When everything is powered up, a two-locomotive Amtrak Coast Starlight, numbered 146 and 150, runs a full circuit of an apartment and comes back heading the other way. M E built the turnaround as a reversing loop on an HO scale Kato Unitrack layout, and every part of the handoff between loop and mainline is handled by hand.
Getting there took some layout engineering. It is sectional track with grey roadbed sitting directly on carpet, and the route crosses doorways, hallways and living space. The mainline runs as a loop through the living room and kitchen, with the throttle sitting on the coffee table. White paper shims prop up the curved sections in places; that strikes me as a patient fix on a carpet floor. I also like the green through-truss bridge in the scene.
The wiring is where this build gets interesting for me. The loop and the mainline each have their own power pack, and the loop is electrically isolated from the rest. On analog DC, the maker throws a switch to send the train from the mainline into the loop, always travels through it one way, then flips direction on the mainline controller while the train is inside. A throttle pack with knobs and toggle switches is wired to the rails.
The consist is a handsome match too: a pre-2015 Coast Starlight with two P-42 locomotives, the lead one by Kato and the trailing one by Athearn, Superliner sleepers and coaches, a Budd heritage baggage car by Kato, and Walthers for the remaining cars.
One thing is still open. The maker does not yet see how a dedicated reversing controller would do away with the second power pack, and trains only ever pass through the loop in a single direction. To my eye that is the trade-off side of doing it all manually.
Project by M E. Watch it on their YouTube channel: