Using a DDC turnout on a DC railroad

[Grumpa]

I have a DC railroad and would like to add a DDC #6 turnout. What can I do to make the DDC turnout work on my DC system?

Grumpa

[trainman203]

Change the railroad to DCC.  It's a big jump if a number of DC locomotives have already been purchased.  But if not, if you want the advantage of DCC in certain accessories only, I don't think it's really possible to do what you want right now.  We do have some electrical gurus on this forum who can probably answer this question better for you.

[Fred Klein]

Basically, from a mechanical and electrical standpoint, there is no difference between a DC and DCC turnout, since both use the same solenoid and linkage to move the points. The difference is that the DCC turnout also contains a basic DCC decoder (known as a stationary decoder) that will translate commands from the DCC control station (throttle) that allow the points to be moved, whereas in a pure DC turnout, voltage from the power pack's accessory terminal is used to move the points. However, somewhere along the line, a switch must be inserted into the circuit to reverse the polarity so that the points can be moved back and forth. In a DCC system, this switch is not necessary because any polarity reversal is handled by the decoder depending on the command from the throttle.

Installing a DCC turnout on a DC system without also adding a DCC controller would be an exercise in frustration because there would be no way to move the points via remote control. Thus, as has been suggested, this would require converting the layout to DCC, which, depending on the size and complexity of the layout could be an expensive proposition.

If the layout is performing well on DC, why not just install a DC turnout. It would be much simpler. Hope this helps.