RR&Co, my control panel & the basics of automation

[peach james]

I have used the critical block trick in 5.0, and it clearly doesn't work right. I have also split trains down the middle...and a Bachmann Mk 1 will NOT clear the 6' on both tracks...(at least, not around the corners, where it's a bit more than 6'...)

 

I would tend towards using flagmen to cover p&c heavy blocks, using 3 for each (in/block/out) direction may be important...

 

I haven't locked blocks that way, but the frustration of how to force blocks into restricted and stop block mode when in hand signalman can be annoying. Not to mention the DCC system continually unprogramming one stationary decoder. (did it 3x, now changed that decoder style for another...(DS44 switched to 64, as yet unprogrammed)

 

Again, there are many different ways to skin the cat. My annoyance with Mr Friewald is that he tries to be grinch over people distrubuting copies of the older versions of the software- he got nasty with me over asking on the forums for a copy of 5.0. Not the key...which is piracy, but the software, which comes with a ELUA which specifically allows redistro of the software. (and yes, I had bought the key...then I lost the software, and asked nicely for someone with it to send it to me on his forum...)

 

James

[GoingUnderground]

.......I think that I will purchase an ESU controller, but there do not seem to be any available anywhere at this time.

The ESU 2010 price list no longer includes the older B&W 50000 ECoS, so it must have been discontinued in the expectation that once the colour version is released, promised before the end of March 2010, that's all that anyone will want to buy. The ESU price list shows the Colour ECoS priced at EUR649.99. There are some B&W ECoSs listed on ebay at under GBP400, presumably dealers trying to clear existing stock before the colour version is released.

 

ESU have promised that all future firmware releases for the colour ECoS will also work on the old B&W version.

[kbriffa]

Yesterday night I hooked up my newly acquired LI-USB, fired up my laptop, loaded up my layout on RailRoad & Co for the first time (still trying out the demo) and played trains and switched turnouts around etc. Total bliss! There is no turning back now.

 

Next step: block management

 

Kenneth

[two tone green]

Not sure how to wire LED's to the RS8's, not done it. There is no direct connection as such to do this so some other interface, wiring would be required.

 

I buy my RS8's & LS-DEC-NS signal modules directly from LDT in their ready made form. They get to goodies out quickly.

[alangr]

Hi all! Yes, I have been 'away' for a while but now have a PC, three RS8 units and...yes...have created and run a schedule with Gold. It all took some time and there are many things that the manual says you can do that take just a weeny bit of exploration before they do what it seems that they should do but...well, with a layout mostly laid the biggest problem is getting at the track to make all of the rail cuts and insert those pesky insulators. So I now have five blocks working (with umpty more to come!).

 

The RS8 was tricky at first though. With one Power District, I only had four blocks. OK, so I wire up one set of four connections from one 'side' of the RS8. Can I see it via the feedback? No way; not that or set the address! It turns out (after exchanges with LDT) that you must have a JK input to both the inputs on an RS8 (IN1 and IN2), even if you are only going to use one set of outputs. And it can be two separate PDs or the same one.

 

Still, all that is small beer now (though it caused much agonising at the time!). All I need to do now is continue cutting, insulating and wiring in the rest of the blocks. But a shuttle service with what I have just shows the start of what you have all been talking about. It will take a bit yet but...getting there!

 

Regards

 

Alan

[Guest Digital]

Hi all! Yes, I have been 'away' for a while but now have a PC, three RS8 units and...yes...have created and run a schedule with Gold. It all took some time and there are many things that the manual says you can do that take just a weeny bit of exploration before they do what it seems that they should do but...well, with a layout mostly laid the biggest problem is getting at the track to make all of the rail cuts and insert those pesky insulators. So I now have five blocks working (with umpty more to come!).

