Having read some suggestions and warnings from various places, a couple of questions occurred to me. No 1. Because you are using DCC with NCE do you really need to add power wires underneath the layout to each track section to insure there is enough operating current to eliminate problems? No 2. I am not certain roadbed is necessary, or perhaps not the commercial roadbed anyway. I see good looking layouts that look like they just use a little faux gravel alongside and between the tracks.
It would probably depend upon what you wish to depict. A well groomed right of way, raised with clean ballast, ditched and brushed? Or a line which has received less maintenance over the years?
I have little experience with DCC. I know of one modeler in england who uses DCC on a HO garden railway without power drops. He merely re crimps the fishplate joiners now and then with pliers. Then again having power drops here and there seems like good practice. Perhaps you don't have to be as obsessive as common practice suggests. On my N scale layout I had just two leads to two connected ovals on a door panel and never had trouble. You don't need to use roadbed. it's really a matter of taste, one reason people do use it is to absorb noise. I sort of like my trains noisy.
Depends on what you are trying to model. If a heavy main ,line, well maintained, by all means show a good roadbed. If a yard, no, or if you do, ballast the six foot to show little depression between tracks. Branch lines or poorly maintained main, no. Look at some photos of Cajon, or Tehachapi. I'm using roadbed on the line I am building now, but the yards will be filled to tie height with foam board first, then ballast. Using TruScale, can't get away from it! Dave
Some lumbering operations, perhaps a little more sophisticated, did have ballasted tracks. Such as Weyerhaeuser, Georgia-Pacific, and Rayonier. Others were a lot more rough set, as a spur might only be in long enough to load out a particular area being cut. A mining operation would likely last longer, so likely have some ballasting as a lot of tonnage might be moving out.
Atlas flex track is excellent stuff. I can't comment on switch motors because all of my switches are manually operated.
As a DCC user, I've never regretted using power drops for each section. Electrical continuity is an important aspect of DCC operation. As for roadbed, also a personal choice. I use cork roadbed both for looks and it's sound deadening qualities. Carl
The engineers who devise and improve DCC components generally advise us to use frequent pairs of feeder wires. You don't need them soldered to every length of rail, although many old-timers swear that it's the only way to assure oneself of continuity throughout a track plan. However, you should ensure each 10' or so of rail gets its own pair of feeders. The reason is that the feeders, themselves, are poorer conductors than are the wires elsewhere in the power system, so they tend to drop the voltage. Then, you have infrequent poorer conducters extending their power supply along longer lengths of rails between the feeders, another source of voltage drop. When the voltage in a DCC system drops by more than about one full volt, sometimes less, the short circuit detection circuitry in the base stations can't detect the short properly. But, the amperage still courses through the decoders, and the decoders heat up quickly and burn out because the short detection circuitry doesn't detect the short and shut off power to the track. That is why the wisdom is to feed DCC tracks regularly.
