WR&N IV Main Control Panel

Yep, this little panel ran the whole shebang. As I often admit, I'm not into operation, and the layout more or less ran itself. In fact, I was tempted to dispense with any control panel other than a throttle, but I did imagine that I might wish to take matters into my hands and actually run a train myself on occasion. The thing that intrigued most visitors was that there was no schematic of the track plan. Given the limited operating options, there really was no need for one.

The switch labeled "AUTO < > MAN" to the left selected automatic or manual operation. In automatic, the system threw the turnouts and reversed mainline polarity as needed to keep the train running; in manual mode, I could set the direction of operation (mainline polarity) with the two blue pushbuttons, and control the two loop turnouts with the switches to the far right. The vertical row of switches in the middle provided A-B cab control for the four primary blocks.

The switch at the lower left was meant to control HASTY, the Hidden Automatic Staging Train Yard, which was never built. HASTY trains were on a plain loop that was completely separate from the WR&N route; as wired on 25 January 1998, the switch merely toggled power on and off so I could park the train out of sight.

The white and colored dots are actually indicator lights. The panel itself is a sheet of 1/8-inch thick black plastic, with a diagram printed on self-adhesive label applied to the surface. LEDs mounted to the back of the panel with CA in small holes (shown at right) shone through the label material and caused the white dots to glow brightly. To help avoid operator error, four of the LEDs indicated a "polarity conflict" when a train was at risk of crossing onto track that was polarized incorrectly. The panel graphic was rendered in CorelDraw and printed on white self-adhesive label stock in a laser printer.

The key to the automatic reversing loops is a pair of metal proximity sensors and a pair of twin-coil DPDT latching relays (all from Digi-Key). The latching relays "remember" which direction the trains are running on the mainline, and so the correct polarity is maintained, even when the system is powered down. Shown at right, the circuit was mounted to the back of the control panel; the complete schematic is shown below, with the latching relays highlighted in yellow.

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