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So follow along here as I try to objectively determine whether wireless DCC or Multi-Throttle
Control is going to satisfy the dream layout characteristics best.
Here's a Pros and Cons list: • Price: DCC is at least twice as expensive as Multi-Throttle, but cab-control is cheapest of all. • Convenience: Multi-Throttle has no batteries to charge or replace; decoders to find, buy, install, test, and maintain; loco programming to set up on a special track, learn about, and do; delicate locos to worry about once you've filed and soldered and wired them. (Many sources say this isn't too hard or delicate for most HO locos but is still pretty hairy for many N-scale locos.) DCC and cab-control are both inconvenient in their own ways, what with all the just-cited weaknesses of the former and the large amount of wiring and toggling of the latter. Multi-Throttle is free of all these weaknesses. On the plus side for DCC, bigger loco companies like Atlas are listening to the moans and cries of customers who insist they haven't even the slightest desire to learn to solder decoders into delicate little N-scale locos, and one can now get Atlas locos either with decoders or decoder-ready. Of course, that doesn't help too much if you already own a bunch of locos. • Constant Feeling of Control: DCC handheld controls give a slightly more constant feeling of control than Multi-Throttle, but Multi-Throttle beats cab-control, in my experience. (I run both cab-control and Multi-Throttle layouts often.) On the other hand, if one must type in a number to specify which train one is addressing, that will be an out-of-control feeling compared to Multi-Throttle control, which is very direct and simple. • Automatic speed control for specific areas: DCC doesn't have it. Neither does cab-control. Multi-Throttle has it. (The best system if automatic operations is your main thing is Roadmaster from Signal Research.) • Programming specific running/lighting characteristics for locos: DCC has it. Multi-Throttle and cab-control don't. This is especially useful for consists of multiple powered units where you want loco speeds to match exactly. Non-DCC users must resort to in-loco resistors or other tricks to accomplish this. • Ease of installation and ease of use: DCC is much more difficult to install and maintain than Multi-Throttle. Same for cab-control. • Stability/Robustness/Dependability/Murphy's Law: In decades of using them, I've never encountered a single problem with standard MRC throttles—nor have I met anyone with such a problem. DCC users, in articles and in person at conventions and shows have mentioned a few annoying problems mostly related to batteries, defective or badly installed decoders, fouling from the sparking because of the extra amps DCC requires, etc. This is to be expected of new technologies, and DCC users seem to be happy with their choice, and as a rule the technology seems solid and robust, but for those of us who prefer to avoid tracing down soldering problems and taking apart locos to see what's wrong, Multi-Throttle is definitely more problem-free than any other system. • Upgrade-ability: All three systems will upgrade to whatever, later. If new technology manages to obsolete current DCC technology, there's a chance DCC users will be painted into a corner, but then the same could be said for throttles in general. • Concentration on trains when operating them: DCC and Multi-Throttle tie (and cab-control loses), since one would need to look at handheld throttles and hardwired throttles equally often. Both systems allow you to "run the trains, not the toggles." • Automatic collision avoidance: DCC has none. Multi-Throttle, however, is set up so that if an engineer has stopped his loco in the next block, your train cannot rear-end his unless you're blind and his train extends backwards into your block, because the block will turn your loco off as it enters it. Cab-control is normally operated in such a way as to offer this feature too, but sometimes it isn't. Hopefully, you'll use block signals as I recommend above to enhance your train location awareness even further. Note: The best system for automatic collision avoidance is Roadmaster from Signal Research. • General signal support: Most DCC has none, but they seem to be working on it. The electrically isolated blocks in cab-control and Multi-Throttle Control systems are ideal to use as a basis for signaling systems. • Prototypicality: Blocks and block signals are how real railroads run, and they're a natural for cab-control and Multi-Throttle, but are an inconvenient add-on for DCC because the system doesn't need blocks—one of its major goals is to avoid blocks and any interaction with same. However, a throttle in the hand constantly is more prototypical than walking past throttles without touching/noticing them (usually), which is what Multi-Throttle is about. DCC stands out in the prototypicality area for its ability to give users the tools and controls to nudge very realistic performance and lighting characteristics out of locos. • Loco performance: DCC is better and more dynamic; it even offer acceleration/deceleration characteristics programmability. (This assumes you don't encounter any DCC-related electrical or electronics problem that affects loco performance, which is not a given, especially if you do the soldering yourself.) Also, if you happen to own an oddly wired loco like a steam engine that have left wheel contacts on the tender and right wheel contacts on the cab (e.g., an N-scale Rivarrosi 0-8-0 switch engine), it won't run on Multi-Throttle layouts—it stops at boundaries. But it will run fine within a section, of course, so if any of your sections are essentially loops, it will work fine on that section. • Loco speed limitations: Multi-Throttle layouts will not work for the hardcore hobbyists who won't like the one-size-fits-all speed setting approach. They'll need to choose a different control system, unless they're willing to resort to such tricks as modifying locos with resistors (is this really all that different from decoder installation?) so each loco has an acceptable pre-set throttle speed. For example: Life-Like locos will need to be for your slower trains and Kato and Atlas will be for your faster trains, since Life-Like locos run a lot slower than the others at a given throttle setting. On our layout, we were happy to have this difference, as it automatically gave us a nice range of pre-set speeds without the need for throttle dial adjustment. We're into the overall railroad environment experience and are not sticklers for precise prototypical operational characteristics. (For instance, we have a large railroad sound system with earth-shaking woofers running Green Frog sound tapes and CDs, several ITTC Innovative Technology Co. sound modules with great real sound production, an MRC SoundMaster 210 railroad sound controller, a tape recorder playing nature sounds including thunderstorms and birds, and Bachmann's "whistle in a building" and "horn in an oil tank" for good measure.) Sticklers may also dislike the speed changes that happen at block boundaries where one throttle is set for faster country running and another is set for slower city running, since the transitions are not prototypically smooth. (NOTE: Someday there will be a survey of all the model railroad hobbyists and we'll all find out the percentage of sticklers compared to nonsticklers. A magazine survey won't cut it, as this includes only subscribers, which are only a fraction of model train hobbyists. I estimate that there are more nonsticklers than sticklers among hobbyists, and this is in line with my admittedly controversial prediction that Multi-Throttle control will be quite popular someday—especially since it's such an obvious extension of the section control starter sets most people begin with.) |
