You can use the radio side for yet another dimension to your railroad, in the form of a flickering light. Temporarily connect two wires to the leads on the cassette radio, and connect a grain of wheat bulb to the wires.
Switch on the radio side to a music programme and slightly de-tune it, turn up the volume and watch the light flicker at various intervals. This can be used for a flickering fire if used with a red grain of wheat bulb.
If you want to experiment a little further, get an oil drum and drill out the top and bottom, paint the drum dark red inside, and grey outside. Place the red bulb at the base of the drum, drill a tiny hole in the baseboard and insert the wires through it. Take one of the wires from the red grain of wheat bulb, and connect it to the red wire already present, in the radio/cassette.
The other wire from the bulb goes to another tiny switch placed on your control panel and the other side of the switch goes back to the black wire underneath. Sit people around the drum and switch on the radio. You now have the effect of your little people keeping warm around a FLICKERING fire.
There must be other uses for the flickering light, but I have not come up with any others at the moment, perhaps some readers out there can come up with another way to use it, then perhaps I can add more to my layout.