DCC: Decoder Wire Source

Recently I've installed a few DCC decoders in my son's equipment so that he can run his engines now that track is being laid. I have some nice thin flexible wire but would soon need more. I was reminded not too long ago about a potential source for the thin flexible wire that's perfect to use for decoder installs, PC ribbon cable!

Being that I build my own computers I naturally have a lot of old parts and cables stashed away. Old hard drive ATA and floppy disc drive ribbon cables are what you need to find. Cut off the cable ends and just like string cheese, peel off a few strands. In my example below, I had a fancy ATA cable that was designed to improve air flow inside the PC case. Even better it has three colors of wire to pick from! I hope this little tip can help you save a few bucks on DCC supplies!

Passenger Service Returns to Adena After 85 Years

Today passenger service returned to Adena after 85 years, unfortunately in real life this could only happen in an alternate universe or in my basement. Since we don't know of any alternate realities (politics aside) only in a model version of the Ohio Valley could this happen.

Train watching is a common adventure for Brendan and I, catching Amtrak trains however is a extreme rarity. Matter of fact Brendan had only ever seen one Amtrak train and that was in Altoona, PA. This was fixed by watching the Railstream.net's Chesterton, Indiana feed of Norfolk Southern's Chicago mainline. Every night at around 8:30 Amtrak's #30, the Capitol Limited, passes through at about 80 mph. Inspired by regularly seeing Amtrak trains, Brendan purchased his first Superliner passenger car back at the Kirkland Train Show in March to start his version of Amtrak's Capitol Limited.

With Brendan's birthday around the corner I started hunting for good deals on Superliner cars and an Athearn AMD-103 engine to complete a small train. Luckily the search didn't take long to find an engine and 5 cars for an extremely reasonable price.

The only work I needed to do was add one of the Soundtraxx mobile decoders I bought at the Kirkland show to the Amtrak engine. Easy right? Nope, the engine I got was one of the early non-DCC ready models. No wonder it was a good deal! This was the first time I had made anything DCC ready but it was easier than I feared. I just isolated the motor and added some feeders to the trucks like all the online guides suggested. I also took things one step further and added 2mm LED lighting for the headlights, ditch lights and the red marker lights as well.

Here's a few pictures of the install.

Front headlights, ditch lights and marker lights

Rear Headlights and marker lights.

Full test before attaching the shell.

I realized after getting all the LEDs attached I probably could have reduced the wiring by A LOT, but time was short because Brendan's birthday was the next day.

Forward has the front headlights on and rear marker lights active. Ditch lights are programmed to alternately flash when the horn (F2) is pressed (this is a non-sound Soundtraxx decoder).

Reverse activates the front red markers and the rear headlight.

Today was Brendan's eleventh birthday and to say he enjoyed the gifts would be a understatement. So after 85 years in some present day alternate reality that occasionally takes over the my basement version of the Ohio Valley, passenger service has finally returned to Adena and Dillonvale.