Certainly Not State of the Art

Newcomers to the hobby would be wise to start out with code 55 track (for realism) and DCC engine control. Both have become practical and reasonably priced.

Unfortunately I am not a newcomer nor am I "State of the Art!"  When you have spent 50+ years acquiring 120+ engines, conversion to DCC is not financially feasible. Nor is replacing 50+ turnouts and hundreds of feet of code 80 track.

So here I be! A DC layout with 59 electrical blocks and powered by 6 MRC Tech 2 & Tech 3 power packs. I still have some issues to work out (power surges when transitioning from one tower's control to the next) but we are now functional! The yard on my previous layout and the current yard never got powered (until recently) because I kept putting off attempting to solder wires to those 3 little posts on the Mini-toggles. Consider it due to paralyzing fear.

So wanting to get to the point where I can begin full scale operations, I wired the yard through Atlas Selector controls. We can now be considered an operational layout. (Which probably puts us ahead of the professionals who will look down upon such obsolete efforts but are still in the forever planning stage.)

Next up: Figuring how to generate realistic traffic to the industries on the 12 spurs and 3 team tracks. The end is in sight!