 

The RS8 was tricky at first though. With one Power District, I only had four blocks. OK, so I wire up one set of four connections from one 'side' of the RS8. Can I see it via the feedback? No way; not that or set the address! It turns out (after exchanges with LDT) that you must have a JK input to both the inputs on an RS8 (IN1 and IN2), even if you are only going to use one set of outputs. And it can be two separate PDs or the same one.

 

Still, all that is small beer now (though it caused much agonising at the time!). All I need to do now is continue cutting, insulating and wiring in the rest of the blocks. But a shuttle service with what I have just shows the start of what you have all been talking about. It will take a bit yet but...getting there!

 

Regards

 

Alan

 

Hi Alan,

 

Good to see you are up and running.

You have only discovered a small amount of what Railroad & Co can do and once you get all your blocks wired in the possibilities are endless.

Have fun.

 

John

[two tone green]

Hi Alan,

 

Fully agree with John, get them all fitted and away you go. The worst bit is over with and then some serious mouse work and it will all fall into place. Let us know how you get on.

 

Have fun.

 

TTG

[john dew]

Hi Alan

 

Good to hear from you......let me add my congratulations.......its very satisfying when it all comes together

 

Kind Regards from Vancouver

[alangr]

Thanks for all the support; it does take tiome to get to grips with it all! Yes, it is fun once the blocks are in (a few more done today) and I keep on thinking, TTG, of your 'demo push button' with six trains, all for showing what can be done. That's quite a way off yet for me and it will be a while before I can run 'free' as that needs all major blocks connected; but it is coming and yes, Digital, I am having fun in amongst the work!

 

Cheers for now, from a sunny but chilly Athens, John

 

Alan

[kbriffa]

Hi everyone. A couple of days ago I recieved my first RS-8 so I hooked it up together with RR&Co and lo an behold the block is shown as occupied. My next step is related to see how to wire up the occupancy detector and where in the layout they would be needed. I read all the posts on this thread once again and have singled out these two posts by TTG regarding track circuiting in relation to stretches of pointwork and the software losing track of the loco as it negiotates the points.

 

It is simple to do and just involves more block occupancy detectors but are not associated to blocks and are used solely for controlling signaling. If you look at my picture above of my layout you should be able to see some of those black dots that seem to be away from the track. These are used for the track circuiting I am talking about. I will go into this later in more detail but thought I would mention it now in case any one is thinking about how many occupancy detectors they will need. I have continuous track circuiting on my layout so every section of track is fed through a detector. It makes the signalling more reliable and more realistic as well as it operates far quicker this way. It also adds further protection against trains hitting each other when running under automatic control as every section of track is monitored by the software.

 

Hi Geoff,I am in a similar situation as you with point work and a single loco can get lost in it all from a software point of view if you don't take the required precautions. Yes the software if you read all the manual should be able to cope with routes in a simple situation but where there are multiple routes from A to B or multiple routes through points, it can get a bit bent out of shape and go on strike and lead to the crash bang wallop situation.Ways to get over it. as you mention, fit occupancy detectors to your point work.

 

So is the best solution to fit occupancy detectors to the turnouts (TTG you seem to have a clear solution which you were going to explain to us!)? What do I do then in the software? I read in the manual and in the forum that blocks shouldn't contain turnouts. Confused. Or maybe the occupancy detector in the turnout changes a signal in the software which sets conditions for trains to be able to go over the turnout? How would one achieve this in the software? Or maybe there is a simpler way of doing it?

 

As you can see I'm not quite sure how to go about track circuiting for pointwork sections of the layout. Any help appreciated.

 

Kenneth

[two tone green]

Hi Kenneth,

 

Good that you have finally got underway with the excellent RS8's. One question from me first, I take it that when you aid that your block showed occupied when you connected it, there was a loco actually on the track in the block that was connected to the RS8. If not you have a problem.

 

Any way, back to points, blocks and track circuiting.

