Yeah, apparently the whole controlling the train by the voltage¹ and polarity of the electricity in the rails has been replaced with little digital chips in the locomotives that let you control each locomotive independently and not have to have them in separate zones on the layout. I have a bunch of stuff in the basement from when I was thinking of getting back into the hobby around 2001 and then, well, 2001 happened and put that all on hold. Maybe sometime in the future or maybe I’ll just sell it all off.
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1. Or is it current? I have no idea,
And that's just DCC. You can also add in I2C, MQTT, Canbus, Ethernet, BiDiB, Modbus, etc the list goes on
Have a gander at https://www.jmri.org/help/en/html/hardware/index.shtml#netwo... for a good list of protocols
> Yeah, apparently the whole controlling the train by the voltage¹ and polarity of the electricity in the rails has been replaced with little digital chips in the locomotives that let you control each locomotive independently and not have to have them in separate zones on the layout.
Can I reuse the tracks (not the locomotives, just the track) from my Marklin HO and switch to digital trains? Sounds cool.
Yep. And you can simplify your wiring since you only need to put in insulators where there would be a potential short (e.g., a Y loop) and not split the layout into zones for operation.
Also adding the chip to a locomotive is a pretty simple thing so you can retrofit older locomotives (it’s also possible to mix non-digital locomotives with digital locomotives).