I am a member of a large Lionel club in Illinois.
We power our layout (6 separate mainline tracks) using the 180 watt brick (2 each track) and the Legacy power master (1 per track). The Legacy Power Master replaces the old TPC units.
You want to use the power master as it's response to a short is virtually instant. It's so fast that the circuit breaker on the brick does not trip.
Don't use the ZW. We had instances where a locomotive burned out due to the slow response of the ZW.
We run both command and conventional engines on our layout.