Lighted accessories and structures add a lot of appeal to the toy train layout. They are even more eye catching when lights come on as trains move into parts of the layout, cycle on and off, and respond to visitor push buttons.

Three-Rail Innovations' Two Lighting Relays controller adds Lighting ACTION to your layout. Lights in trackside accessories, lighting accessories, and structures can be turned on and off when trains move into track blocks, can be cycled on and off, and can be made to follow a layout's "day" and "night" lighting pattern. A Two Lighting Relays controller can also augment trackside accessory and lighting actions operated by a Two-Relay Controller.

A single 2LR can turn over a hundred layout lights on and off and can be used to cycle lighting throughout the layout. More 2LRs can be installed to add lighting actions or to create day/night, day-part, and even day-of-week lighting patterns.

What the Two Lighting Relays Controller Can Do

Operating Lighting Accessories

Simple Structure Lighting

Prototypical Layout Lighting

"Matrix" Lighting for Large Layouts

Layout Room Lighting

Click for more information on Layout Lighting.

Lighting accessories enhance the appeal of a train layout. Even more interest is added when lighting accessories turn on and off.

The Two Lighting Relays controller will operate any prewar, postwar, or modern lighting accessory, including: street lamps (over thirty on one set of relay contacts), floodlight towers, beacon towers, billboards, yard lights, lighted stations, and the lights in trackside accessories such as switch towers.

Action can be triggered by trains moving into track blocks, by operator pushbuttons, independently by the Controller itself ... or combinations of all three.

On/off timing can varied from 2 seconds to twenty minutes and can even be randomly selected so lighting action does not follow a regular pattern.

Want more details? Descriptions of lighted accessories and connection diagrams for Three-Rail Innovations' products are here: Trackside Accessories .

Houses, stores, schools, and other buildings often come with an interior light and lights are easily added to buildings.

Simply turning building lights on and off in a seemingly random pattern adds layout appeal by simulating people entering and leaving buildings and turning the lights on and off.

A Two Lighting Relays controller is perfect for cycling building lights. Its "Random Range" feature allows a relay to cycle on and off with changing timings, so regular patterns are not evident.

With the addition of room dividers and a light in each room, the lighting within a building can be made to change to simulate people moving about in the building.

A single 2LR can cycle the lights in many buildings, anywhere on the train layout; a 2LR can turn over a hundred typical layout light bulbs on and off. By spreading the buildings that are operated by each lighting action throughout the train layout, visitors won't even notice that some are cycling at the same time.

Additional 2LRs can, of course, be added for more lighting actions to enhance the cycling effect. The Two Lighting Relays controller operator manual shows how to combine lighting actions and further enhance layout lighting activity.

"Prototypical" layout lighting means lighting accessories and lights in structures follow designations for day, night, morning, evening, weekday, weekend, etc.

Street lamps turn on at "night." Yard lights are turned on when a train enters a yard, but only if it is "night." Stores are lighted during the "day." Lights in a school are on only during the "morning" and "afternoon."

Any prototypical designations are possible. The 2RC even has a day-of-week counter so prototypical lighting can be by a specific day, weekdays, weekend, etc.

The Two Lighting Relays controller has specific features for creating prototypical layout lighting. "Day" and "Night" cycling can be set from 4 seconds to 40 minutes. Controller features are available for creating day-part (morning, afternoon, evening, etc.) timing.

Random cycling can be combined with prototypical designations so, for example, downstairs lights cycle on and off during the "day" and "evening" and upstairs lights cycle at "night."

Prototypical layout lighting can be implemented with a couple of 2LRs, adding a lot of appeal to a train layout.

Three-Rail Innovations' "Matrix Lighting" is a technique for creating a large number of lighting "actions" using a small number of relays. Even as few as two 2LRs can generate over sixty possible lighting actions.

The Matrix Lighting technique also minimizes wiring; distribution of the sixty lighting actions of a two-2LR matrix needs only ten wires.

The Matrix Lighting technique is fully developed with complete wiring examples in the Two Lighting Relays controller operator manual.

The operation of train layout lighting can be enhanced by synchronizing it with train room lighting. A Two Lighting Relays controller can be synchronized with train room lighting and can control low voltage train room lighting.

The Two Lighting Relays controller operator manual gives details.