Hi all.

Now that thing are starting to slow down, finally I have the time to make some progress on my home layout.

Well, I think now I have things sorted: New England, in the 70's or 80's. (yes, pretty much inspired by Mr. Mike Confalone). I don't wnat to have bit time railroading, but some switching, like Lance Mindheim, James McNab, or even Bruce Petty.

I am planning a very small layout and want to be able to have a programming track. Reading Allan Gartner's Wiring for DCC website (http://www.wiringfordcc.com/) and his section on programming track he warns of having a situation where a locomotive runs onto the programming track while it is set to programming mode. He suggests a dead zone to prevent this from happening. An alternative to the dead zone is to shut the rest of the layout completely off. That works for me with such a small layout here is the wiring diagram using a double throw quad pole toggle.

During the construction of my new layout,  http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/25098 had to up my game when it came to using servos.  The staging area is in a very inaccessible location so I decided to automate the twenty turnouts using servos, Arduino and JMRI.

I have learnt a great deal during the installation process and thought that it would be useful to share. 

Got a major rewiring project on our club layout in my immediate future. Looking for an inexpensive, easy method for marking lots of wires under the layout. Writing on the benchwork won't cut it. I'm looking for a 'Write on a label and wrap around the wire" solution. There are several commercial products, but they seem a bit pricey. Current wires were marked with some sort of tape, but it has become gooey and the writing has bled into oblivion.