Firstly I would just like to say hello and what an excellent site for us newbies/returners to our great hobby. Many thanks for bringing us all together

I am about to undertake my first OO railway layout after many years returning to the hobby. The layout will be a sort of heritage line like the Bluebell railway but with no exact period and it will be called ST. BLAZEY'S after a small station on the old Cornwall Minerals Railway line, running smaller locos, DMU's, coaches and goods wagons.
I'm not worried about being exact to any prototype, I just like to model and "play" trains.
I have never built a layout before, only owning a Hornby Inter-City 125 train set as a child which sparked my initial interest in an amazing hobby and which I still own although it will be too big to run on my proposed layout.
Over the years i've tried to research as much as possible on layout building by reading books, magazines and watching some videos, although a lot of it I didn't understand to be honest and some of the information is now redundant due to the digitisation of the hobby.
I'm not electronically trained so the whole power/lighting/control system is still a bit of a mystery to me, but i'm still trying to learn.
From the research I have done, I will be hoping to run a DCC layout with a difference.
DCC to control the running of trains, along with a 12v? power supply to control the points and lighting both on the layout and on a panel I want to build to control the points with green and red LEDs to show point position and LEDs for some sort of train detection on the panel.
I'm not sure how to implement the train detection and train detection panel LED's yet, but i'm thinking about some sort of track break/isolation on the fiddle yard roads so the trains won't hit the buffers when not in sight, especially as the trains need to run into 1 hidden track before being reversed into the fiddle yard proper.
I've seen an example of this online as a 1 sided track break with a diode that only allows power in one direction thus running the train into an isolated part of track, automatically stopping, then being able to reverse by changing direction on the controller...although I don't know yet if this is possible with DCC or how to wire up the panel LED???
Heres is the propsed panel layout I created Due to size restrictions, I will be undertaking an end to end layout build of sorts, 7 foot 2 inches long by 2 feet wide with the fiddle yard at the rear of the layout rather than at one end, passing through the scenery to reach the fiddle yard tracks.
I have designed the layout using Hornby's Virtual Railway 2 software (hoping that the size / scale is correct within the software?), and will use mainly Hornby and PECO track and small locos and wagons / coaches due to size.
Heres is the track diagram I constructed within the software. And here is a version with Hornby track piece numbers included Heres is the layout diagram I constructed within the software. The white line break on the diagram is the scenic break between the front tracks and rear fiddle yard tracks which will be under raised scenery with holes in the backscene for access.
The red and black lines are for the track power bus only, although i'm not quite sure if I have the track power droppers in the correct places??
The "road" on the diagram is actually inclined upwards from the station car park upto the scenic part covering the fiddle yard tracks.
The yellow dots are roughly where the lighting LED's will be, excluding the lights for the buildings on the upper scenery level.
And now for the questions.....
Firstly the 12v power supply.
I have seen an online video stating that an old PC power box/psu can be used for lighting.
Here is the link for the video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0f_UJTKuZ8
Can this also be used for point switching power and panel lights?
Track cleaning.
I have found this video which suggests using "automactic tramission fluid" to clean the tracks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmOPOcxXPjE
Has anyone tried this? and is it succesful?
Electronics.
LED's for lighting / panel.
I have purchased some LED's and 1k resistors for them off a well known auction site that are 2.2v 20ma. Are these the correct LED's I should be using?
And also some wire that states it is 1.25Amp / 7x0.2mm. Is this correct for wiring the lighting LED's and point motors?
Controller.
My budget for this layout is minimal at best so I have been looking at the Bachmann E-Z Command DCC Digital Controller to start the layout with, may be upgrading eventually to another compatible system. Does anyone have experience with this controller or have any pro's/con's for this purchase?
Extra power.
I have read that you can add more power for your DCC layout by adding an extra power supply booster added to the controller yet all the known model railway manufacturers model seem VERY expensive. Can a third party booster be used and does anyone have any reccomendations?
Train "on track" amount.
By this I mean, although the cheaper controllers can only run say 3 trains at a time, can more loco's/rolling stock be just sitting on the track/sidings without moving but with the lights on etc?
I am hoping to install LED lighting in my coaches which I would like on even if they are in the sidings/station, with perhaps a small circuit board which turns the lighting off after a period of time. I did find a video for this online but can't seem to find the link at the moment as I type.
Panel Switches for point motors.
I have also purchased a single SPDT so far as I wasn't sure if it was the correct switch to use. It is sprung, with momentary contact returning to centre Off position when released, rated 5 amp 120V AC. I'm almost sure the type is correct but is the power rating correct?
Points and Point Motors.
I have been looking at the SEEP PM1 point motors for the points.
Unfotunatly. again due to layout size restrictions I cannot use the PECO streamline electrofrog points as they are just too big for my layout.
But my questions are, can I turn a normal PECO or HORNBY point into an electrofrog point, or are electrofrog points even neccessary?
And also can the point motors be powered (via the panel) from the old PC psu mentioned earlier in this post?
I do have access to more than 1 PC psu if neccessary.
Decoders.
As metioned earlier, I will mainly be using shorter loco's (3 of which owned due to being a Hornby club member for 3 years), including the SMOKEY JOE loco, with maybe 1 or 2 longer loco's with 1 long coach each. Although these will only need travelling power, I would like to add cab lights in some.
My research has led me to believe to steer clear of Hornby decoders due to many problems with them.
So which deocoder / manufacturer would be suitable for such small loco's and for such small loco's with cab light function?
Well I think that covers it for now, but no doubt I will have more questions in the future but with so many experinced modellers on NRM i'm sure i'm in good hands.
Thanks to all for taking the time to read my post at the length it is and look forward to being part of a great site, a great community and a great and satisfying hobby.
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