Set Up and Manage Your DCC Vehicle Roster in BigFred

Add, edit, and organise your DCC locomotives in BigFred. Set short or long addresses, configure decoder functions, and place vehicles on the active layout.

Your vehicle roster is the personal catalogue of every rail vehicle you own in BigFred. From here you register DCC addresses, label decoder functions, and control which vehicles appear on the active layout so that you — and your fellow operators — can see and drive them.

My Vehicles

Navigate to My Vehicles from the main menu to see every vehicle you have registered. Each card shows the vehicle’s name, road number, kind, and DCC address. Vehicles without a DCC address are listed as dummy entries — they appear in the catalogue and can join a train consist, but the throttle never sends DCC commands to them.

Vehicles you have received on lease from another operator also appear in your driveable roster on the throttle page, even though they are not listed under My Vehicles. See Leases for details.

Vehicle Kinds

BigFred recognises five vehicle kinds. The kind drives the icon displayed in the roster and on the throttle but has no effect on DCC addressing — every kind can carry an optional DCC address.

Kind	Description
loco	Conventional locomotive
emu	Electric or diesel multiple unit
driving_wagon	Driving trailer / cab car
trolley	Maintenance or inspection trolley
wagon	Unpowered wagon (commonly registered as a dummy)

Adding a Vehicle

1. Open the New Vehicle dialog

   On the My Vehicles page, click the Add Vehicle button in the top-right corner. The dialog opens in create mode.

2. Enter a name

   Type a human-readable name for the vehicle, for example Class 66 – 66001. The name is required and is how the vehicle appears throughout the throttle.

3. Choose a kind

   Select the vehicle kind from the dropdown. If your vehicle is an unpowered wagon you want to track visually, choose Wagon and disable the DCC address toggle in the next step.

4. Add a road number (optional)

   The Number field is for the prototype road number or inventory tag painted on the vehicle — for example ET22-1175 or 92510. It is displayed as a small caption next to the name and is entirely optional.

5. Set the DCC address

   Toggle DCC Address on (the default) and type the address you want to assign:

   • Short address: 1–127
   • Long address: 128–9999

   A hint below the field shows your assigned DCC address pool, for example Your pool: 100..199, 3001..3010. If you enter an address that falls outside every range in your pool, the server will reject the registration with a validation error. Contact your layout administrator if you need a different address range.

   If the vehicle has no decoder — for example a sound-only car or a visual filler — turn the toggle off. The vehicle will be registered as a dummy.

6. Configure decoder functions

   Set the two special-purpose function numbers that BigFred uses for safety features:

   • RP1 function — the function BigFred activates to comply with the RP-1 dead-man’s switch protocol (default F2).
   • Emergency lights function — the function activated when the dead-man’s switch fires and the Stop + horn + emergency lights option is selected (default F0).

   Both dropdowns list F0 through F31. Leave them at their defaults if you are unsure.

7. Choose a dead-man's switch behaviour

   Select what BigFred should do when the dead-man’s switch fires while you are driving this vehicle:

   Option	Effect
   Stop	Immediately set speed to 0
   Stop + horn	Set speed to 0 and trigger the RP1 function
   Stop + horn + emergency lights	Set speed to 0, trigger the RP1 function, and activate the emergency lights function

8. Save

   Click Create. The vehicle appears in your My Vehicles list immediately. It is not yet on the layout roster — see Adding to the layout below.

Editing a Vehicle

Click the edit icon (pencil) on any vehicle card to reopen the dialog in edit mode. You can change the name, road number, kind, DCC address, function assignments, and dead-man’s switch option. All changes are applied immediately.

Changing a vehicle’s DCC address while it is on the layout will update the address the throttle uses from that point forward. If another operator is currently driving the vehicle, their session will pick up the new address automatically on the next speed or function command.

Deleting a Vehicle

Click the delete icon (bin) on a vehicle card and confirm the prompt. Deleting a vehicle:

• Removes it from your personal roster permanently.
• Removes it from the active layout roster automatically — other operators will no longer see it on the dashboard.
• Cancels any active lease that was granting another user the right to drive it.

You cannot undo a deletion. If you only want to take the vehicle off the current layout session without losing the registration, use the Remove from layout action instead.

The Layout Roster (Available Vehicles)

The Available Vehicles page shows every vehicle that has been placed on the active layout by any operator — think of it as the shared rolling stock visible on the track right now. Adding your vehicle to this roster is what makes it driveable from the throttle.

Adding to the layout

1. Go to My Vehicles.
2. Find the vehicle you want to place and click Add to layout (the track/arrow icon).
3. The vehicle now appears on Available Vehicles for all operators and is selectable in the throttle setup dialog.

Removing from the layout

To pull a vehicle off the active layout without deleting it from your roster:

1. Go to Available Vehicles (or My Vehicles — the remove button is available in both places once the vehicle is on the layout).
2. Click Remove from layout on the vehicle.
3. The vehicle disappears from the shared dashboard but remains registered under My Vehicles for future sessions.

Only the vehicle’s owner can remove it from the layout. If you are driving a leased vehicle, ask the owner to remove it, or wait for the lease to expire.