I wanted to show the off the three control panels. The control panels were all made from hardboard cut to the desired shape and size, glued, then painted. To give it a CTC panel feel the base is painted forest green and the top is black with white lines depicted the track layout. This stick drawing was actually done by first painted the top white, masking off the lines then painting over it in black. After a couple of coats the tape was removed to give it the look you see below.
The first two, the one shown above and below, were created for the side of the layout with the yard. The panel above was for the mainline and the branch that will be located in this area. The one below is for controling the turnouts in the yard. All switches are servo controlled with hardware from Tam Valley. The cool think about the panel below is that it shows the indication for the yard lead switch which is actually controlled by the panel on the other side of the layout, or since all the turnout are connected to DCC, can be controlled with the throttle.
The control panel shown below is on the other side of the layout and was created to control tortoise machines and be able to show turnout position with LED lights. The turnouts are controlled by two Digitrax DS64. The parts that do not have LED lights yet are for the town that is above this area. All these have hinged tops to allow access to the inside where the hardware resides.
Once I was able to get these up I was able to run a few trains without having to manually lock the switches in place with push pins.
Below are some pictures:
Below is taken as NYC 4028 passes the local freight led by NYC 8887 at the interchange.
Here is Conral 9344 switching out the yard:
Next post I will show some pictures of how it looked when it moved across the country.
Chris
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