Railway Historical
and Modeling Society
Layout Photos
Powered/Electric Fascia turnout controls
Turnouts on the mainline for sidings can be operated or managed by train operators. The electrical components are driven by NCE SwitchIt and NCE Switch8 stationary decoders. The SwitchIt decoders also have the capability of being operated by pushbutton controls provided on the fascia.
This is the Fascia control for turnout Control Point 74 which is the siding to the Verona Co Op grain elevator. The green LED below the red push button indicates the turnout is still set for the Mainline.
This is the Fascia control for turnout Control Point 74 which is the siding to the Verona Co Op grain elevator. The red LED below the red push button indicates the turnout is now set to go to the siding. The brightness of the LED is so high it is easier to see the overall glow of the LED in the recess better than with the LED itself
This shows how I mounted the NCE SwitchIt board on the layout. The block of wood where the SwitchIt board is mounted is attached with a kitchen cabinet hinge so that the board can be folded up mostly out of sight.
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The green LED shows this turnout is set for the Main.
This shows the SwitchIt and block of wood folded up below the layout.
Turnouts can also be controlled from the Panel Pro Panel. Here we can see the crossover at Control Point 86 set for Normal. The mouse cursor is positioned right at the crossover. All signals show green for use of trains in either direction.
Now we can see that with the cursor positioned at the crossover, the mouse was clicked and the crossover was changed to a crossover orientation. You can also notice that the signals at the crossover have changed to red over green or red depending on the tracks available to use the crossover.
This is a different crossover, but LED's have been wired between the wires going to the Tortoise machines so that the orientation of the crossover can be seen on the Fascia of the layout.