Getting professional installation of DCC is one of the best ways you can spend your money, in my thinking.  Unless you really, really like playing with electronics and extreme micro soldering.  Some folks do, more power to them.  But we have gotten people on here before whose first question is how to make the train go and the next question is how do I install DCC.  I've spent a fair amount of money having a pro install DCC/sound in well over 25 engines, but then, he is a friend and gives me good rates.  Because of that, I've never burned out a decoder or put my soldering iron through a plastic engine shell.

What a great layout!  I'm new to the hobby.  Been working on my small 4 X 8 layout for 6 months........and not close to being finished.  Curious as to just how long you've been working on this?  I can see from this thread it's over 4 years.  But it looks like you were at it for some time when you posted that first pic.

A minor correction, l have discovered that there is another British maker with a small range of quite different ready-to-run O16.5 models, so Bachman is not the first. It looks as though the scale, the British equivalent of On30, is on the increase there.

Hamish

Bachmann Europe have announced a new range of O Scale narrow gauge trains that they are calling NG7 scale. These are British O scale (7mm to the foot or 1/43.5) running on 16.5mm gauge track. Up to now this scale has been called O16.5 in the UK. Bachmann's announcement is the first ready-to-run in this scale, though kits etc have been available from other makers. Bachmann have announced Hunslet quarry locomotives in cab and cabless versions, two types of slate wagons and a coal wagon. Quarry Hunslets are very small 0-4-0 tank locomotives originally used in slate quarries in Wales and now preserved on tourist narrow gauge railways.

The scale is of course larger than ON30 though running on the same track, but given the small size of the prototypes they may look not too out of scale with ON30 equipment, Bachmann has created its own couplers for this range, however the locomotives use NEM 362 coupler pockets, so knuckle style couplers should be able to be fitted. Not sure about the wagons.

I realise that this range may not be of much interest to American modellers, but here in Australia narrow gauge railways often used a mixture od American, British and European equipment, so they could be useful.

In any event it is good to see that at least one branch of Bachmann sees a future for O scale narrow gauge models.

Hamish

Got one in mind

It's easy if you let a pro do it

How hard is it to add sound to a DCC ON BOARD ENGINE
AND CHANGE SOME OF THE SETTINGS

I am on vacation this week, I need to get down to the bench and start something. Thank you for sharing Ken.

Yeh.  EZ Command is just the thing in certain settings.

I bought the E-Z Command Plus and went back to my standard E-Z Command. I didn't like the "infinite" throttle. I didn't care for the additional function stuff because I just like the simplicity. Others want more settings to play with. Once I  got it, I asked myself what else I wanted change and couldn't think of anything. I already have the separate little CV programmer that I use for the speed stuff.