DCC + Young Kids = Plenty of chances for a cornfield meet!
Monday, December 25, 2006 at 12:08PM Yahoo! DC is dead. Long live DCC!!!
I recently, finally, entered the DCC world when I received a Digitrax Super Chief for my 44th birthday. Great stuff despite the surprisingly bad Digitrax documentation. More on that later. One of the nice things about DCC of course is the ability to run multiple trains simultaneously.
Little kids and DCC
The kids warmed to DCC straight away. Compared to the other electronic gadgets they are comfortable with, DCC is a picnic for them. Natalie figured out how to get the headlights to go on and off within ten seconds through some random button pushing. They liked that aspect a lot.
My kids thought it was great to each have their own train. Our little layout is basically a loop with a siding and a few spurs. That means, in theory, two trains can coexist, but it depends a lot on the abilities of the engineers.
Locomotives are more responsive under DCC which is also better for kids. My impression is that there are fewer dirty track issues too perhaps due to the higher operating voltage. All good things for little operators who are pretty much geared for instant feedback.
I bought an additional throttle right away. The second throttle is a Digitrax UT4 throttle which my 4-year-old declared was his throttle the moment it came out of the box. The big knob is perfect for little hands.
Cornfield Meets
The main thing I noticed with DCC, apart from the increased involvement of the kids, was the number of times I had to prevent one train skewering another. But what was interesting is the kids quickly figured out they had to share the single track. One would wait on the siding while the other ‘had a drive’ then they’d swap. Okay, I have to ‘fess up that this only lasted for about ten minutes but the right seeds have been planted.
So even though I have to work a little harder to keep the trains upright and separated, it’s worth it.
