Tuesday Tips: Cufflinks and Toggles

What do cufflinks and toggles have to do with one another, you may ask? Well, as you'll see, one is a way of protecting the other. Allow me to 'splain....

It may not be apparent in the view above, but sometimes when operators have to lean over this part of the fascia to reach the back of the layout, they may <ahem> come into contact with those toggles . . .

And if you happen to lean into these toggles, you may inadvertently turn off the command station and/or the power. Yes, it's happened - a few times . . .

So, while trying to think of something that could protect the toggles, I came across this . . .

This is a cufflinks box. I don't even know why I had it nor how I got it. But it was just laying around and I happened to spot it at the right time.

When I opened it and felt how nicely it popped open, stayed open, and popped closed, I got a wonderful, awful idea . . .

Why not drill some holes for the toggles? So that's what I did.

Thankfully, the toggles themselves don't poke out too far (though apparently too far for some operators :^) . . .

. . . to allow the box to shut. Talk about an elegant solution!

And as you may have guessed from the previous photos, I came up with this a while back (still trying to catch the blog up to current times) - so here it is as it looks today. Classy!

While I was going through all this, it occurred to me that every time I powered up the layout a bunch of engines would power up as well. Not only does that create a bit of a racket (especially when you're just troubleshooting something, or wanting to run one engine), but creates an unnecessary power surge on the command station.

So I decided to proved some "cut-out" switches for the tracks that those engines typically occupy.  I had not plain-ol' toggle switches on-hand, but I did have a few spare wall light switches. Those turned out to be a more elegant solution (detecting a theme here?) and - bonus! - no soldering required.

First step is to use the faceplate to help locate the switch.

And I traced around the switch itself to get an idea of how large to make the opening in the fascia.

I used a 1" spade bit to drill 3 holes, one on top of the other . . .

Then it's just a matter of cutting one wire that's supplying power to the track you want to isolate and attaching the two ends to the screw terminals on the switch.

This creates a nice, intuitive on/off switch for the track (even better if you label which track it controls!).

Now I can store engines on "Yard 1" and not have to worry about them starting up until I want them to start up.

Being so successful with one track, I figured I'd next tackle multiple tracks . . .

Using the same techniques I described above, I used one switch to cut power to a pit track and another switch to cut power to my entire west end staging yard (for an article on this "Staging Yard in a Box" check out the September 2026 issue of Model Railroader :^)

This project was a little more complicated than the earlier effort since it involved more wires and required more careful attention to the location of the switches themselves so they'd fit nicely in the switchplate/cover.

But, again, a nice looking solution to a common problem. If you can't source toggle switches (and having Radio Shack disappear makes that more difficult), or if you don't like soldering, try giving regular light switches a try. You may find that you prefer them, despite their taking up quite a bit more space on your fascia.