[Roccus]

Can you imagine the display if one of these computer whiz-kids decided to integrate a program with a freight yard set-up? All automatic switching, coupling etc?

[Kirkwood]

"Can you imagine the display if one of these computer whiz-kids decided to integrate a program with a freight yard set-up? All automatic switching, coupling etc?"

It's all been done. If you have the money you can automate everything. And it is not the hokey automation from the 1950s, but very sophisticated and complex automation of signals and switches that mimics the way real trains are operated. Many train layouts are now run by something called digital command control which is an encoded computer chip using multiplexed ac signals and not your basic dc transformer. The hobby has become very technologically sophisticated in the last 5 years, but also very expensive. A single locomotive engine with digital command control and on-board sound encoders can run from $200 up to several hundred dollars. Hand built brass engines will run into the thousands.