 

The detectors, RS8's in our case can be used for blocks to show occupancy but also can be used to show that a 'section' of track is occupied. This 'section' of track does not have to be part of a block, it is the bit of track that joins the blocks together. In RR&Co these 'sections' are called routes. Its makes sense really, its how you get from block A to block B. The train goes along a route to do this.

 

These sections of track, routes can be long and in some cases it is nice to show if these routes are occupied. The reason for this is when running multiple trains over the same route, some times in opposing directions. So if the software knows that a route is occupied, it will stop another train from entering it. This is done by using a detector, RS8 in our case.

 

Now think about the route being point work and by letting the software know that the point work has some thing standing on it, it wont change the points under the train, it is locked as well as stopping another train from trying to enter the point work and the routes through it.

 

There is the ability to add these detector to routes in the routes screen of the Dispatcher screen. For example, if there are two blocks A & B joined by a route then this route is called A<..>B on the dispatcher screen. Double click this route in edit mode and the route properties will come up. Click on the indicators tab and you will see a list of indicators available on the left and a blank box on the right. Select the indicator that is in the route A<..>B and it will appear in the right hand box. This is then allocated to that route. Don't forget you can have more than one indicator in a route depending on the complexity of your point work, routes.

 

This then will protect this route when running schedules as long as you have de-selected the enter occupied routes, reserve occupied routes option in the schedules that go over this route.

 

As I said I have my layout fully protected with this type of track circuiting so every route is protected. Also with resistive wheel sets on rolling stock a route is fully protected. Its shows occupied until the whole length of the train has cleared it so the point work will not change under a train.

 

As for the signalling, it uses the same detectors I have just talked about. So they have a dual use. Again when routes are long, that is track work not contained with in a block, it an take a while for a train passing a signal at the end of a block to change if it relies on the signal being triggered by the next block that has a detector in it. So your signal logic that control the signals is triggered by the route track circuiting as well as the block occupancy detector in advance of the block. This means the signal changes almost as soon as the train passes the signal.

 

I was at the end of Cardiff General Station on Wednesday afternoon watching the 57 hauled Holyhead train leave and the signal at the end of the platform changed straight away as the loco passed the signal and as it entered the point work that is just after the signal. This point work is reasonably long so like I have just described above, if it had depended on the train arriving in the next block to trigger the signal to red, the signal would be showing green which is really the wrong aspect / state for that situation.

 

If you are only just at the fitting of your RS8's and getting your layout to work, then I would suggest staying away from signals for now and concentrate on the block occupancy detectors and routes / track circuiting. This is what may be called hardware work, the signals really are almost totally software set up. Yes they need a decoder to work but setting up the blocks in the right place and getting them configured correctly is far more important and harder to do. The signalling will come far easier if you have done the the blocks and track circuiting correctly.

 

Hope this helps. It certainly works for me and I have some very very complex pointwrok with lots of routes through them.

[kbriffa]

Hi TTG!

 

Many, many thanks. I have followed your instructions and it is all very clear now. Thanks for your patience in writing this up. I need to think about configuration of blocks and start some serious wiring in onto my layout to make sure I really understood and be able to test the layout.

 

Wish I could come to the get-together you'll be having to learn more, but Malta is a bit far away from Manchester but I bet we'll be having better weather

 

Thanks again

Kenneth

[two tone green]

Good. Keep going, soon be done and then the real work will start.

 

Seriously. Depending on the complexity of your layout, there is a lot of mouse clicking to do. Some of it very very repetitive. When it comes to setting up signals and you have one signal with multiple routes after it, it can involve a lot of mouse clicks to get the signal to show the correct aspect for point work, track circuiting, all the blocks in advance of the signal and the signals at the ends of these blocks.

 

If you use three or four aspect signals you have to consider the aspect of the signals in advanced of the signal you are programming. It gets very very complicated and it is why I opted to use flagman to control my signals.

