Last updated: 19-05-2012
Useful links to 3rd party sites
Members Pages
On-line pages by MERG members
| 3D-Smartrax John Broadley (M2273) |
John's SmarTrax control and simulation software pages. |
| Coastal DCC Kevin Dickerson M2536 |
Supplier of DCC systems and sound projects, based in Ipswich. |
| Colchester MRC Paul Evans (M612) |
The word on the Colchester club by our former secretary. |
| Electrorail John Ferguson (M1098) |
John's N gauge DCC layout in detail. |
| Grovenor Sidings Keith Norgrove (M764) |
Keith offers a variety of pages including a turntable drive and some locomotive conversions. |
| Model Railways On Line Graham Plowman (M1162) |
Here Graham presents his layout and articles on DCC and other modelling topics. |
| Pendon Museum Paul King (M120) |
A UK registered charity and home to a permanent and automated railway modelling exhibit, Pendon Museum has a long association with MERG. |
| Pickit2 usage Harry Arends (M2237) |
Harry shows how he uses a Pickit2 with MERG kits |
| QTU, TCC etc. Howard Amos (M1025) |
Howard's site supports his software and hardware designs for layout automation and his plans for life in New Zealand. |
| Southlands Junction Mark Patrick (M1701) |
Mark shows off his layout complete with computer control. He also has a train speed check programme available for download. |
| Sprog Andrew Crosland (M1522) |
This link goes to Andrew's support pages for the kit version of the SPROG as sold by the MERG stores. |
| Tapiola Parish Model Railway Club Pekka Siiskonen (M756) |
An overview of how train operation and control is achieved on their club layout, including circuit details for the transistor throttle controllers and turnout controls |
| Using CBUS on the 2mm Freshwater Layout Ian Morgan (M2775) |
Ian Morgan describes the use of CBUS and his work in getting it ready for the Basingstoke 2mm Area Group |
Electronic/Industrial suppliers
Commercial sites offering equipment hardware and/or components
| A1micromotive | Suppliers of the Red Arrow infrared locomotive control system originally introduced by Exactoscale. |
| All Components | A bit of an exaggeration but a useful range of controllers and other parts for model railway electronics and they do have on-line ordering. |
| Anglia Components | The best prices if you are buying enough, watch for the minimum order value. |
| Antenna Models | Suppliers of Radio Control for Model Railways, good site for information. |
| Bitsbox | A hobby oriented supplier for those odd components. |
| Bowood Electronics | A supplier of electronic components to hobbyists with an easy to search site. |
| Branor Products | Electronic design and development, including fibre-optic lighting and video camera trucks. |
| Brian Jones Engineering | Specialist supplier of radio control for garden railways and other miscellaneous goodies. |
| CPC | Combined Precision Components, another on-line and mail order supplier apparently associated with Farnell. |
| CTI electronics | Provide modules, accessories and software for remote control of layouts from your PC, can be used with conventional or dcc systems. |
| Didel | A Swiss supplier for small motors and gears and extra small actuators. |
| ESR Electronic Supplies | An interesting range of electronic kit for the hobby. .pdf catalogue for download. |
| Express Models | Express provide a wide range of coach and locomotive lighting as well as other gadgets. |
| Farnell | One of the major mail order component suppliers, on line ordering too. |
| First Class Trains | Another supplier of coach and loco lighting and also smoke units. |
| Full Stop Signals | Offers kits comprising driver boards and servos to operate signals, including bounce. |
| GML Enterprises | Model Railroad Electronics |
| Greenweld | Greenweld has a miscellaneous collection of electronic and hobby items, if you are lucky you may find a bargain. |
| Grizzly Mountain Engineering | Sound systems including synchronising cams. |
| Heathcote Electronics. | Supplier of the well known IRDOT modules. the site has a detailed description. For US readers try the importer |
| Helmo | A german site offering transponders and readers to allow train identification independent of any control system. |
| Helmsman Electronics | Offers a range of electronics products, from power supplies up to 5 Amp capacity (some have a computer interface) to flashing tail lights for model railways. |
| Howes Models | A range of model railway supplies as well as servo motors. |
| Innovative Train Technologies | Lots of sound modules. |
| JLC Enterprises | Sells all the parts for the well known Bruce Chubb C/MRI including a current transformer based TOTI |
| Locolinc | Offer a radio control system for scales from N to G |
| Magenta Electronics | Offers various kits including the PIC driven stepper motor - useful for the 16C84 EE PIC programming. |
| Maplin MPS | The UK's well known electronics retailers. |
| Micromark | |
| Milford Instruments | UK supplier of "Flexinol" SMA Memory Wire and Stamp Basic-programmed microprocessors. |
| Miniatronics | Specialist in lighting for the hobbyist, supplies Yelloglo 'white' LEDs. |
| Modelex | A wide variety of DC controllers and electronic modules |
| Morley Controllers | A range of traditional styled controllers using 'centre off' style controls and with the added benefit of built in CDUs. |
| New York Railway Supply | Provide turntable indexing systems using stepper motors. |
| Nigel Lawton | 00-9 kits and supplies, good source for small motors and gearing. |
