… of the electronic kind. Here’s a bit of perspective on how far hobby electronics have come in 10-15 years. The big box with lots of (manual) switches is my old model train control panel. This beast was capable of running two trains on separately powered track, and toggling various lighting. It kept this engineer very busy flipping switches if his audience got tired of seeing the trains go repeatedly around the same circle.
Contrast that with the two small components at the bottom of the pic. They not only replace the entire box, but can be programmed to automatically run many trains on the same track and keep the accessory traffic lights, crossing gates, etc, in sync! The black controller handles the trains and the Domino handles the signal lights and track switches using a bunch of sensors on the layout.
Adding more trains (and track) used to require lots of careful electrical planning. Often this meant rewiring a good portion of the layout. Now all I need to do is add more amps and tap a couple of buttons.
Frickin’ Easy!
BTW - I like that tag line better than the new one: Fast & Easy? Why the change? More politically correct?
…this is how it all started, we made a little prototype board with NETMF and someone said … “man, this board is fxxx easy, a monkey can do it!” 
