Not much happening at the moment!

Basically, I have made a decision. I have opted for Railroad & Co. based on:-

1. Personal recommendation.
2. A very detailed manual.
3. Good trade support (e.g. CML’s superb DTM30 control panel)
4. Excellent response to my emailed queries.
5. Seems to be quite intuitive with good functionality.
6. Full support for most of my preferred DCC systems: Digitrax, Lenz, ECoS (ESU), Zimo & NCE (the only missing systems are Prodigy which it does not support and Dynamis which will hopefully be supported as it is an ESU product developed with Bachmann).

I don’t plan to do any further work on this until all of the track is wired up and running. I will then set about installing detection units.

I did also consider the freeware, Digital Direct, which claims to not actually need any DCC system as it can control the trains directly from the computer.

If I decide on a Digitrax system, I will use LocoBuffer II to connect the Loconet bus to the computer via a USB port. Modern computers don't often carry serial ports these days, especially very small laptops. It is important to note that not all serial>USB converters will work in this particular context as a particular baud rate is required. However, i have been assured that Locobuffer will work. This connection is vital for long term functionality. If the computer connection was to rely on the Digitrax serial connector, I would actually have ruled out Digitrax from my list of possible DCC systems.