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DCC Novice. Question about sidings.


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There's an old saying:  with DC you drive the track, with DCC you drive the loco.   

What that means is with DC you're applying power to the track and whatever loco(s) is/are sitting on it will move accordingly, all in the same direction.  To "park" a loco you have to isolate that section of track, be that with an on/off switch or by changing the points against the siding.   With DCC you're controlling the loco via commands to its decoder. The track is live all the time.  The  loco moves, displays lights, plays sounds etc.  as you send commands to it from the DCC system.  Another loco sitting on the same track won't move unless you tell it to. It's possible to have two locos run in opposite directions on the same track, resulting in a spectacular crash so most DCC systems have an emergency stop button!

One thing which catches out some folk when they first move from DC to DCC is direction of travel. With DC if you run a loco forwards then pick it up and turn it round it will run backwards in the same direction it was going before.  You're controlling movement by the power in the track.  With DCC if you run the loco forwards then pick it up and turn it round it will still run forwards and will set off in the other direction. You're controlling the loco and forwards is always relative to front of the loco. Easy with steam locos but with diesel and electrics sometimes it's more difficult to know which is the front. Fortunately you can use the headlights as an indicator of which way it's going to go 🙂 

Edited by ntpntpntp
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