I just completed the rewiring of my layout last week and everything went fine. I want to thank Broadway lion for two brilliant ideas that made the chore almost pleasant.
The first idea appeared is this forum and was later published in MRR.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/744/t/220532.aspx
Wires placed in the edge of the layout instead of under are far more easier to reach and work with. You don't have to crawl under the layout anymore and everything is clearly visible. The position for soldering is then much more comfortable and safe.
The second idea is the stand for placing the soldering station.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/229461.aspx
The soldering station is then easy to move where it is needed.
Following those two ideas, i was able to solder the feeders to the buses in no time. It was almost fun. I was even able to do the job seated on ma favorite modeling chair. You can call that ''armchair soldering''.
So a big Thank to Lion for those brilliant ideas.
Guy
Modeling CNR in the 50's
One thing that bugs me a bit about Brother Elias's fascia panel accessible power feeder/comm-bus raceway (which is what it is in effect); OK, if you're talking about a peninsular or island layout/module, then it seems to be a very workable idea - run the power bus raceway around the perimeter, short feeders to the interior. But if you have against the wall layout/module section, I feel the feeders will get rather long and wiring somewhat complicated when running everything to the front bus vs. running seperate power/comm buses in the back (which is what most modelers in that situation would do).
It's an interesting idea, but IMO just needs a bit more work.