Image: Kalmbach Media / Trains.com Store · source
Kalmbach Media · Mid-range
A 92-page Kalmbach guide by Allan Gartner to Digital Command Control, covering choosing a system, wiring a layout, and installing and programming decoders.
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We have not tested it ourselves: strengths and weaknesses below come from the tests cited.
Digital Command Control is the point where model railroading meets electronics, and the publisher notes it has revolutionized model railroad operations. Gartner brings the right background: the author has worked as an electrical and computer engineer in the telecommunications, robots and defense industries, is an active ham radio operator, wrote Model Railroader's "DCC Currents" column for three years, and has hosted the wiringfordcc.com website since the mid-1990s. For a railfan who wants to understand the system that lets locomotives be controlled individually, this book explains the components behind it.
The publisher lists the lessons directly: choose the right DCC system for a layout, wire a layout properly for DCC, select and install decoders in locomotives, and use readily available software to program decoders. The ten chapters follow the order of a real project. They start with the basics of DCC, then decoders, programming decoders and configuration variables (CVs), and sound decoders. Next come DecoderPro and JMRI, and accessory decoders. The final chapters cover layout wiring for DCC, reverse loops, turnout wiring and control, and block detection. A modeler can read the first four chapters before choosing a system and return to the wiring chapters while building the layout.
Strengths
Weaknesses
| Specification | Value |
|---|---|
| Pages | 92 |
| Author | Allan Gartner |
| ISBN-13 | 9781627009959 |
| Chapters | Introduction plus 10 chapters |
| Publisher | Kalmbach Media (Trains.com Store) |
| Publisher SKU | 12849 |
A modeler who is considering DCC, or has already chosen a system and still needs to wire the layout and put decoders in locomotives. It suits a reader who is willing to deal with wiring, reverse loops and programming, since the book covers all of them. Someone who only runs a single locomotive on a small oval may need only the opening chapters.
The publisher also lists Getting Started with DCC (updated edition) and Basic DCC Wiring for Your Model Railroad. Their contents were not read here, so compare the chapter lists on the publisher's site if this book's scope does not match your project.
Image: National Geographic (Penguin Random House) · source
National Geographic · Mid-range
A National Geographic hardcover that profiles 100 railway journeys around the world, with notes on when and where to go, which cabins to book and what to see off the train.
Image: Charlesbridge · source
Charlesbridge · Budget
Alphabet Trains is a 32-page rhyming picture book by Samantha R. Vamos, illustrated by Ryan O'Rourke, that gives each letter from A to Z its own train, from familiar types to unusual ones, with factual notes on every train at the back.
Image: Lorenz Books / Simon & Schuster · source
Lorenz Books · Mid-range
A hardcover guide to the golden age of train engines by Colin Garratt, with 700 photographs covering the first designs to modern high-speed trains.
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