New TCS AS6 DCC Decoder For Older Atlas Alco Switchers

Not long ago, I turned my attention to the remaining Atlas Yellowbox and Classic Alco switchers in my collection, hoping to convert the rest of them to DCC. These were great locos, good runners with a lot of weight, and pretty inexpensive, especially at discount. Their defect, as I've posted here, is that they had no DCC socket, and DCC conversion was the installation from heck.

There were three options, none of them good, all of them with the potential for smoking the decoder. NCE and TCS both had decoders specifically for the Atlas Alco switchers, but the procedure involved removing the motor, insulating it from the frame with tape, replacing the metal motor mount screw with a plastic one, reinstalling the motor, which included reconnecting the universal shafts, insulating the top weight, and then reassembling the chassis before mounting the new decoder.

You could find instructions on the web for installing a small wired decoder in the loco without using a specialized one, but you had to cut the traces on the PC board, and all the other steps were the same.

In every case, if you weren't careful and reinstalled the motor upside down, you smoked the decoder.

Although both the TCS and NCE decoders provided LEDs for lighting the rear headlight, you had to bend the leads to reach the rear headlight at the top of the cab, which was one more crazymaking step. Both NCE and TCS withdrew those decoders pretty quickly, I'm sure because they had so many warranty claims.

Wile I was searching on the web for any new info on DCC installs in the Atlas Alcos, I discovered that TCS has issued a new AS6 decoder. I sent for one, but the icing on the cake turned out to be that they'd revised the install procedure for the new decoder, and you no longer need to go through the business of removing and insulating the motor and reassembling the drive train. You just remove the top weight, insulate it, and install the new AS6. A 30-minute job at most now, easy-to-intermediate, about the same as installing a drop-in decoder in a Kato N loco.

Here is my Reading S-1 with the new AS6 installed:

Another great new feature is that the rear headlight LED is preinstalled with a plastic piece to protect it. Thus the old Atlas Alcos have operating rear headlights with the upgrade.

The new AS6 decoder is in the $50 range. While this is expensive for a non sound decoder, the original locos I think could be found in the $30 range, so a loco with full DCC is still reasonably priced. A check on eBay shows Atlas Yellowbox S-4s in the $40 range, although if I wanted an Alco switcher that badly now, I think I'd go for either a Bachmann or a revised Atlas with a DCC socket.