I have built a mini equipment shelter in the front corner of my shed; it pales in comparison to the simplest of real railroad setups, but I like it:

Also visible in this picture are a few other goodies Abe sent my way.  I ran a new circuit just for the relays from the breaker box (far left) to a Frankenstein-like knife switch - two ways to kill power to the circuit in an emergency.

The next issue is controlling the aspects displayed on the signal.  Until I can figure out an electronic way to do it electronically (or run the controls into the sunroom - which means a hole in the floor, which means me sleeping in the shed for the rest of my life if I even TRY to pull that off) I am using a multi-position rotary switch.

My first attempt was with a Radio Shack switch.   I should have known I was in trouble right away - the solder lugs were three times too small for the AWG16 wire I am using, so I ended up using telephone wire from the switch to a terminal strip, from which I ran my 16-guage wire to the binding posts on the terminal blocks.  Needless to say the results were less than spectacular. For a comparison between the Radio Shack toy I tried first and the rotary switch I ended up using, see the photo below:

I then searched online and found the perfect switch (in case you can't tell in the picture it's the behemoth looming to the right).  In addition to having soldering lugs which had no trouble accomodating my wire, there are two layers of contacts, the first of which I am using to control the relays and the second of which I am using for the indicator lights (to the far right in the photo of my relay setup, above).  I am learning quickly that Radio Shack is a shell of its former self and that what they still have in the way of electronics is a miserable assortment which varies greatly from store to store.

The three companies in which I have confidence (gained from this project) are:

Allied Electronics	rotary switches
Cable Organizer	wire labeling products
Wiring Products	wire terminals, indicator lights, specialty cable ties, lots of other cool stuff

I had ordered 100 ring terminals from Wiring Products, and after desroying about thirty re-learning how to crimp connectors to wire I bagan wiring my setup.  The result was more a spgahetti explosion than a relay rack - different color wires (black, white, green, yellow, red, blue) of different makeup (solid, straight stranded, twisted stranded) and no logic to the paths of the wires.

So I ripped it all out and am starting again.  Stay tuned for updates as they occur.