| Oak Tree Systems | Provide modules, accessories and software for remote control of layouts from your PC, can be used with conventional or dcc systems. |
| Online @ Microchip | Producer of PICmicro devices. Pages include product Application Notes and Datasheets. |
| Phoenix Sound Systems | Maker of sophisticated sound systems for the larger scales. |
| Rail-Lynx | Supplier of a 255 channel infra-red proprietary command control system for model railway control. |
| Rapid Electronics | One of the best on-line suppliers in the UK, reasonable prices and rapid delivery. |
| Riedon | A resistor manufacturer this site has a resistor handbook and technical data. |
| RS Components | Once the famous 'Radio Spares' now an industrial supplier but can come in handy. On line ordering and lots of downloadable data sheets. |
| RSH Electronics | Supply a range of electronic components including transistors, diodes, switches etc with no minimum order, and low postage. |
| Scalespeed | Rewinds, remagnetising and DCC for Hornby Dublo and Triang. |
| Signal Research | Offer a digital block control system, the site has now been expanded and has an interesting system description. |
| Technobots | Radio control, robotics, servos etc. |
| The Servo Shop | For a huge range of servo motors, useful to check specs. |
| Tractronics Inc | Rich Weyand has kits for sale and an interesting site. |
| Viessmann Models | German manufacturer of signals, lighting and other accessories. |
| W S Ataras Engineering | Signaling solutions for model railroads |
Model Railway Electronics
Non-commercial (or semi-commercial) pages providing model railway and/or electronic project information.
| Absolute Aspects | Supplier of bespoke signals formerly supplied by Roger Murray. |
| Adventure in Miniature | A dutch modelling site with some interesting electronic and DCC projects including memory wire point actuation. |
| Armadillo and Western | Another layout site with electronic projects attached |
| Control of Stepping Motors, a Tutorial | Doug Jones at the University of Iowa provides a description of how to control stepper motors for turntables and similar applications. |
| CR Signals | Supply Colour light signals and other illuminated accessories, mainly N gauge. |
| DCC N gauge | David Harris - David shares some of his ideas |
| DCC4PC | A site desribing development of a model railway automation system using 'railcom' readers |
| Electronic Circuits | A collection of circuits culled from magazines etc and presented in a rather unusual way |
| Electronics tutorials | This looks like it could be a useful on-line encyclopedia, for beginners and the more experienced, of electronics (and just about everything else too!) |
| Gateway NMRA | This NMRA region has an interesting section on electronics. |
| Green Gate | A german site offerring programming software for DCC |
| Hobby Projects | A collection of model railway related electronic resources. |
| Model Railroad Electronics Circuits | Rob Paisley describes many of the circuits used on the large 'O' scale layout of the London Model Railroad Group in Ontario, Canada. |
| Model Railroad System | A collection of applications for controlling and operating model railways, by Robert Heller of Deepwoods Software. |
| Model Railroading | Constant brightness lighting using the LM334Z |
| My Loco Sound | Offers sound boards for DC and DCC trains and also RTR units fitted in vans. |
| NWSL | The well known american wheel and gear maker, North west Short Line has diversified into production of a radio control for DCC with the S-cab |
| Power supplies | A site with some advice on using old computer power supplies. |
| Protrak | An electronic hobby site including a Railroad Signaling system |
| Rail Room Electronics | Retailer with an extensive range of own label electronic modules as well as ranges of signals and lamps. |
| Roger Amos | Well known author of MRE books, no longer active in the hobby but still interested, website gets you in touch with him if you want to discuss his circuits. |
| Rolling Rails | A supplier of locomotive testers, better priced than some. |
| Sierra Western & Santa Fe | A large US layout controlled by DCC. Pages include an overview of the Locomotive Control System. |
| Talking Electronics | This site provides a lot of beginners information and tutorials with particular emphasis on the use of PICs. Kits are on offer to support the tutorials and include a PIC programmer. |
| Tapiola Parish Model Railway Club | An overview of how train operation and control is achieved on their club layout, including circuit details for the transistor throttle controllers and turnout controls. |
| The Teton Short Line | is an established US model railroad by Wayne Roderick. His pages give a lot of information on the electronic systems used on the Teton Short Line. |
| Tillorps Mekaniska (The Tillorp Locomotive Works) | Download a complete NMRA compatible DCC system with 8 throttles and easy decoder programming capability, run trains with an inexpensive TV-remote, or build a simple actuator using Memory Wire. |
| Turntable Controls - An article | Fine Positioning using an Optical Interrupter |
| Turntable Controls - An article | Turntable at Malfunction Junction by Wayne Roderick |
| Turntable Controls - Image | |
| Wagonflow | Software for generating traffic and producing schedules and timetables, worth a look. |
| XTrkCad | A well featured program for designing a layout, "XTrkCad" includes templates for most commercial track and even for P4 track. Formerly offered as shareware XTrkCad is now available as a free download. |
Computer Software
Software appertaining to model railways.
