#3 - Designing the D-Saver Layout @DriverDTrains

[@BriansModelTrains]

Wonderful video. Keep up the great work.

[@DriverDTrains]

Thank you so much for your kind comments. I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I've been focussed on trying to get all the "how-to" videos done but am looking forward to posting some "operating session" videos someday too! Thanks again! DD

[@IC2500]

Nice work.

[@DriverDTrains]

Thanks you very much for your kind comment. I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I hope you've had a chance to check out some of the others. Thanks again, DD

[@philnewman1110]

This is bad! I just watched this and now realised I need a switching layout as well as my main layout, not sure what "she who must be obeyed" will have to say about that though! This looks like a lot of fun, I have got Railmodeller Pro as I designed my main layout on it, the bit I had not seen was where you had models of wagons that you could put on the layout though. Great video as always, thanks again!

[@DriverDTrains]

lol Thanks for all your kind comments. I'm glad you are enjoying the videos. I really enjoy the switching aspect of model train operations, and when you have a very small layout as I do it becomes a kind of puzzle. It's like playing a game with trains, and for me never gets boring as I can continue to switch up the locomotives and rolling stock for variety. And I'm glad I was able to show you something new in Railmodeler. Thanks again! DD

[@plamoanddiorama8528]

Anybody having the same problem with the throttle app that when I hit 'Stop', suddenly the lights switch direction. The direction itself doesn't change, so it's quite confusing when te train travels the other direction. The light do change back tough when driving again.

[@DriverDTrains]

Thank you for your kind comments and question. I'm not entirely certain what is going on with your lights, but there are two broad areas of possibility. * The first is what kind of decoder you have in the locomotive, what kinds of headlight options it offers for switching the lights based on direction (or when stopped), and how it is currently programmed. Question 1: Does the light always switch to one side (i.e. to Front Headlight when moving backwards, but not the other way around) or does the behavior occur in both directions? Question 2: Do you also see both front and rear headlights come on at once? * The second possibility is that the NMRA DCC standard actually specifies two different values for no speed. The first is Speed Step 0, which means set the speed to 0 and let the locomotive do whatever it is programmed to do under that circumstance (which does not necessarily mean stop). Some controllers/throttles refer to this as the "Idle" position. If the locomotive decoder is programmed with a lot of momentum, the locomotive may still continue to move for quite a while even when the speed is set to 0 or Idle. Most of the controllers I have seen will not change the locomotive's direction (forward/reverse) when you move the throttle to 0 or use the "Idle" button. The other is no-speed setting is Speed Step 1, which means "Emergency Stop" or eStop. This instructs the locomotive to stop right now no matter what the other decoder settings are. I don't know whether this is a common (or universal behavior), but I have seen in some cases that when you use the eStop command to stop the locomotive, the locomotive will stop with the speed direction set to forward. This would therefore change the headlight to forwards when eStopping while moving backwards. Also, I don't know whether this applies to your scenario however, because you mentioned that the locomotive keeps moving in the appropriate direction when you start it up again. However, there is one more wrinkle in this, because there are actually two values for each speed step; one for forward and one for reverse. So Speed Step 0 is actually reverse speed 0, and Speed Step 128 is forward speed 0, and so on. So it could be that the locomotive is eStopping and changing its direction to forward, but then the throttle still knows it is supposed to be going in reverse and therefore the locomotive moves in the direction you expect when you apply the throttle again. I don't think I've ever seen this happen the other way though, so if you are having strange headlight behavior in both forward and reverse directions, I don't know that this would make sense. Anyway, hope this information helps you to figure out what is going on. Thanks again and good luck! DD