@Rich Melvin posted:I think it’s a shame that egos, corporate pride, and corporate greed have resulted in 3-rail operators being forced to use several different, unwieldy, and incompatible digital control systems. It’s a system of forced brand loyalty, and it is very short-sighted.
The HO scale manufacturers realized a long time ago that what was best for long term survival of everyone in the business was to adopt a standard digital control system (the NMRA Standard DCC System) across the board.
Sadly the die is now so firmly cast in three-rail that we’re stuck with systems that are loaded with silly gimmicks and far too many buttons on the controllers, but are very short on reliability, easy installation and basic functionality for just running trains.
100% agree we'd all be ahead if 20+ years ago Lionel and MTH just adopted the DCC standard every other scale uses. But 3 rail has to be special.
Also people complaining about the cost of having both systems are being a bit silly. 10 years ago the cost to have both Legacy and DCS on a layout would be about $550, so the price of one locomotive. When someone with 100 locomotives and a large layout complained about the "cost" of the other system it was basically a brand loyalty argument.