| GPPSoftware | Graham Plowman offers 'SSI', also designed to drive the RPC system. |
| JMRI | Java Model Railroad Interface: This site supports a collaborative effort to develop Model Railway software in the open-source tradition. The first fruit of this endeavour is a DCC Programmer. |
| Railroad & Co. | A computer program to operate a layout from a PC running MS Windows. |
| Rocrail Rob Versluis M3498 |
Rocrail is an open source software project for layout automation and provides an alternative to JMRI |
| Sandia Software | Offers various model railway related software including 'Cadrail', a CAD program for model railway design. |
| WinRail | Layout design package. The demonstration version on-line for download contains libraries of 'Peco' and 'Hornby' track templates. |
Prototype Data
Information of possible interest to MERG members
| 25kV Overhead | Clive Mortimore provides drawings and details of the BR standard overhead, recommended. Update: 9th August 2012: SITE APPEARS TO BE LOCKED |
DCC - non-commercial
Non-commercial DCC equipment
| David Harris | |
| DCC Anti-Buzzing Circuit | A suggested modification by John Balogh to reduce the buzzing noise in motors. |
| DCC Basics - Presentations | A set of 4 presentations for downloading in .pdf format from Mark Gurries. |
| DCC Conversions for LGB | A useful set of pages for the Garden Railway lovers. |
| DCC decoder plugs and sockets. | Information on the 21pin plugs and sockets. |
| DCC DIY function only decoder | Interesting function decoders, economical if you want fancy lighting in coaches etc. By Paul Harman |
| DCC Helpful Hints | Dick Bronson covers DCC including block occupancy detection and remote control uncouplers. |
| DCC with an emphasis on Digitrax | Don Crano has lots of guidance for any DCC user and especially for Digitrax owners. |
| Dugglethorpe on the Web | A layout using DCC with hints and tips. |
| Embedded loconet | |
| Ideas | Ideas on innovations in dcc |
| Kenneth Jesser | |
| MiniDCC | |
| MYDCC | |
| National Model Railroad Association | The organisation administering the DCC Standard. Search the site for the official Standards and Recommended Practices for the NMRA DCC specification. Also for the list of commercial products that have been awarded NMRA Conformance Warrants and a links page with over 3000 railroad sites. See also John Balogh's NMRA site>/a> |
| NEM/MOROP | The European standards for model railways are available here, generally they adopt the NMRA standards for DCC but there are often presented a bit differently! |
| Shrinkingman | Rod covers smoking diesels, point machine operation and DCC. |
| Stefano Curtarolo | |
| TMWDCC Hardware | Circuit designs for DCC boosters, decoders, etc. Etched pcb's for the project are available from a company in Sweden. |
| VSDM | A Swiss DCC Group connected with Tanner of Winlok, proposing standard interface protocols for model railway use. (German language) |
| Wiring for DCC | These excellent pages by Allan Gartner give advice on wiring layouts for DCC. See also Alan's Q&A forum. |
DCC - UK
UK DCC manufacturers and suppliers
| Bromsgrove Models | Supplier of NCE, TCS, Digitrax, Zimo, Team Digital, Soundtraxx, Tam Valley Depot, DCC Specialities and ESU/Loksound DCC equipment, ITTC sound modules, the widest range of products from DCC Concepts in the UK, and a number of products from other manufacturers including Joe's Trains and New Rail Models. Shop run by John Russell M2146. Member discounts are offered. |
| CML Electronics | A small supplier of DCC accessories |
| DCC Supplies | A UK specialist DCC supplier, selling a wide range of the major equipment plus accessories. They are also UK distributors for Pricom (DCC testers and Dream Players). They specialise mainly in DCC, supplying Lenz, ESU, Gaugemaster, Digitrax, NCE, Digirails, Zimo etc. and also a full range of maintenance and other essentials, including track. |
| DCC Train Automation | A DCC supplier concentrating on automation products |
| Digitrains Ltd | Offer DCC kit and associated accessories, dealers for NCE, TCS, ESU/Loksound and others. Run by a MERG member, check the members' pages for discounts offered. |
| Dynamis by Bachmann | A site to extoll the virtues of the new Bachmann DCC system, very high spec for the price. |
| Gaugemaster | After years of selling standard DC controllers Gaugemaster have expanded into DCC with a range based on the American MRC Prodigy advance. |
| Heathcote Electronics. | Supplier of DCC controlled coach lighting units |
| Locolines | Locolines offer DCC decoders under their own name as well as other related supplies |
| M G Sharp | Agent's for all of the following DCC manufacturers Lenz (which they sell at a discount, approx 10%), TCS, Digitrax, NCE, TCS and Bachmann EZ DCC. |
