ABout the only thing you could do differently, and that's if you don;t care that they start and stop suddenly rather than come to a nice smooth stop, is hook up the magnetic switches and relay but just use a simple single power supply to run it all instead of the modified power pack and those two regulator units. You'll also have to bit more careful about where you put the gapes, because unlike what is explained on that site, when the one car rolls over the magnet sensor and trips the relay, the other one will STOP, like, NOW. And when the first one get 3/4 of the way around, the second one will leap into action like a jackrabbit. All that complication is so that each train can come to a gradual stop and start out smoothly. Outside of just controlling it all manually, there isn't much of a simpler way to do it. The method explained there is actually pretty clever and avoids the use of things like computers or microcontrollers.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Thanks for the reply....I appreciate it.