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[raflaunches]

I’ve been researching into see how I could get the railway section of my Train Ferry operational if it was desired. The models I have are DCC ready and essentially look to me like a receiver we use just without the casing. So it now comes to the ‘transmitter’ end of this system I was looking into the ‘digital controller’ and was shocked at the price for a new item. What I thought would be a basic ‘cheap’ device was approx £326! That was a Hornby Elite controller. What makes them so expensive compared to our radios? We can get a decent 2.4GHz set for about £50-75 but why would a majority of these controllers be in the hundreds? Any ideas why?

[Andyn]

Model railway kit is like left handed screwdrivers - take the price, double it and add an extra zero to the end...

[raflaunches]

It’s almost like they’ve taken advice from the aviation industry with the amount of zeros added afterwards

[Bunkerbarge]

The cheapest DCC controller at the moment from an established manufacturer is the Bachmann 36-502 E-Z Command Plus at around £150.00.  That is considerably cheaper than your high end radio transmitters.  As with everything you pay for the level of sophistication you want.  Of course you are paying for a whole range of functionality, such as accessory controls, that you are maybe not going to use running a locomotive on and off a ferry model.  If that is all you want to do then you might be better considering a straightforward DC controller, which can run a locomotive on and off the ferry and be significantly cheaper.  I think the basic Hornby DC controller is about £25.00.  If however you want the locomotives to make all the right noises, have control over the loco signal lamps and be able to creep on and off at an impressively slow pace then it might have to be DCC.  Are there points on the ferry?  Do you want to control them as well?


Don't forget if you want sound then the sound capable DCC decoders are now well over £100.00 and you'll need speakers and, if you are going over gaps in the track stay alive capacitors are probably worth thinking about. You are looking at around 150 to 160 pounds for a good decoder with speaker and stay alives. And that is in each locomotive!  DCC ready means they are DC configured and still need the DCC decoder etc. fitting.  They have a control card fitted to the pins of the socket for DC operation, this has to be removed and a DCC decoder fitted for DCC operation.  "DCC Ready" simply means it has this socket arrangement so you can easily make the switch, it doesn't mean it contains the DCC decoder.

[Umi_Ryuzuki]

Are you making an RC ferryboat rail trains operational, or making an operational ferry for your model railway?

[raflaunches]

Hi Bunkerbarge


Many thanks for the explanation, I was trying to understand how in technical terms how a controller for a locomotive is relatively expensive in comparison-my ignorance is because I’m comparing it to a standard aircraft/boat transmitter/receiver which only needs one channel to carry out that job. That’s why I was wondering in its basic form it’s a single channel transmitter but better more sophisticated controllers it controls sound/lights/etc with realistic creeping motion and pre-programmed set ups


Hi Umi
I’m thinking of getting my existing 1/72 scale WW1 Train Ferry operational for the rails, it sails already but I was looking into possible options and since the two locomotives are DCC ready I was wondering if that was the way to go.

[Bunkerbarge]

The big difference Nick is that you can be controlling more than one locomotive at the same time and simply change over functions in the controller to operate lights, points, sounds etc.  A high end loco decoder is handling the same level of complex control that you might find in a single transmitter/receiver set up in a RC model.  In my particular control unit I can be controlling ten locomotives simultaneously at that level and can change any one of them over at any time to another one in the memory.


Umi, this is the ferry Nick is referring to:


https://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,49616.0.html




What do you actually want to do with the ferry?  Run the trains off onto a set up track or shunt things around on the ferry?  If your current locos are "DCC Ready" then they are currently DC and a 25 quid controller would make them move.  I see on the pictures you do have points fitted.  Maybe for a bit of life just having a little shunting engine moving around the deck would be very effective.

[raflaunches]

Hi Bunkerbarge


I’m not sure what to do at the moment, the main load at the moment is two railway 14” guns and their associated carriages. I have a Deans Locomotive (ROD) and the locomotive which came with the Ambulance Train Number 40. I believe they would pull the railway guns on to the ferry and then rely on smaller dockyard shunters to move the smaller rolling stock. Looking in to how the DCC controllers can control a decent number of locomotives from one device it might be the way to go as I could set up a small scene at Harwich with a linkspan bridge. It would need some thought before I commit.

[Bunkerbarge]

OK, you could connect the track on the ferry to a 'shoreside' track and then everything on the ferry could be controlled through that connection.  You could change the points, operate lighting, operate the locomotives, have sound etc.., all controlled through that track connection.  Then you would have to buy a DCCcontroller unit and fit the two locomotives with DCC decoders and speakers, capacitors as required.  Don't forget to factor in point motors and decoders for changing the points if you decide you want to do that.  That could also be done through your RC transmitter using servos if you have enough spare channels.

[Circlip]

Remember when six function (virtually all propo sets at the time) R/C gear was around £150? Sanwa Mini Two gave the market a good kicking at just under £50 and must have boosted the sales of toy boats, cars and aircraft.


 'Orses for courses, look at the price of many of the super whizz bang R/C gear now.


  Regards  Ian.

[raflaunches]

Thanks for the advice, I shall look into what I need or what I’d like to have. It’s a few years from existing as I’d have to build the linkspan bridge but it would give me the time to plan it all.

[Colin Bishop]

You could do all that Nick, but by the sound of it would take up a lot of space, cost a lot of money and how often would you actually use it? There are hardly any shows left now to show it off and maybe even less in the future.

Colin

[tonyH]

 

[Umi_Ryuzuki]

Similar to Nick, Bunkerbarge's advice, you could power the shore and rail bridge.
When the ferry docks the rail bridge will energize the ferry rails, port and starboard.
Your shore power could be switched to port or starboard rails, and operate fwd/rev to either
set of rails onshore, and subsequently onboard the ferry. No DCC required. Just power, throttle and track select switch.

[grendel]

the linkspan at richborough was fairly simple, and would have been where trains were loaded during wartime.

[grendel]

further to my comments above, I today consulted the ferry oracle (my 90 year old dad) and he told me there was a new book about richborough (Engineering Richborough by Colin Varrall- ISBN 978-1-5272-9346-5.) which even has a picture showing the train ferry carrying the gun barrels for the bosh buster and another railway gun.
He also told me (and showed evidence) that the linkspan and supporting structure at Harwich is one and the same linkspan and structure that was moved there from Richborough after the war.

[grendel]

apparently the best turnaround time for berthing unloading reloading and departing was just 19 minutes (its sometimes hard to stop my dad once you have wound him up and set him going) and it is also possible they used extender wagons (empty wagon chassis ) to extend the reach of the locos so they did not need to board the ferry to hook up, thus you dont get the sudden weight of the loco affecting the level of the ship.

[KitS]

When I worked for BR in the 70s, we took one of our Lab Coaches to a UCI conference in Utrecht and we went on a train ferry, the Tunnel not having opened yet.


Our trip was from Dover to Dunkirk and there was a lock at each end for the ferry to load and unload in, so I doubt they had to use a linkspan as they did at Harwich. The ferry staff were upset that my colleague and I refused to leave the coach during the sailing, and threatened us with all sorts of stuff, but as we were all BR employees and we outranked them by quite a few levels, we stayed in there.