controller.

Over the past year or so, I've collected some DCC locomotives and a couple of different control systems. I'm learning more but it is a bit frustrating for a few reasons.

First off, if you want to take a fairly easy route, you can just buy a DCC locomotive and use it in its default configuration with just about any DCC controller. This is certainly the easiest and quickest way to get up and running in DCC. That is not me though. I like to perfect things to my own preferences.

I'd like to write a blog post about all the difficulties in programming... all the different DCC systems available today... compatibility problems between these different DCC systems and decoders... and some of the general frustrations... but, this blog entry isn't the time for that. Besides, I think I need to gain more experience with DCC before going into any great detail about my frustrations. What I will say is that DCC is touted as a system to make things easier by eliminating the need for an abundance of electrical wiring in the form of block control while bringing exceptional sound into modeling, but... personally, I think things are far more complicated but with many more options which causes more complication.

So the few days I've spent a few hours trying to program a Bachmann O scale narrow gauge 4-6-0 steam locomotive to do exactly what I would like it to do. I learned a lot and made a lot of headway in programming this ready-to-run DCC locomotive. I still have a lot to learn and I even have some programming equipment that I have yet to learn to use effectively but I think I'm getting better at this stuff. This morning was the first time most of the programming went as planned so that is good.

To test my programming, I set the locomotive on a small layout with another steam locomotive... a small Porter locomotive with sound. I figured the real test would be to try to run both locomotives at the same time but while maintaining separate control (one of the beautiful features of DCC control systems... a little complicated, but beautiful).

I had changed some of the different sound volumes (ie, lowered the volume of some of the background sounds and increased the volume of the whistle, in particular), changed the reverb (still having difficulty with this but I'm not sure what quality of sound this Tsunami DCC is capable of producing so I'm not sure I succeeded in changing any of the reverb), I added some automatic sound functions, adjusted acceleration and deceleration rates, and played around with about two dozen other configuration values.

I was happy with the default programming on the little Porter when I first used it but after re-programming this 4-6-0, I want to change a few things on this little Porter too! I guess that means I had success in programming this morning. 

As I do this programming more and more, it is becoming easier and I'm becoming more confident in tackling programming changes. It is like learning a new language though... it is tedious... it is time consuming because it requires a lot of trial and error... and it can be difficult to know what the DCC locomotive is capable of doing until you play with all the options which is time consuming and can be quite frustrating. I'm getting better at it though.

Overall... this digital DCC reminds me of computer programming in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Basically, it is hex code and in today's digital world this is quite frustrating and tedious. I'll write again soon to explain some of the compatibility issues as well as things that simply bother me about DCC systems.

So, after all my programming fun over the past few days, I pulled out a camera this morning to shoot a photo or two of this new locomotive. I grabbed one of my smallest cameras... a little Panasonic G3... and I grabbed an old Pentacon 50mm f1.8 lens which is a manual focus lens... and then headed into the train room. 

This particular train layout is on the floor so I had to lie on the floor... on my side... and fiddle with this tiny Panasonic camera and manual focus lens. I managed to get a couple of decent shots which are posted here. One of these days, I really need to capture some video... and soon!

On a sidenote, I installed a new DCC decoder into an HO scale Amtrak HHP-8 locomotive about a month ago. That was quite a project but it was a good learning experience. I had to build a speaker box and install all of this electronic stuff inside a small locomotive that had very little room for extra stuff. That project taught me a lot and I love running that Amtrak locomotive now, complete with sound. I, personally, do not like HO scale but Lukey enjoys his little HO scale layout and it takes up a lot less space than my O scale stuff.

In the meantime, I'm learning more and more about programming locomotives and even learning to install complete digital decoders and sound systems in locomotives.