I am a big proponent of switchable power strips. I have dozens of the around the house, shop and train room. I lost a stereo receiver to a lighting strike to my apartment wiring, with the receiver plugged in but not operating. Now, I use power strips to plug in the receiver, TT, CD, RTR and cassette recorders, to turn them on and off. This also saves wear and tear on the the hard to replace equipment on and off switches and turns them all on and off at one time. Then I unplug the power strip, taking all that audio gear off the house wiring.
My layout is plugged into a power strip that I do not unplug as I have post war transformers and no modern delegate electronics to protect. But after leaving the layout on, over night a couple of times, I have added a Christmas light timer the allows 2, 4 or 6 hours of time "on" and to turn the layout on and off if I forget to turn it off. I have small pilot lights on each control panel but they are to easy for me to over look.
Charlie