| Scalerail | Scalerail of Horley, Surrey sell Lenz and provide on-line sales. |
| South West Digital | Supplier of ESU Loksound dcc, they have the manuals on line in English. |
| Sunningwell Command Control | Ted Smale imports Digitrax and Soundtrax equipment. |
| Wickness Models | Wickness Models offers a bespoke conversion service for OO and N gauge models covering UK, European and US manufacturers. They also offer a line of Lenz, CT Elektronik and Hornby DCC equipment and decoders. All enquires welcome. (Run by MERG Member No: 3363) |
DCC - Europe
European DCC manufacturers and suppliers
| CT elektronic | Austrian supplier of decoders and some other electronic goodies. |
| Dietz Modelbahntechnik | Offer a variety of DCC items |
| ESU Loksound | German alternative to Soundtraxx with some innovative features. |
| Fleischmann | Manufacturer of FMZ, now upgraded to a dual NMRA and FMZ system. (German language). |
| Haber & Koenig Elektronik | Decoders and test kit, also embedded controls. |
| HDL | Multilingual Hobby site by Hans Deloof with an economical range of accessory boards for use with Loconet, includes Servo drivers, block detectors and I/O boards. |
| Helmo | Offer a transponder system for feedback from dcc systems (German language). |
| LDT | Littfinski have a variety of DCC modules including accessory decoders. |
| Lenz | German manufacturer producing products to the NMRA DCC specification. |
| Märklin | German manufacturer well known for their model railway products not NMRA compatible but their own Märklin format dcc. (German language). |
| Uhlenbrock | German manufacturer of analogue and digital items including the "Intellibox" multiprotocol command station, site is in German but English manuals are available for downloading. |
| Umelec | Swiss manufacturer of very sophisticated decoders incorporating sound and an auto signalling feature. |
| Viessmann Models | German manufacturer of accessory decoders. |
| Zimo | Austrian manufacturer producing high specification DCC products. |
DCC - USA
USA DCC manufacturers and suppliers
| Blackstone Models | A division of Soundtraxx established to market DCC and Sound equipped H0n3 trains. |
| CVP Products | Supplier of the EasyDCC system ready made or as the kits featured in Model Railroader Magazine. |
| DCC-Bitswitch | A DCC supplier with a range of automatic control modules |
| Digitrax | Manufacturer of DCC products that are popular with North American users. |
| Loys Toys | Former US (West Coast) retailer now a site for DCC information. |
| Model Railroad Solutions | Canadian supplier of Zimo and Loksound amongst others. |
| Model Rectifier Corp. | Makers of the Prodigy and Prodigy advance DCC system. |
| North Coast Engineering | Manufacturer of the North Coast Master Series DCC System and North Coast Decoders. North Coast now have their own site. |
| Soundtraxx. | DCC Sound Systems, site includes samples. |
| Team Digital | A variety of advanced DCC accessories |
| Train Control Systems. | A supplier of decoders. |
| tttrains World of DCC | A comprehensive compilation of DCC information. |
DCC - Rest of world
Worldwide DCC manufacturers and suppliers
| DCC Concepts | An Australian supplier of DCC systems and related accessories. Good on advice and assistance, especially for DCC sound and LED lighting. Check out his service and prices, can be competitive when buying from the UK. |
| DXDC | DXDC make decoders for Chinese locos including sound decoders, and can be purchased here |
Courses
Learn more about model railways and electronics
| Missenden Abbey | An annual weekend course on model railway electronics as well as others on other modelling topics. Tutors for the electronics course come from MERG and it is masterminded by member Chris Langdon. |
SMA (Memory Wire)
Pages providing information for this developing technology suitable for point and signal operation, and other applications.
| Flexinol Wires | Information on "Flexinol" Memory Wire by the UK supplier, Milford Instruments will be found under 'Animatronics'. |
| Muscle Wires and Nitinol | Product information and specification prepared by US supplier, Robotstore. |
| Pro-Rail | Supplied memory wire specially developed for modelling applications (refer to TB G22/1 by Mike Walshaw) but manufacturing now ceased. The Website includes a comprehensive section on memory wire explaining how and why. |
Helpful sites
On-line courses and manuals etc.
| Basic Soldering Guide | On-line course from EPE Magazine |
| PIC Microcontrollers | On-line book on PIC programming from 'mikroElektronika', 9 chapters, very comprehensive introduction. |
| Right Track DVDs | Offer instructional DVDs for modellers. MERg member Howard Watkins has contributed to the electronics issues. |