My Railroad is an industrial Railroad. I never had enough room for any other kind. Bruce Temperley who is not only a good friend of many years but also a partner in the Railroad that is he invests his own money in it. Bruce does all the electrical he served in the RAF for a number of years wiring British Vulcan bombers he has perfected the electrical so any investement in DCC would be just a waste of money he likes wiring but is also a skilled draughtsman and has drawn all the electrical diagrams out so the if there was ever a problem and he is not around I can trouble shoot the layout wiring myself we discuss everything together as I like wiring as well but I'm not as skilled as Bruce. The layout is broken up into four main districts all self contained with their own controls and track panels every turnout is controlled from panels. Every control panel has a switch on it to enable that controller to operate any part of the layout. We are even going further, look at Republic Steel now look at the other side where the transfer controls are Bruce is going to duplicate the controls for Republic Steel to operate the sidings on that side of the baseboard so with the flick of a switch the operator can walk around and control Republic Steel from that side as well.
We already have a controller for operating a train on the opposite side but no panel for the turnouts soon both sides will have controls and panels just like the Rolling Mill.
I have seen lots of layouts and operated them using all kinds of controllers, phones, I-pads all kinds of weird and wonderful things but have never seen a layout wired how we have ours, unless you operate it you can never understand it but it works well without DCC. Just as an aside we use industrial wiring and connecters from Germany the type that are usually used for factories we have never considered the railroad a toy we say if it's wired correct in the first place using good quality equipment it's there for life with no problems and that's how it is no problems ever. Every Friday anyone is welcome including you Max drop over and see how efficient an old fashioned DC controlled layout can work you might be surprised.
Sound ? Never needed it, as we are to busy switching cars and reading switch lists, passing train orders to each other, it's not work we consider it fun we really have a good time and enjoy ourselves. We use 14 locomotives to make all the moves and even run a passenger service which is not on that plan below. The railroad is getting close to not having to remove cars off the layout only loads out of open cars. we have lots of plans for the future it's never boring and I do agree it's not for train watchers if you don't like switching don't come, we have had blokes almost run out of the house after a couple of hours screaming to much pressure! True story. They are train watchers and that's fine we have our railroad and they have theirs I never rubbish anyone's ideas of building a railroad as long as we all have fun to me it's "no worries mate, she'll be right" attitude. OMG! I typed Aussie language! Roo.
