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.