It has been a number of years since the Central End Module was last worked on ... what little time that was spent on modeling focused on detailing the Canyon Module and my daughter's 30° module. On the horizon is the 2015 National Train Show to be held in Portland and I'm getting the urge to take this module to the next level so that it can be included in that event. Given some time playing with the module at home, my real concern at this point is that the turnout control solution isn't reliable enough and I can't see moving forward with the module completion without dealing with this issue head on.
While I tried a couple of improvements to adapt the Hump Yard Purveyance solution to Z-scale, I have decided that the tighter tolerances needed for this scale are just not readily met. I've considered one last possible improvement involving using a very rigid sleeve (brass maybe?) for the control wire going up to the turnout might eliminate enough of the looseness in the design to keep the proper pressure on the points. But I'm skeptical if this band-aid is even worth the effort given that I would essentially have to completely re-craft all of the setups and it very well could turn out to not be good enough. So, I'm now looking for a different approach.
I still like the idea of a manual solution as opposed to powered switch controls and with some searching have landed on the use of Fast Track's BullFrog Manual Turnout Controls.
I want to note that the solution from Hump Yard Purveyance is likely sound for the larger scales that it is clearly marketed for ... no assurance was ever made about using their product for Z-scale layouts so the fact that I wasn't able to get it to successfully work shouldn't reflect badly on them. Possibly some of the ideas that I incorporated in my attempts might be useful for its use in larger scales.
So, off to order some BullFrog's to check them out!