Skip to main content

First Test Of DCC With A F40PH 2016 ONP

After I got the track all wired last night, I had to do a test with DCC.  When I first laid down the track I had done a test with DC, but this was going to be the first with DCC and my new decoder in the engine.

When I made my initial track purchase, I added the KATO 2016 Operation North Pole Christmas Train to my order, along with a DCC decoder from TCS (model K5D7).  I grew up right next to the old C&NW West Line which then became the Metra West Line, so seeing and riding the Bi-Level passenger cars on an every day basis, I knew I had to have these for my layout.
.


KATO 2016 Operation North Pole Christmas Train

TCS K5D7

A few days ago I installed the DCC decoder and now it was time for the inital test with DCC power.  I took a glance at the manual for my NCE Power Cab in advance, so I knew what I had to do in order to program the decoder to a 4 digit address.  It is recommended to leave the 3 digit address at “3” and program the 4 digit address to match the engine number on the model, so that is what I did.

Here is a short video of the initial test run.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

METX #163 EMD F40PH Locomotive

First off, Merry Christmas to everyone... When I first wanted to get (back) into Model Railroading, the one locomotive that I knew I really wanted was a Chicago Metra locomotive.  Growing up on the West Line and riding the Metra into the city, I always loved this locomotive. So last night on Christmas Eve, my youngest child, wife and I opened presents.  To my behold, my wife got me a KATO EMD F40PH in the Chicago Matra liverly along with it being the “City of Elmhurst”, Elmhurst is the suburb I grew up right next to on the West Line. Since I knew I wanted one for my collection, I already had a TSC DCC K5D7 decoder ready for it, so this morning I followed the directions and got the decoder soldered into the locomotive and then programmed on my layout. It really is a Merry Christmas!

C&NW #928 EMD SD40 Locomotive

Well the last couple of days I have really been giving our USPS lady a workout, packages and packages arriving for my layout.  I added another diesel freight locomotive to the roster with a KATO Chicago & North Western #928 SD40.  This model I had purchased used through a Facebook Group and already equipped with DCC. The following is borrowed from  Don’s Depot . 928 was built in September 1966, #32099, FN 7912-8, as CGW 408. It became C&NW 928 in 1968. It was retired on September 25, 1987 and sold to Washington Corporation in November 1989.  It was rebuilt for Corporate Leasing Inc as 3001. It then became MRL 3001 and was later renumbered 220. It was later transferred to I&M Rail Link as 220 in 1997 and sold as Iowa Chicago & Eastern 220 in July 2002.  It was retired in February 2007 and scrapped by Jabco Industrial in March 2007.

Starting The Benchwork

I am not much of a woodworker and I knew cutting plywood and 1x4’s with my limited tools would be very tedious.  So I needed to come up with another way to build my benchwork.  I remembered back to one of my previous layout attempts and that I purchased a hollow door from store.  That door back then was only 30” wide so I needed to see if could find one that is 36” wide.  Sure enough my local Home Depot sells 36”Wx80”L for around $38.00, I thought that would work perfect and save me some time.   So now the trackboard is set and I needed to think how I was going to wire the layout.  Having the board sit right on top of the bar would not allow me to do my wiring underneath the board.  I decided to purchase a 1x4 abd cut 4” blocks to use as legs.  I figure the blocks just being used as legs my cuts do not have to be perfectly straight, a jigsaw would work. My next issue is my bar top is made of tile.  I thought the wood block would probably easi...