This is NOT your normal DC -vs- DCC thread... :)

We recently upgraded to DCC (Digitrax Zephyr+) and one thing we've noticed is that the locos are slower on DCC than DC...   To me, it's a function of the old DC power Pack versus the Zephyr+, but I was just wondering why...

It's not the loco's themselves since the two I added decoders to are now slower than the other DC locos...

I was thinking about the layout that I want to build, and one of the things I really want to incorporate is a proper backdrop, and ideally some horizon lights between the backdrop and the scenery.  That got me thinking, what about angling the backdrop so that the top is closer to the front than the bottom is?  It would possibly cause more of a color gradient from the horizon lights, as well as possibly reflecting more of them forward into the scene instead of illuminating the underside of the valance.

Hello guys, I'm Andrea from Italy.

I'm going to start my new shelf layout.

My benchwork is an "L" shape, one side 450 cm and one side 250 cm dephtness 30 cm.
At the 2 end of benchwork deepness is 60 cm to let minimum radium for curve granted.

I decide to make a modular layouts (50 cm per module)

Scale is N scale and i whish to focus on steam loco in europe.

Any of you have some layouts suggestions?

here it is a starting idea.

Cya
Andrea

In my progression to figuring out how to do all of this, I am using XTRKCAD to get a more final layout. Having said that, I don't think this question is software specific. Hopefully its not an incredibly obvious answer.

I am creating turnouts, and when I come out of those turnouts I want to have a track that runs parallel to the original track (I'm creating a passenger station). How do I calculate the proper radius turn to come out of a turnout so that the resulting track will run alongside the track that you have turned out from?