General Discussion

Live steam is 'its own' system and cant be mixed with any other but being OO/HO can run side by side and pull the same stock. With appropriate isolation, you can use DC/DCC to marshall trains for live steam to pull.

Have you run your Mallard?

The joy of live steam is that you are actually driving the loco making all the decisions a real steam driver would make. To set off smoothly to a realistic speed, adjust for the load you are pulling, handle tight bends, gradients and 'dirty' track and then bring the train to a slow and accurate stop all takes skill. Reversing onto your train even more so. All great fun and then, if you have a second loco, learn it all again because every individual model is different!

Some don't run very well (just like the real thing) and it's fun mastering those too.

The fact that you can build OO Live Steam into a railway diarama just adds to the joy.

Sadly, most people who bought a Mallard set (maybe that includes you) had a bad experience with uncontrollability and quickly gave up. If you are heading that way just accept that the Hornby instruction book is seriously flawed and is more likely to lead you to a crash than teach you.

Get the Club DVD (I declare an interest, I made it) and start thrilling to this revolutionary branch of model railways.