The Beginning

Hello everyone-
Welcome to my blog about my model railroad.

About four years back, the owner of the model railroad store I frequent most often talked me into changing my layout from DC to DCC. For those uninitiated in these things - DC means the railroad is controlled by power blocks that are powered up so the trains can move around the layout. Usually you power only those blocks (sections of track) you are using at the moment - the Main (line) for instance. This is a good system but somewhat limiting in what is happening around the layout without miles of wiring. DCC is Digital Command Control. All track is always powered up because the actual engines have decoders in them that accept individual commands from the command center. Each engine is addressed in the command center. Control throttles allow the operator to dial up each engine and tell it what to do. You can have lots of engines (trains) moving at once! (you also can have lots of wrecks if you are not careful!)
Anyway- Gerry talked me into buying a Lenz 90 system for my layout - "it is the way to go" because not only is it more realistic but the engines can be wired with speakers and sound! All well and good (and somewhat expensive) but the store layout with all the sounds of steam and diesel engines is very convincing!
Being as how I am a dunce when it comes to electricity the whole thing stayed in the box for two years. Then I finally hooked it up because I had bought a beautiful Broadway Limited Mikado (a steam engine with the following wheel configuration: 2-8-2, two wheels on the leading truck, 8 driving wheels (the really big ones) and two wheels on the trailing truck that is under the cab of the engine) with sound. It was great fun making the layout come alive. I used the layout for about a year but was having major issues with short circuits caused by poor track connections among other things. (more on this to follow.) When DCC shorts out everything comes to a halt!
This was especially true on my layout - the Rutland Railroad in Rutland, Vermont circa October 1952. When I hooked up the DCC I had to power up the whole layout because I had used the "common rail" system to power the layout. This meant that everything was on or off with the DCC system because there were no gaps in the common rail to stop a short from effecting the whole layout. After a year of tinkering - trying to solve the shorting problems by replacing switches and soldering joints, etc. without any particular success I decided to start over from scratch. This blog is about this project (adventure!) that has begun and will continue for years!

More to follow soon.