 

I created switchboards that only contains flagman that control the signals. All the flagman for a particular signal are all grouped together in list fashion and set up so that only one flagman is activate at a time per signal. So by looking at a switchboard for one particular signal, I can see exactly what that signal is doing. If for example I see two flagman activated the I know my programming is incorrect as there should be only one. I have four switchboards full of flagman as my siganlling is complex.

 

Each signal would have flagman that would give a red aspect for points being set wrong. Flagman that give green aspect, yellow aspect, red aspect for each of the routes, movements it controls.

 

So for a signal called Platform 1 West, The flagman are grouped into routes that this signal protects. So one set will be Platform 1 to Depart 1 West. These names are taken from the blocks. Then in that group will be a set of flagman with all possibilities for points being set wrong. Then the flagman for points being correct with no blocks occupied or no track circuiting indicators on. This then gives a green aspect. But if the points are correct but the block in advance is occupied or a track circuiting is on, then it will show red. But if Platform 1 West signal is a three aspect signal and all the points are right, the block in advance is unoccupied and the track circuiting indicators are off but the signal at the end of the next block is red, then Platform 1 West will show yellow. Make sense yet.

 

This is why I went for this set up using flagman. With complex routes, multiple routes etc I can see straight away that every thing is working ok by seeing only one flagman activated per signal and by arranging your groups you can follow the signals and what they are doing by watching them change on the switch board as the train moves around the layout.

 

You still use the signal logic set up in the signal properties box but select the flagman that trigger each aspect.

 

So for green you would have multiple flagman using the OR function. 1 OR 2 OR 3, what ever names that 1,2, or 3 are. Same for yellow. In fact according to RR&Co you don't need any thing in the red aspect box if this is the default state of the signal. It is saying that if the signal is not being told to be yellow or green, it automatically turns red. But for extra safety I do have flagman to turn the signals to red, especially for point work.

 

 

BUT BUT BUT. Do please remember that the signals you see on your layout and have spent weeks, months, years programming to work correctly having nothing to do with the automatic operation of the layout. All that stuff is done internally inside the software. There is another complete set of signals that are part of the blocks which you have no control over which runs the railway. But if you are setting up your blocks and running schedules, you will already know all about these wont you.

[two tone green]

Here is an example of what I have been talking about. A switchboard full of flagman that control one set of signals.

[caenmatt]

i thought i better stop lurking and post on this thread.

some members will know me from another forum (hi lads) for those who don't here is my layout switchboard. i am at the point of laying the fiddle yard on the real layout. the biggest problem is finding the money to get the software. i am going to the meet up at the end of the month so i will save some questions till then. i have spent far two many hours on this to turn back.

 

[caenmatt]

i thought i better stop lurking and post on this thread.

some members will know me from another forum (hi lads) for those who don't here is my layout switchboard. i am at the point of laying the fiddle yard on the real layout. the biggest problem is finding the money to get the software. i am going to the meet up at the end of the month so i will save some questions till then. i have spent far two many hours on this to turn back.

 

[two tone green]

If you are bringing that with you to the get together to ask questions about, I aint going

[caenmatt]

after last saturday i decided to sit down and have a play with signals, this i can confirm is a black art................

i set flagmen up for each signal x3 and changed the colour red, amber and green. i used the red as default and the trigger for this is the red signal. i have the green working ok and the amber signals all work fine so far. one thing i cannot figure out is.......

 

when a loco is in block A the signal is green as the next two blocks\routes are free, when the loco exits the block the signal should change to red. however this does not happen until the next block is occupied. how do i get the signal to change to red as soon as the route beyond the signal is occupied?

 

a screen shot of how i have it set up

 

 

i am setting the triggers up as follows

 

 

they work fine it is just the part from the signal to the next block.

[two tone green]

Will get to you Tuesday if you can wait sorry. Currently sat overlooking Torbay in my house on wheels enjoying the first dry spell here for a day or two.

Wine is good though and the local beef steaks excellent cooked on the BBQ.

