Braking sections are sections of track which will cause a DCC equipped locomotive to stop automatically. The simplest way to do this is to set up a track section where the power is turned off. This has two disadvantages. First, since there is no power, the locomotive lights will be off when the train is stopped in the section. Second, the lead loco in a consist stops as soon as it hits the dead section. Other locos in the consist will push the dead loco forward. In a long consist, you could get a situation where the last loco in ...
When DCC locos enter a brake section with braking on, they will receive braking commands from the command station instead of normal DCC operating commands. DCC locos in this braking section will come to a stop. When you throw the switch to allow normal DCC commands, the DCC locos will resume normal operation. Once the DCC loco has left the brake section under normal DCC power, simply return the switch to the break position so that the next DCC loco will stop in the section. This is useful if you want to have trains stop at stations around the layout ...
I have a Zephyr control station and I would like to set up a Braking District as shown in your PDF sheet in the Basic DCC issue section; you show a DCS100 connecting through a modified LocoNet cable to a DBxxx booster -- can this same setup be used with a Zephyr system? No. The braking district described here uses Super Chief and a second booster to create a braking district. Super Chief is configured by toggling OpSw47 and connecting it to a second booster that is properly configured. Because Zephyr does not have an available OpSw47, and because there ...