Well... I made the change and it worked perfectly. I interconnected the main power entry from both throttles through each relay and back. Now when the gate latch is lifted, all trains stop everywhere. This is better since I will immediately know that this is what's happening, instead of having power shut off to the blocks adjacent to the gate. It was a much simpler arrangement. I took the previous wires and simply joined them together. Because I'm feeding both throttles into the control panel, it took two relay circuits to control. One DPDT relay could do it, but I also have a DC circuit controlling the Red/Green panel LEDs that show that the gate is open. The red is on the normally closed contacts and the green on the normally open. It's green only when DC energizes the relay coil through the microswitch being depressed. When the microswitch opens, the relay coil shuts off and the normally closed contacts are engaged lighting the red LED.
With that problem solved, I mounted the new switch controller on the panel. I sharpened a drill with a more acute point angle so it wouldn't fracture the plexiglas panel. But it didn't work. As the drill exited it grabbed and cracked the panel with four radiating cracks. I applied some plexi solvent cement into the cracks to prevent further cracking. I fasten the switch controllers to the panel surface using RC servo foam tape. It's very strong. I had to attach three extension wires to the controller to reach the junction board at the panel's back and then add another three position terminal strip for this new controller.
The three wires from the controller are green, yellow and black which is common and connects to the grounding buss on the panel. The other two connect with the leads at the other end on the Z-1000 switch machine. On that end there's a red lead that ties into a 14 VAC buss also in the control panel. I needed a three-conductor lead that runs from the panel to literally the furthest most point on the layout. It's about 35 feet. To make a cable, I am piecing together all the 3-conductor scrap I had in my cable box. I had a number of 2 and 3 foot pieces. I twist the conductors together using a Western Union splice, solder them, and apply shrink tubing. When the session ended today I had about 3 more feet to go to reach. My wife asked if it wouldn't have been easier just to buy a piece of the right length and I said sure, but this didn't cost me anything and I'm using up what was a waste product.
Tomorrow I'll finish all this splicing and will wire it all up. Then I'll paint the track, and start building the mountain again. I think I'm procrastinating about this mountain thing since I'm not quite sure about the rest of the support structure and am not relishing all the plaster mess. It not one of my favorite things.
