Layout Maintenance And Upgrades For DCC Operation

The oldest part of this layout is 30 years old, and in its current location, it's 25. Inevitably solder joints come loose, screws loosen, wood warps, paint fades, and so forth. The upside is that once I began converting to DCC, many necessary renewal projects can come with DCC conversion benefits. Most recently, I had a switch machine power connection come unsoldered, but decided that rather than just repair the old connection, I would simply replace it with DCC control of the switch via a stationary decoder, in this case a Dgitrax DS52.

As it happens, I had a panel that had previously mounted an Atlas Selector with a gang of Atlas Controllers for analog DC operation of staging tracks. I uninstalled these as part of the journey to DCC and have largely dispersed the Atlas components to friends still on analog, But then it occurred to me that the old panel could now be used to mount DS52s for this part of the layout. Here's the result:

You can see the NCE handheld radio controller on the right, with the switch address on it. This makes switching much, much easier, since the local panel shown below is about eight feet away, and I would have to keep walking back and forth from the local panel to the train to throw switches. Now I just throw them from the handheld.

There's room for another trwo DS52s, which will control another four switches on this part of the layout. The whole thing is visible and accessible without climbing under the layout. Below is the former local panel that controlled these switches and the analog DC blocks:

Right now, the panel is just hanging by one screw, since replacement of the switch and block toggles is under way. Unfortunately, the switch toggles on the upper routes are going to have to stay, as they control European style switch machines for the European prototype on that part of the layout. I used those because there wasn't enough clearance below those tracks to install Tortoises, and the European switch machines don't work with typical DCC stationary decoders, since they are screw control.

If I were redoing that part of the layout, I'd either use the new Walthers switch machines, which can be mounted sideways, or Kato Unitrack. Probably Unitrack on balance. But I probably won't have to consider redoing things there, at least I hope not.

I'll leave all the local panels in place, covering the old holes for the switch toggles with paper labels giving the new decoder addresses for the switches as shown.