Power to your accessories

I have a couple of Lionel CW-80s that I had received in sets. I run wires from the "throttle side" of these to a terminal block or accessory buss, and connect the accessories from there.

Being on the throttle output allows me to adjust my accessory voltage accordingly.

On a side note, my track power is totally seperate from a 180w brick.

I use a CW-80 to run actual accessories.  For lighting though - all LED now, I use several DC power supplies that came with Superstreets RTR sets.  They are 7 watts and cheap, but adjustable so i can back off LED lighting to about 2/4 for just a soft glow.

Many (but not all) accessories can be run on DC as well. They often run more smoothly and quietly that way. Everybody has a big box of old power bricks--I use lots of them this way. 

Many people don't realize that it is perfectly OK to share a DC "ground" and an AC "neutral" as a common return. It doesn't even matter which polarity you use for any given circuit--the voltages are relative. Among other things, this lets you use traditional isolated track blocks with DC circuits.  I run all my Super-O switches on DC, for example.

One of the nicest features of the CW is the programmable accessory output, perfect for those accessories / lights / signals that only need to be "set once and forget it".

I have a post war ZW transformer which gives me 4 different voltages, each specific to different accessories.  My lighting comes off low voltage DC power supply.

Steve, Lady and Tex

I power then all from a ZW. Lots of lights that it handles very well.

I use a Lionel V transformer. It has four variable outputs that let you fine tune voltage and can be found for not much money. I also have a PC power supply ($15) for all lighting. 252 crossing gates run much quieter on this DC power. At 300 watts, I can power a lot of lights, especially LEDs.

John