Just from a quick glance, it looks as if it may be DCC ready already. It would depend on if the motor receives current via the circuit board. If it does, a drop in decoder would be possible. Being that there is not one available now, a hard wire solution would be needed, but it would appear to not be too dificult.
I agree, Matt. There's no specific decoder for it as yet so a hard-wire solution may be needed. Depending on the motor contact arrangement, breaking into the board for wiring should be easy enough and a decoder would fit under the rear LED. I'll have a look tomorrow and see if one of the drop-in NCE/Digitrax/TCS decoders will fit (or made to ).
Do you only bring out certain locomotives at any given time? I find it really hard for me to put a loco away and not leave it sitting on the layout somewhere (even though it's just getting in the way).
Well usually I leave my MoPac locos on the layout, I can store 12 locomotives in the engine yard and then another 20 on different trains stored on the layout. I do change the roster around now and then and cycle Rio Grande, MKT, SP and WP locos on the layout also. Thats why I model fallen flags of UP as it allows a divers roster but the number one railroad on my layout would be MP. Here is a shot of the engine yard taken the other day with the GP38's on the far left.
I picked up one of the SP's from my LHS. It ran really well on test track at the shop, but squealed a bit at home. I reasoned that my home track has curves while the hobby shop is simply back and forth. After running it at half throttle for about fifteen minutes in both directions the squeal went away. Mine pulls really well as long as the curves are not too tight. It can yank a pretty good length of cars as long as the curves are not super tight. Mine spun a bit on the admittedly too tight 9.75" radius curves on my home test layout, but ran like a champ on the club layout. Adam
WOW!!! You have a couple great looking Mopac geeps Colonel. I'll definitely be getting a number of these and the GP20s as well, now that I know they run well. I've been seeing the GP20s for some time now but was a little bit hesitant because of the GP60s. I'd bought the GP60 last november while in NY, I love the look but it runs poorly out of the box. I must admit I haven't taken the time to break it in yet. I have plent of time though because I don't intend to part company with it. verse
