Originally Posted by Gary E:
And after all the finagling with 555's and transistors you'll still have a flasher with instant on-off that looks toylike not prototypical. With a 40 cent PIC I can get prototypical slow on-off, 2 control inputs to give bidirectional control all without any resistors or caps.
Don't forget that many RR are converting to LEDs which are instant on/off. So slow on off would be apropriate for 1950s era signals.