steady power for 0-27 switches

As I recall, it was a big deal when the CW-80 first came out that it didn't have a conventional common ground as past Lionel transformers have been. I believe that you may be able to make it work by hooking the black post to the center rail, and the red post to the outer rail, but I mcould be wrong about this.

You're right, Ben.  Terminals A and B are connected together internally and should be connected to the outside rails.  Terminals U are not connected together, despite having the same label.  One of them should be connected to the center rail and the other to the new turnout common.  The functions of the bell and whistle will be swapped when the transformer is used this way.

There was a recent report on the forum that Lionel had fixed this problem in recent production.

With O27 turnouts powered from an accessory voltage, there is a danger of damaging the solenoids if a train stops on the control rail.  A cure for this is to use DC instead of AC, through a series resistor and then across a shunt capacitor.  The charged capacitor provides enough energy to operate the turnout; but the charging resistor can't supply enough current continuously to damage the coils.  I use 100 ohms and 5000 microfarads.

The simple answer: the red posts on the CW-80 are common, not the black(black U under"B" is the accessory output, black U under "A" is the track power) ...wire your switches this way and you will get the desired effect.

The Whistle & Bell button functions will be switched.  This is addressed in several of the set manuals shipped with the CW under the "phasing" section of the instructions.

You have opened a Pandora's box here - the not-so-simple answers will follow!

Rob