that kept the Tortise machine from operating the turnout properly. I had to disconnect two others; lesson learned and applicable to work on the other (right) half later this year. Many thanks to all those who took their time to make suggestions - - all of which were helpful.   Now, with track down and tested, turnouts wired and tested; it's time to start on my favorite part - - SCENERY! 

Recently I brought some big engines out of storage to run in the club (my shelf layout is suitable to switchers, not 6 axle engines like my C44-9W or SD70ACe). Both locomotives are athearn and are fitted with Tsunami sound decoders. On the club the locomotives did not move. Both were responsive to DCC comands, turning lights on and off, bell, horn, prime mover sounds and all. Today I disassembled them and tested both with a multimeter. The motor outputs in both decoders were zero, even at full speed (I had removed the worm gear and shafts so no mechanical binding could happen).

I know it may be early days for this question to be asked, but here I go anyway.

My 2 Bowser SD40-2s turned up recently and I believe they are excellent models. I have pulled the body off one to see what is beneath and I am most impressed. Wiring and light boards have been well thought out, especially the ditch lights.

I think we can put the old rubbish motors well and truly behind us as well – this one is a monster and pulls/pushes very well. Only test run on DC at this stage.

stole this from another post

If "analog", I wouldn't put it on any form of DCC-powered track, as a matter of principle.

It is possible that by setting the Digitrax system to "00" you may have invoked the hybrid "Zero Bit Stretching" mode, which is a motor-cooking way of faking-out the DCC signal so it appears capable of driving a single analog loco...