Another application is for layout background sounds. For under $20 you can get MP3 players with a built-in speaker (rather than just driving ear buds). With the GB-sized memory, this represents days of sound. So you could pre-record hours of non-repetitive actual freight yard switching, station sounds, tower comm from a scanner, whatever. If there is only one MP3 file on a player, the players I've seen will simply repeat it. So replace batteries with a wall wart or voltage adapter from accessory power and it's no maintenance.
Compare to old days where background sounds were a 2-minute looping cassette tape, or a solid-state sound module with a whopping 5-minutes of low-quality audio.
The stereo separation on MP3 players is perfect. This means you can play two completely independent sound tracks out Left and Right. Just take two mono recordings, combine with audio editor freeware, and Save As stereo MP3 file.
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