The NCE Power Cab does not seem to deliver any power to the tracks.  I am trying to measure voltage to the track and determine if the anything is fried, the hand-held Power Cab  or the Power Panel? 

• Power to the board
• NCE hand-held displays loco number and the display changes when I increase the speed. It respond to other buttons.
• The red LED on the Power Panel does not light up
• should I measure voltage as AC or DC?

Any insights are welcome

I just put a TCS WOW Steam decoder in a Rivarossi 0-8-0. In short, it ran like crap. It herked and jerked down the track. Sounds nice though. It smoothed out on speed step 2 (of 28). I tried a variety of things, one of which I can't try is removing BEMF. WOW won't allow it. Suspecting the 3 pole motor, I hooked up an Atlas motor and it operates the motor as I would expect.

See a video of the motor control:

I am in the process of building my layout, still in bench work stage, but thought it was a good time to starting thinking about power.  I currently have NCE PowerCab and the most operators will be two at any time.  My layout is three levels, the bottom being the staging area.  I plan on using Caboose throws here, unless someone suggests something else.  The other two levels, i plan one using servos with Tam Valley Octopus to control them.  There will be about 90 servos total.  Initially I think I am going with push button controls mounted on the fascia, but at

I have finished building and wiring my helix.  I wanted to test the entire helix run so I started at the top and was working my way down.  I was using my best running engine and it is stalling.  My guess the track is dirty as my layout is in a room off of the garage.  What is the best way to clean the helix.  Right now I have a bright boy and rubbing alcohol.  Will that work or do I need something else?