Main Control Panel
To control all of the dozens of motors and lights, I recycled the control panel I'd built for the decommissioned White River & Northern X (which, as it happens, inherited the connectors from the Newport & Rock Falls II). It was ideal—or so I thought; I'd no idea that I'd wind up with more stuff to control than its capacity.
Although I might have been able to cram more than 36 switches and pushbuttons on it, the limiting factor was actually the connector: it had only 44 lines. Once I exceeded that limit, I was in for another panel. So, I split off the barber shop and laundromat as its own entity, which left a teeny bit of breathing room with the main panel connector.
There are actually two connectors: a matched pair. This greatly simplifies wiring, since it's just a matter of matching the connector numbers at each end. The control panel is connected to the diorama by a DB-44 cable.
It took months to design the panel simply because what had to be controlled was always a moving target. Every other day I was adding a new animation or lighting effect. Finally I had to say enough is enough, and commit to what I had at that point in time. I have to be honest: that was tough to do. (Red dots are pushbuttons; the green dot is a pilot light.)
One big change I made to how things are powered was switch to 'C' cells; with roughly 30 motors and 100 LEDs to run, I needed a bit more longevity than 'AA' cells could deliver. The power is also split up to provide a range of different voltages: 1.5, 3, 4.5, 6 and 12. I could have designed everything to run on the same voltage, but that would have added complexity, power drain, and cost. In the end, it was much easier to simply power each device with whatever worked best for it. (There's only one device that runs on 12 volts, and that's only because of a special relay it needed, so I used 'AA' batteries to bump 6 up to 12.)