I have Thomas stuff running on a separate loop from DCC. The DCC loop powered by the Backmann transformer also has switches powered by a non-DCC transformer. I bought James from the Thomas seried, based on the hobby store guy telling me that it would run on DCC, under number 10. When I ran on DCC James gave off a sort of hissing sound. When I put it onto the Thomas track there was no sound. I flip-flopped the DCC engine a couple of times trying to see if having it on the track at the same time made a difference but it did not. As I was putting James away I got a whiff of what smelled like a burning odor. Does anyone know if there is something you need to do special when using the Thomas engines on DCC? Or maybe doing that is a bad idea altogether? I am hoping no damage was done.
DCC can run a DC loco after a fashion. But apparently it can damage the motor if the loco is left on the track without moving. That is because the way the DCC controller creates a kind of DC voltage for the DC loco leaves the full DCC AC voltage on the track. It seems without the motor turning a significant amount of AC current can be flowing through the motor, overheat it and burn it out.
This I have collected from others but it also makes sense technically in an electronics way.
Charles