Thanks Echidna for the nice comments I can't take credit for the pannel overlay re. The colour combo The pannel colours were what we got it was a foreign order. Interesting information re how the real railways do it. This pannel has now been in service for over a year with out fault or failure sure beats the old situation if some one sneezed something in the spaghetti of the pannel would short and no ratios would run as the points and DCC power suplay were linked so short the pannel tripped the DCC supply and every thing stopped We have been slowly rewiring the layout As it's been a patch work of wiring that has some issues with reliability due to people just adding random wires to the layout and DCC bus to patch underlying issues Now I'm about to convert the layout from Lenz to NCE wireless controll
Chris. having read this http://www.wyongmodelrailwayclub.com/layout-operation how do the operating crew request turnouts to be changed if they have to run aground using the main line for any shunting moves. The reason I ask is that I am part of operating group and the layout owner has a similar concept even will be having signals for drivers to follow and shunting at some stations requires main line access a lot and we have to speak up loudly and at times 2 or more are trying to attract his attention.
Hi Ron Well we did have a rule that there is no general chatter to the controller, doesn't seem to work so occasionally a raised voice is required to request a point to access a yard Then once in the yard points are local control from layout mounted panels Running sessions to a time table, well that hasn't occurred for some time either however the idea is the train driver follows their train and is given the road by the controller to there destinations as they go and requests mainline access as required. My self and about 2 others are the only ones that set up and run trains around the layout picking up and dropping cars on a regular basis now most of the members just turn up and run a train round pack up and go home we havnt got a full set of signals yet working on that at the moment. I ordered a set via the bay great looking Signals but the LED's are wired in a way that requires some work to have then all work properly and as I'm the only one doing the control side of the layout it has to wait until I get to it. Most of the members just like running trains
