I realize I have hijacked Terry's original thread to talk about tsunami decoders, and I'm sorry about it. Any other discussion is going to be in a separate thread.

Simplicity is a real virtue with operation. Before I got into all of the advanced DCC, I was using an EZ command to run an earlier Bachmann consolidation and earlier run decapod just the way they came in the box. For a year or so I had major fun, just like that. However, while the consolidation came with pretty good default DCC Operation settings, the decapod was a terrible performer out of the box. It took me quite a while to figure out how to get into the motor control CVs to get it to run as good as the consolidation. But that took getting beyond EZ command.

In closing this discussion, I'd say after many years of fooling with these engines, that the decapod's wonky performance was an exception to the generally smooth running Bachmann steam engines. Most of them ran pretty well on the EZ command, and that should suit most people for simple running.

Quantum sound is Stone Age, DCC-era Jurassic. It was great 20 years ago, but that was 20 years ago, an eternity in the digital world. Imagine having to load sound files from your computer into the decoder. That comes from the days of very small chips. I remember that quantum had very nice whistles for certain, for a whistle freak like me. my friend has a couple of early Broadway limited steam engines that came equipped with quantum sound. It's a root canal getting anything changed in them. Quantum is out of business now.

Today's tsunami 2–2 decoders are at the top of the mountain. 90 whistles, man. But. They are moving on with Bluetooth technology and are looking ahead to another generation of tsunami decoders with maybe 150 whistles in them. I have a well-placed contact there who keeps me up-to-date on what they're doing.

Replace your Quantum decoders ASAP with tsunami 2–2. You'll never regret it.

You need to go to the Soundtraxx website and look up their webinar for DCC diesel operation.

https://soundtraxx.com/reference/webinar

I'll guarantee you can make those engines crawl better than the way that decoder arrives.  Soundtraxx's webinars and videos are masterful, produced by a real guru. Their customer service is top grade.

https://youtu.be/KIMY5MS2tkc

If you are happy with default CV settings, basically running the engine back-and-forth only blowing the whistle and ringing the bell, and not much else, then the EZ command is just the thing for you.

However, if you are interested in running a steam engine and performing many of the actual operational functions of the locomotive, functions that are available on advanced decoders like the tsunami 2–2, you need more.

When my train leaves the yard, I ring the bell, and give two shorts to signal departure. So far, could've done that on an EZ command. Then I actuate the cylinder cocks as was needed on steam engines to evacuate condensate water out of the cylinders after standing for some time.  You turn that off after about 10 seconds. Then, if I have a very heavy train, I can actuate a wheel slip sound. Very, very cool I have to say, and a function not available on simpler systems. 

After I get out of the yard and enter a non-populated wooded area, I turn on the blowdown for about 10 seconds. On steam engines, impurities and particulates would settle to the bottom of the boiler into a special low place fitted with a valve to eject them and clean the boiler out. The evacuation steam would shoot 30 or 40 feet off to one side and had to be done in an isolated area, on a bridge, anyplace where no harm would come to bystanders or property.  Again, a very realistic function that can't be had on simpler systems.  Then, when running at speed out on the line, I use the Johnson bar to engage the steam cut off, which has a very audible effect on the exhaust chuff.  Or, with the Johnson bar, you can cut the steam off entirely coming to a stop in the yard and drift to a stop, with no sounds other than rod clanking coming from the locomotive. All of this stuff is unbelievably realistic, and not possible with basic systems.

In years past I was involved with live prototype steam a fair amount, learned about about all these required operational actions, and today I really enjoy the feel of actually running a model of a steam locomotive. Some people may not like doing all of that. I've had operators on my layout say it's too much to do. I personally don't feel that way. The great thing about model railroading is that you can participate on the level of watching trains, which we've all done since the Model Railroad Jurassic, or actually get involved with very hands-on operational locomotive functions, only possible in recent times with advanced DCC.

It appears to have possibly been a "pig in a poke."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_in_a_poke

Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Bewarest thou of used model locomotives, lest thee encounter the dreaded "pig in a poke"

There's a Digitraxx io forum you can ask these questions on.

https://groups.io/g/Digitrax-Users

I know all about the pre-retirement Model Railroad roster bulk-up purchasing. While I had an income to support it all. I built my roster of steam engines up to well over 60, I'd have to count to be certain.  Some of them will probably hardly ever run at all, but I wanted them for so long, I got them anyway.

To make a long story short, you are basically glueing the spilt hub back on with Loctite. Right?

I run my my layout with the NCE Procab command station connected to the track with two wires. One for each rail.  That's it! All I need! I love simplicity! If I wanted to do wiring, I would have built a Heathkit radio kit! That is, if they still have them!

I am running wireless, so the cabs answer to an antenna that is wired into the command station, rather than being tethered into a buss to the track.

That is it!  All of it! From beginning of "wiring" to operation, 10 minutes! Or less!

