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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by Don Gibson It's K.I.S.S. all the way - Having the right STANDARDS and maintainig them.: ENGINES that pull smoothly. (No jerky starts and stops). CARS that ROLL.easily (Good trucks). TRACK that looks realistic. TURNOUTS that DON'T Derail things. WALK ALONG throttles. (Yes!). MODULAR BENCHWORK that can fit through doorways and be reused (Unfortunately I've made every mistake along the way) or . Stupid Is as Stupid does (SI/SD) . Engines with Jack rabbit starts. Talgo trucks and plastic wheels. Oversized rail. Cheap Turnouts with oversized flangeways Stationary throttles and control. Benchwork that when torn down isn't usable for next layout. Been there. Done that. (No more!). [/quote] I completed three layoutsand the first one tought me to do it right - their is nothing worse then having a layout that wont run trains. The wiring for all of my switch machines is color coded if you can understand the first one the second one is a piece of cake. I have an incline on my road and if a car wont roll to a marked spot I find out why and fix it. Now remember that the train room is a fun room so that car may be three weeks getting fixed but it's in the box with the others. I'm not a fanatic I just work on what I want to fix and don't worry about the rest. It took me three weeks of thinking and 4 hours of labor to wire 70' of track on one side of my layout but when I was done it is going to be simple to trouble shoot. Anyone who thinks that the layout isn't going to have problems is not in the real world so make it easy to find a problem. Power routing turnouts are no big thing as long as you do all of them the same way with the same color wire. On my layout, green is the frog wire, black is the inside rail, red is the outside rail, orange and blue are the control wires. I use lots of terminal blocks so I can isolate a problem very quickly and easily. I souldn't say quickly because I've had some problems a while untill I felt like messing with it. Have a blessed day and remember SANTA FE ALL THE WAY Bob
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