[PaulRhB]

Next click the block editor tab and you will see an oblong box on a grid with what looks like little colour light signals at either end. This bock so far has a name but it is a bit lost, it does not know where it is on the layout, which bit of track it is. How is this done? Any answers, no? OK, its by allocating one of the block occupancy detectors to it. If you look to the right and upwards from the block in the block editor you will see two yellow dots, one with a small arrow attached to it. Put you mouse cursor over it and it should say, insert an existing indicator. Click on this and you will be presented with three choices. Choose the top one, contact indicators and a list of all your block occupancy detectors will pop up. Choose the one that you want, has the same name as your block and it will now appear in the block hopefully and the colour of the block will change.

 

 

Hi there I'm trying to help H Hog with setting up his RR&Co with NCE AIUs but he's not getting the pop up list of block occupancy detectors.

The detectors are connected through NCE AIU's and they all seem to be talking ok with lights on in the correct places.

Now what seems to be missing is the PC recognising the AIU's, these are set to addresses 50 & 59 but there seems to be no instruction about telling the pc to look for these through the rs232 connection to the powerbox.

The instructions (p259) say to specify the digital addresses but where do you do this on RR&Co?

 

Heres what we are seeing

 

Now we are showing no detectors

 

If we go to the edit screen it's set up like this and is this where we put in the addresses set on the AIU?

[Gdaysydney]

Here is my main layout track plan. It is not quite up to date as there have been some changes at the right hand end. Using old files on my laptop away from home. But it shows the difference between mine and Dave's layout arrangement due to the way we use RR&Co.

 

 

Hi Andy,

 

I am finding this forum very useful and have been experimenting with my track plan now that I have seen how others are using RR&Co. Your track plan included in your post of 7/10/2009 appears to show the occupied blocks with the loco numbers which is something I would like to do ( i.e only have the loco detail appear when the block is occupied and with no picture.) How did you achieve this?

 

Dave

[joe]

This is a brilliant thread, just what I have been looking for - instruction on how to put together an automated layout.

Congratulations to you.

Joe

[john dew]

Hi there I'm trying to help H Hog with setting up his RR&Co with NCE AIUs but he's not getting the pop up list of block occupancy detectors.

The detectors are connected through NCE AIU's and they all seem to be talking ok with lights on in the correct places.

Now what seems to be missing is the PC recognising the AIU's, these are set to addresses 50 & 59 but there seems to be no instruction about telling the pc to look for these through the rs232 connection to the powerbox.

The instructions (p259) say to specify the digital addresses but where do you do this on RR&Co? ]

 

Did this ever get answered?

 

You have to create the contact indicator either from the Switchboard Menu.......the Contact Indicator icon is next to the Block icon at the top of the switchboard

 

Select Contact Indicatoe and then place it on the switchboard in the same way that you would place a turnout.................you then have to assign this indicator to a block by using the block editor as per your screen shot

 

Alternatively you can create a new indicator from within the block using the block editor and selecting the [New Contact Indicator] Icon. Using this method the indicator is automatically allocated to the block but does not appear on the switchboard.

[john dew]

Hi Andy,

 

I am finding this forum very useful and have been experimenting with my track plan now that I have seen how others are using RR&Co. Your track plan included in your post of 7/10/2009 appears to show the occupied blocks with the loco numbers which is something I would like to do ( i.e only have the loco detail appear when the block is occupied and with no picture.) How did you achieve this?

 

Dave

 

Select [VIEW] from the main menu

 

[sWITCHBOARD]

 

[CUSTOMISE]

 

[bLOCKS]

 

Check the Show Train Image Box under Train dIsplay

 

 

That should do it!

 

Regards

[two tone green]

Hi John,

 

Yes, H Hog solved his problem. I've been to visit him to sort out some of his problems and the next visit is tomorrow.

 

You got in first with the block info. Thanks, I was in bed when you replied. Suppose being in Canada extends the support here !