Garrett76 posted:so, do all the red wires go on one side (top) and all black wires go on other side (bottom)? or is it power wires on the outside (left and right) and operating accessory wires go the middle? a sketch on paper would be helpful.
thanks!
It's left and right. Each vertical pair of screw downs are electrically isolated from each other. I connect half of them of them together and call that red, then the other half connected and they are black. In Lionel terms that is A and U. Instead of using wire jumpers which I make out of #20 ga wire cut in about one inch length and bending around a needle nose plier in the shape of a U, you can buy jumpers. They come in say 8 or 12 long and I cut off what I need like say 4 in a row to connect 4 connections together.
Here's a link to some jumpers...you have to pay attention to the spacing and order what fits your euro type terminal strips. There are also jumpers for the barrier strips (the larger black strips which take the spade connectors). I use both for different reasons.
