I have ordered and received 3 ON30 locomotives since Feb 5, 2009 and all 3 have been defective. Now I know this because I have a locomotive here that runs great on my track, runs around to beat the band. It's not sound but it runs. I have verified my DCC track voltage at 13 volts. I won't mention the retail store I purchase these loco's from because I don't consider it their fault. These were brand new, sealed in the factory sealing, locomotives from Bachmann. The first one came ran fine once around my track and then started acting up, go stop go stop. So I'm thinking it's my problem, track needs work. I ran two bus wires down the middle of my layout, one red, one black. Then to these two bus wires I ran drop wires from wired rail joiners, the leads from the joiners are 6-8 inches long at the most, I soldered these small wires to 16 AWG wire and connected them to the main bus wires, soldering them. I don't like butt connectors or suitcase connectors. I then ran an ohms test on my track, both rails, all the way around. It's basically a simple oval with two turnouts, only one of which is powered by AC from an analog power pack, in fact right now I'm just switching it manually the same as the other switch, which is only manual. Now the Colorado Mining Rail Truck, which is DCC, (no sound) runs around fine. I have had a 2-4-4 Forney that was bad, sent back to the retailer. I then had a Climax, that ran around the track once and as far as I can tell the main gears in the gearbox where the motor runs to broke. I know this because I isolated both front and rear trucks, took them apart and verified the gears on them. So it broke. Mind you this is right out of the box. Then today I received another 2-4-4 Forney w/Tsunami sound installed in it from the factor. Took it out of the box, put it on my track, made a high pitched sound like it was firing up then pop! and nothing! This is 3 loco's in the past month, brand new from Bachmann that have failed. I called customer service this afternoon (3/5/09) and was basically given the run-around. I was told to call Soundtraxx, "they make the decoders, you'll have to call them", when I mentioned that this was the 3rd loco in a month that failed the customer service rep said she couldn't help me "would I like to talk with a Manager"? I said "Yes, I would", at which point I was transferred to someones voice mail, I say "someones" because I couldn't hear who's voice mail it was. Then click. I called back and got "Bridgets" voice mail and left her a message concerning my problems. I venture to say I won't get a reply. Is this the type of customer service that I can expect from Bachmann? I am frustrated, tired, and about ready to toss all of this. I have never been treated so rudely. I thought this was going to be fun, it has been nothing but headaches.

I am wiring my layout, adding terminal joiners with soldered wires in various places around the layout. It's not big, yet!  It's only about 12 feet long by 4 foot wide, dogbone style. My questions I guess is this. Don't I have to keep the outside rail separate from the inside rail on my feeder wires? I can't just twist the two feeder wires from the outside rail and inside rail together and attach to one main bus!? I am using Bachmann track and I picked up some presoldered rail joiners at a hobby store here in the Mpls area. I plan to try and add feeder wired around every rail joiner but that's a huge undertaking and trying to solder something that small. WOW! Must take an awfully small tipped soldering iron!
Do I have to keep those rails separate? I'm not making any cross overs, no figure eights, I will have one passing siding. It's pretty simple right now. I figured start small and work up.  HELP! 

I am new to On30 scale having dabbled in HO some, but not with DCC. I am currenlty building a layout in my basement that is going to extend about 11 feet and come out from the wall about 4 ft. I am looking at purchasing a DCC  and sound ready steam locomotive, preferably Bachmann. The one I am looking at is a Spectrum Steam Powered 28-Ton 2-Truck Class B Climax w/Straight Boiler-Pocahontas Lumber Company #7. The Bachmann product number is bac25760. It says it is DCC and sound ready, which I believe means it's ready for the install of a decoder as well as a sound decoder/speaker. I know only what I've been able to read about online concerning DCC. I have a On30 scale train by Bachmann but it is only DC (A Thomas Kinkade Christmas set). What do I need for a decoder? Will the E-Z Command Decoder w/NMRA plug #44915 work? It says this decoder has 28/128 speed steps, service mode decoder lock, programming on the main, 2 or 4 digit addressing, advanced consisting, etc. What sound decoder should I be looking at? I would like one that has a lot of sounds to it. Any help would sure be appreciated. Thanks