The gurus and gods in Milwaukee have decreed that all layouts need a buss wire system for each track, with the layout broken up into isolated electrical zones  each with a circuit breaker. And feeders from the bus to the rail, every 3 feet or so.

In most cases, all of this is overkill for people who are obsessed with soldering. People that would solder a bing cherry onto an ice cream sundae if they could figure out how to do it.

I say that, while on larger layouts, such complication may be necessary, on most of the small home layouts most people have, all of that is ridiculous overkill.  My friend up in New York has wasted six months trying to wire a 4 x 8 layout with all the stuff discussed above.  When I finally heard about it, I told him dude, stop it, you don't need all that, just hook it up and run your trains.

Mercy sakes, Quentin, I do declare! (the way my Mississippi grandma used to talk.) all this talk about the DigiTraxx thingy is fine. Until you want to change a setting. Like the whistle. If you're really into whistles like me.  Tsunami2-2 has 90. Of course I don't like all of them, but there's about a dozen of them I do. Five chimes and six chimes, I don't care for the three chimes or the hooters. I change the whistle on almost every engine at least once in an evening of operation, sometimes more. Even with 90 whistles in that decoder, there's still several prototype whistles I like that aren't in there. Like a real southern pacific six chime. Although there's three so-called ones on there already, they are all imposters. Or one of the little cast iron 6-inch-high five chime screamers that were on almost all of the T&NO and MP engines.

Or, second reason to want a more advanced system, if you want to give a locomotive a real address other than a single digit, and have more than 10 engines you want to assign addresses to.

I understand that smaller reach operating systems suit some folks well. But when I first fired up my NCE wireless pro cab 15 years ago, I knew there was no going back.

Yes. Flat River was on the very western end of the Illinois side of the Missouri-Illinois.

I have Charlie Duckworth's M-I book and have molecularly read it cover to cover.  It definitely is my kind of Railroad.

My friend used to see M.I. Box cars with the Missouri Pacific Buzzsaw herald in the yard back home in the early 60s. He thought that they had forgotten to finish painting the "P" on those cars.😂😂

There are several great photographs around the M – I in Flat River in the 20s. There was also an electric interurban railway in that area that is covered in his book some. One of the photos has a Pacific going around a curve in front of the depot, with overhead catenary wire for the electric operation above the track.

Scroll down to the 2-8-0's.  Look at the 1019 and the 1025.  These little ex-Frisco engines are right up your alley, and they are some of the very ones that ran on the branchline back home that I saw as a child.  The three swing bridges on the branch could take nothing larger.

http://www.trainweb.org/screamingeagle/loco_steam.html

You can add Pacifics to your short line steam locomotive list.

U S Sugar at one time ran four ex-FEC Pacifics, 3 of them survive today.

https://www.ussugar.com/u-s-sugar-steam-locomotive-no-148-hauls-sugarcane-train-to-mill-ending-harvest-season-new-sugar-express-launched/

And, this article is out of date, they're in the process of restoring the engine to operation.

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/u-s-sugar-interested-in-acquiring-second-steam-locomotive/

After learning about all of this, I immediately put my USRA Pacific at work on the locals.

The New York Central ran Pacifics on some local and branchline freights quite a bit too.

You should read up on the Missouri-Illinois. I believe you would like it. A 110 mile short line that ran on both sides of the Mississippi river with a car ferry connecting them. In relatively modern times it was run by the Missouri Pacific, and the engines were lettered just like MP engines, except instead of Missouri Pacific up in the coal board, the tender said Missouri-Illinois. Plus they ran MP equipment a lot of times. They ran doodlebugs too.

http://laiben.com/wordpress1/about/

You really need to include the decapod in your list of short line engines. That engine was smaller than many consolidations with an extra set of drivers to spread the weight down over poor branch line and short line track. 
I have every modern 4–4–0 and 4–6–0 that Bachmann ever offered. but I run nearly all my locals with my decapods. 

Plus. About that Bachmann consolidation. While it is definitely a large engine, it is astonishingly close in profile and detail to a Missouri pacific spot – class 2-8–0, numbers 1–173 and general Missouri Pacific practice.  I think they are perfectly acceptable to run down a branch line.  Both those engine styles run regularly down my branch. In fact, my trains have gotten longer, almost to 10 cars a lot of the time, very long heavy drags on my little Railroad.

I remember in high school going nutsy-cuckoo over a NWSL logging mic for sale at an NMRA regional meat. Of course, I couldn't afford it, but I never forgot about it. Those things ran all over East Texas on various logging roads not too terribly far from my boyhood home. And I always wanted one. I doubt if anyone ever brings one out in plastic, they are just too specialized and and small of an engine when everybody wants Big Boys and northerns because they've seen them on excursion trains. I already had the Wabash mogul and the ma & pa 10 wheeler, the same locomotive is Bachmann's present low boiler 10 wheeler.

I myself would like to see a plastic version of Varney's Old Lady consolidation, a beautifully proportioned small engine that I always liked, but never had.