That's a brilliant piece of deduction and next time I'm home, I'll test your theory. Note that the sounds, whistle, bell etc. are working fine on address 4, only the motor drive is misbehaving. Don't know if that would fit your theory, but I'll give it a try.

Peter.

My 50 ton Shay (old #4) has been running on DCC without any issues since I purchased it in 2008. A couple of weeks ago I was ready to run her out of the basement to clean the tracks when I got sound but no movement. I moved her to the RIP track and hostled(?) up the 2 truck to take over the duties. No problem.

So this weekend I took a close look to try and figure out what may have happened. On the plug that goes into the third truck, I noticed that the gray wire (one of eight) was broken off. So I fired up the soldering iron and after some micro surgery (and a good deal of swearing) it was fixed. Put it on the rollers and... still sound (whistle, bell,etc.) but no movement.

So I opened up the coal bunker and started poking around. After much peering and poking, I found that the orange wire connect to the decoder (lower) board was disconnect, and might have been shorting with one o the other contacts on the four screw connector. Fixed that. Still only sound.

So I decided to reset the decoder, which is done by setting CV8 to 8. Keyed in #3 on the MRC Prodigy, sound and movement. Success!

So I program the loco to address #4, sound, but no movement? Back to #3, everything still works fine. Set to #2, everything works fine. Back to #4, no movement, but whistle, bell as before. Set to #24, where I left it, works fine. What's up?

I thought about some weird advanced consist problem, and set CV19 to 0. Made no difference and why would it only be effecting it when the address is #4?

I'm stumped. Any ideas?

Peter.

The Centennial Mogul will run fine on DC. You will need to remove the pins that Bachmann installed to supposedly help it track better. This is very easy, but if you don't do it they tend to foul any switches you may have on your layout.

Peter.

Anton, you may also find this useful. The LGB Mogul lacks a chuff sensor so in some ways this is a slightly harder install, but the principle is the same.

http://www.qsisolutions.com/products/techinfo/qaristo/q2_magnum_install.html

Good Luck. Peter.

What locomotive are you thinking about? The only Large Scale Bachmann locomotive with a decoder pre-installed (and therefore DCC equiped) is one particular version of the three truck Shay. The other lcomotives which are DCC ready will work with any DC power pack that can supply 18-24 volts and 2+ amps.

Peter.

The chuff contacts are in no way connected to the  track as in the Annie the chuff circuit is isolated. Wiring the Annie or DCC is a little tricky. Check out this site for great info on how to do it.

http://www.girr.org/girr/tips/tips.html

I have an Annie conversion to do over the winter and will be using a QSI Magnum decoder. A cheaper option I used in an Indy, a similar install to the MRC 1819. The MRC does not use a chuff sensor but can be adjusted to work pretty well.

http://www.mylargescale.com/Community/Forums/tabid/56/aff/34/aft/64544/afv/topic/Default.aspx

Good luck. Peter.

Stan, what is the correct config file for the QSI in the Mallet? I didn't see anything speciic to Bachmann on their download page.

Peter.

All Big Haulers since the version 5 use the same simple sound card, Anniversary or otherwise. The earlier versions had a sound card had no more features but had a different circuit which provided a little more realisitic chuff effect.

Check George W. Schreyer's page below for more info and a ton of tips.

http://www.girr.org/girr/tips/tips4/bachmann_sound_tips.html

Peter.

I've used them several times and have had no complaints.

I had trouble programming my DCC Shay on the programming track (MRC Prodigy Advance) and ended up getting a programming booster unit which solved the problem. I think the Tsunami-Lite sound decoder requires more juice than many DCC units can provide in prog mode.

Peter.

Mike, I just reread you original post.

For G scale, 12 x 6 is not going to give you many options, a helix or over/under trestle is just about impossible as the gradients involved would be too much. So you are either looking at some simple design ( see http://www.thortrains.net/ for a ton of ideas).

I would suggest you perhaps downsize to On30 which is still large enough to have some visual impact, runs on HO Z-Trak and will provide a lot more options in the space you have available.

Good luck. Peter.

Try RR Track ( http://www.rrtrack.com ) which I've used successfully for both G and HO layouts. They have a track library for EZ-Trak which I have used. The software is pretty easy to learn (vs CADrail), handles gradients, has a 3D viewer and I think could handle everything you are looking for.

Peter.

I also picked up a 39-Closed United Traction on eBay in the last few months.

No sliders, old style box, G7 on the inside flap. Looks like it's had very light use and since I plan to convert it to battery power and have it automatically shuttle back and forth, I'm not too concerned about pickup, so long as the block is reasonably reliable.

I'd be interested in figuring out it's age.

Peter,

Which sound module from IIT did you chose?

I have to agree with the earler posts, that the On30 Goose module has the best sounds. I have one to install over the winter. There are some videos on youtube (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0rOeRR_07w )  that show it in all it's glory.

The startup, acceleration and gears changes are really cool. You can buy that same sound file (25401) loaded to a ESU Loksound 3.5 decoder, but the best deal was when some dealers were dumping the PCM On30 Goose for an amazing price.

Peter.

So was I when I saw it at the Hartford show today. Very nice.