Joe suggested in his Electronics Video (vol #3) that sound could be added to a consist by placing a sound only decoder in a dummy locomotive.  I am in the process of picking up some old Athearn BB dummy SD40-2 to add some sound decoders. 

Now what would be the best decoder to get? 

I am just now returning to HO scale after many years.

In the "way-back", I used Linn Westcott's Twin-T.  Now, in searching what else is available

I found Bruce Chubb's CMRI detection circuit, but it is a fair expense.

Then I found articles by Rich Weyand in Mainline Modeller on a variety of great circuits

for detection, signals, and even a complete CTC system. 

I've seen no mention of these on any forum discussion anywhere, and I'm curious why?

I'm about to start assembling mine (using Hans Deloof's pc board) and was wondering if anyone would be interested in seeing a somewhat step by step. ie, should I put down the soldering iron and take some pictures along the way?

The downside is I don't tend to assemble things in any specific order, so it would mostly be: here's a pic of the empty board, here's a pic with 1/4 of the parts installed, 1/2, 3/4, fully assembled. And then maybe a few screen shots of programming the PIC chip. Which is as far as I can get at the moment since I am without a DCC system.

We are at the point where its time to decide about a control panel. Roadbed, track and switch machines are finally done except for one area that is up for review. We used Tortoise switch machines on the whole layout after starting with the Atlas. That was a challenge that I thought would never end. My back was killing me and it was to late for a hard hat. So I have only found small pieces of instructions for a control panel. Anyone have information available or a site they know of that is all encompassing for a control panel build?