Comparing Legacy to DCS

http://www.lionel.com/GettingS...egacy/legacyHome.cfm

I recommend you find a friend or club with Legacy and spend a little time with it.  You'll never get a "feel" for it in ASCII.

To answer the three specific questions you ask:

1.I have never actually noticed DCS engines going up a grade doing the sort of automatic labor/drift you describe - I thought that labor/drift did vary automatically with throttle changes. Under Legacy there are a lot more ways to manually control labor effects than with DCS.

2. "Speed steps" are no big deal, especially with Legacy engines; and even with most TMCC engines there's only one adjustment needed when using Legacy control. Slow speed control under Legacy is really very much, much better than with DCS engines.

3.  No, no broadcast feature under Legacy but I doubt that you'll notice its absence once you hear Legacy sounds.

More generally, if you want to take advantage of Legacy engine features you have to have Legacy control instead of TMCC and a slight downside is that you can't run TMCC through a DCS control set.

On the Lionel website linked above there's access to the V. 1.5 Legacy manual, which if you haven't looked at yet is worth a read. It's much easier to penetrate than the DCS manual and gives a good idea what features Legacy engines have.

I have often wondered if anyone has ever done an objective side by side analysis of the two systems, listing all the features of each.  I only have DCS and especially like the ability to read the hours and mileage on each engine! Of course the answer is to just buy both since they both work together rather seamlessly, then you aren't restricted in your buying options!  After all it is only another $350 or so which is about the cost of almost any new command control (diesel) engine.  

At any rate some good study of both MTH and Lionel website should get you going.  

Not really true, you can connect the Legacy command base to the TIU and run TMCC locomotives from the DCS remote.  You can also run Legacy, but obviously without the extra Legacy features, you'll be running them in TMCC mode.

I'm with Dave, I ended up with both.  Each has their good and bad points, and more importantly, you'll see Lionel or MTH stuff that you really want, why be limited to one brand?

I think the best way to do this is to ask specifics.  There are some many things that could be gone through.

DCS and Legacy do what they do best when operating their respective equipment.

I run 'em both and like different aspects of each.  And dis-like certain aspects.  But I do like that each one gets the most of their respective equipment.

John is right; I should have said that you cannot access Legacy features through the DCS control.