Hi Justin :
Many thanks for posting - very interesting site! Never heard about before but that "slow motion" sounds great. The only bias I'd have are those working temperatures of 80 degrees C and above - some parts of the layout may become quite hot [xx(]

Best Regards
John

Nice idea, but it is too slow for me as our layout is too small.. Must look great on a really large layout..

My guess is that a lot of current is needed to heat the wire AND the wire would have some room temperature sensitivity eg shorter in winter than summer? Could this mean a lot of fiddling?? It may not be a big issue in colder climates where it seems houses are heated during winter, but where I live the indoor temperature can vary between 40C and 5C (You guys in the USA will have to do your own conversions - sorry))..

Just to add to the info already given: memory wire or motors are your only choice if you use prototypical turnouts where the rails are one piece and "bend" when the direction is changed (instead of the "moving clickety thing" on Marklin turnouts...) My personal choice would be either to go fully prototypical ("bendy" rails that are also moved slowly) or just leave things as they are...

I was thinking about these memory wires some more today. I really wonder about using them for turnouts. Using the memory wire instead of the M* solenoid, you have a "default" position. This is the position of the turnout when no current is applied to the memory wire.

Is this a good thing? I think it would be for signals, but I'm still undecided on turnouts. Its hard to pass the memory wires up for aesthetic reasons but I don't know if I want a turnout to be in one position when it is without power.

I'll probably stick with solenoids for hidden turnouts, and maybe I'll give these things a try in other, more visible areas. I can always switch back, right?!

You could bypass this problem by using 2 memory wires and some kind of toggling mechanism. Actuate one wire, and it will toggle the mechanism to the left position, actuate the other wire and it wil move to the right. After the toggling has been completed you can let the wire cool down (actually, you will have to before actuating the other one)
Not a complete design, just an idea that came to my mind.