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Layout Design/Planning
Jerry wants advice from readers and asks:
“I have been collecting HO equipment over the past few years. Most of what I have is second hand equipment including several DC locomotives which are in good shape. Recently I purchased a starter DCC set from Bachman. In planning a layout is it practical to have a DCC block and a DC block on the same layout but electrically separated? Then as I convert or get more DCC locootives to convert all track to one DCC operation sometime in the future. What are the pitfslls of such a plan?”
Share your ideas below.
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I set up my layout with three main blocks and a reverse loop. Each block has a DPDT switch and I feed one side of the switch from the DC transformer and one from my DCC transformer. Each block is separated by insulators. I’m able to run DC engines on one loop and DCC on the other. My reverse loop is wired for DCC or as the programing track for DCC.
This system worked great until I added block detectors to the wiring. Now the DC doesn’t want to work through the block detector.