@PeterB posted:what are folks doing/using/buying today, and what drives the decisions of whether to go with Legacy, TMCC, or DCS? Are Lionel and MTH's systems the only game in town, or are there third party systems? Is anyone using raspberry pi-based solutions (I have seen arduino type solutions, but that's a little too close to layer one for me -- RBP uses more layer 3 full stack code capacity).
It sounds like you're looking for automation beyond the "standard" capability of the control systems. There's all kinds of options there. As for the basic control system, there is also the dead rail stuff that is frequently discussed here, also some folks have gone to DCC.
It's pretty hard to answer such a general question, you could write a book trying to come up with an answer...
