Inverboyndie is a compact terminus / shunting layout based on Banff in Morayshire in the 1960s but has one link with our layouts because it also has a gravity train feature - loose shunting of carriages in order to get the engine on the other end of the train without the aid of a run round loop (or a second locomotive).
This feature (achieved by cheating with a powered carriage bogie) is made immeasurably easier since the invention of DCC - and it was my first experience of using this new fangled technology.
I can't deny I was impressed but I would be lying if I said I enjoyed it more than running an old-fashioned DC wired layout.
Frankly I found it a bit of a faff!
There's something very intuitive about twiddling a knob to control a train but I didn't get any of that with a DCC handset - it felt more like a double maths period with a scientific calculator in your hand.
There's nothing pleasingly tactile about pushing buttons for me.
Ah, said my friend, but with DCC you're really driving the train, not just controlling a motor, and I could see what he was getting at, because the simulated deceleration does mean you have to concentrate and anticipate what you're doing a lot more.
(It also massively increased the opportunities for pile-ups with inexperienced operators....)
But it was all the upshift, downshift, function x, y and z to control the whooshes, hisses and toots that got my eyes glazing over.
There's an old saying, that people in my trade like to hang on to, that the pictures are better on radio, and part of me thinks that this applies to model railways as well.
I quite like daydreaming and hearing the sounds in my head as I operate a layout rather than having a computer chip in control.
Just me?
I agree about the buttons not seeming as natural.
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