Great Model Railroads 2010 had an article in it that got me hooked as soon as I saw it.  The article was titled 'From Shelf to Shortline' by Mike Confalone.  Since seeing that article, I began work on a very small 2X4 foot N scale layout, modeling a small branchline of the Northern Pacific set in late fall 1950.  Since my wife and I were then living in a very small apartment, the scale chosen to model was out of necessity instead of preference.  

Thanks for viewing my post hopefully this wont be severely repetitious for you. I haven't  been model railroading for probably 20 years, things have changed since then and it seems for the better.  DCC is great I just need to verify a few things.

1. It seems that the old block control is out the window am I to understand that single wire both poles are all that is needed?  if not why?

2. Is it possible to connect any train engine to DCC with a decoder?  Is there generic decoders or are they proprietary?

I did my first decoder installation tonight.

I put a DH123D into at least a 20+ year old Athern SD 40-2 and when I was all done it ran. Some time ago I spent several days tuning up the engine for good operation on DC and tonight I decided to take the plunge.

I travel a lot. When I know I'm going to be somewhere for a while (several days or more) I have often brought along a model or two to work on, usually something like rolling stock that is relatively straightforward to pack securely in an assembled or even partially assembled state. I've never tried doing this with structures, since I have no idea how I'd get the assembled model home without actually shipping it. I guess I could put it in a box with a huge amount of air bags and/or styrofoam popcorn (yech). They certainly don't weigh much.