All you DCC people -- Having converted my layout to DCC, I lately came to realize that I could do away with the dispatcher position -- a nearly hidden cubicle (beneath a mountain) with two panels that control both the power and the turnouts for each of two four-track staging yards. All of the eight staging-yard tracks are now "live," so having the dispatcher activate or kill the staging tracks was no longer necessary. Without this requirement, I got to thinking about the turnout controls for the staging-yard ladders (four of them). With no need to control power to the staging tracks anymore, I got mighty tired of crawling into the dispatcher's cubbyhole just to throw a couple of turnouts. The final light-bulb moment: I could remove the block toggles, split the turnout control panels, and relocate each adjacent to the ladder it controls. I have concluded this exercise for both four-track staging yards New York/Springfield beneath a mountain and New Haven/Pittsfield beneath the Port Hudson harbor. There are now four small separate staging ladder turnout panels at four different layout locations, each adjacent to the ladder it controls.
Henceforth, the erstwhile dispatcher will simply have to run trains. So now I have one more requirement: I need to install track-occupancy detectors on each of the four tracks in the invisible staging yard the one under the mountain. I have found a device that might do the job, the Digitrax 245-BD4, described at http://www.prototypicalmodeltrains.com/site/1324105/product/245-BD4. From the description I think this will do the job for all four tracks. But I am not well versed in electronics, so I am appealing to those of you who are. I have a couple questions: 1. Will this device detect the presence of a locomotive equipped with a decoder even when it is not being addressed by the DCC command station? Or do I have to install lights in every loco in order to draw some track power, and thus be recognized? 2. Can I attach two LEDs to each of the four detectors rather than one, so I can have an occupancy indicator on each of the two widely separated yard-ladder turnout control panels? I can get this $30 item from Litchfield Station for $24. But should I be using old technology such as infrared (optical) detectors? Would these be simpler and not a lot more expensive? Dick Karnes [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
