Loco Control.

[blythjunctionmike]

Hi, being new to outdoor railways I would be grateful for any advice regarding remote control for DC locos. I did not intend to go down the digital route so have purchased a few track powered locos. I bought a Piko basic controller and thinking about getting something like a second hand Aristocraft Train Engineer. Being a "hard up pensioner" I am looking for the best value unit that's readily available and not really sure what's out there. Also not really looking to go to individual radio control receivers either. Any comments appreciated.
Cheers.
blythjunctionmike.

[ge_rik]

Hi Mike
Unknowingly, you have probably opened a can of worms here.

Like you, I started with track power, then ventured into DCC, but in the end I abandoned all forms of track power in favour of battery and radio control.

I've summed up my reasons on this YouTube video - https://youtu.be/ej2r7XMDVYQ

Sorry - my voice over sounds a bit posh on the video - I think it must be my telephone voice. As the son of an East End Londoner (Isle of Dogs) and a Kentish farm labourer, my roots are definitely working class...... and, dare I say it, I'm proud of it!

Rik

[ge_rik]

PS - You'll notice that the video had 409 likes and 12 dislikes - as I said, it is a bit of a controversial area - though I suspect anyone who searches for videos about battery power is more likely to be in favour....

PPS - Sorry, just seen you're not interested in radio control, so please ignore my ramblings. I did try Aristo Train Engineer for about a year, but as I wanted to run several trains the wiring became really complicated. G gauge points aren't self isolating and so you need to include all sorts of isolated sections if you want to run more than one loco on DC

Rik

[philipy]

Of the top of my head, I can only think of one member who has built something along those lines and by coincidence he is located somewhere in your neck of the woods!
https://gardenrails.org/forum/viewtopic ... hilit=wago.

Generally speaking, track power outside is too much of a pain in the proverbial, and people then tend to convert their loco's to r/c subsequently. Rik's Peckforton blog has details of how he did that on a number of models.

Edited to add that whilst I was writing, I see that Rik has beaten me to it!

[ge_rik]

Edited to add that whilst I was writing, I see that Rik has beaten me to it!

PPPS - And Philip has interceded between me adding my PS and my PPS .....

[blythjunctionmike]

Hi, thanks for info from all that responded. I only have a simple end to end track with a few sidings planned so will likely only be running one loco at a time and see how it goes. I do have a couple of battery locos so will maybe try r/c on them.
Cheers
blythjunctionmike.

[Jimmyb]

Hi, Mike, I started in DC just over two years ago, with no intentions of moving to DCC, and in fact bought a second hand Aristocraft Train Engineer (TE) an ART 5470 . First these are not 2.4 Ghz, and secondly there are at least 3 versions I know of. The biggest issue is the company no longer exists and there is not support for them, however they do seem to be "hardy" Though still using my TE, I am moving to battery and live steam.
There is one person is USA that has a site that will give you a lot of information on the TE.

https://www.elmassian.com/index.php/lar ... n-engineer

[blythjunctionmike]

Yes, thanks to Jimmyb for that. Sort of had an idea about Aristocraft (using their stainless steel USA track and turnouts ) and have a train engineer control coming so I'll see how I get on.
Cheers
blythjunctionmike.