Automated Operations - can it be done w/o an electrical engineering degree?

@Paul Kallus posted:

I am taking a shot in the dark on this, and am hoping there's an expedient method to set up automated operations. I have Legacy, DCS, and TMCC hooked up, and maybe under one or more of those systems I could accomplish this. I am sure it can be done with computer logic programmers or some complicated array of add-on devices, relays, etc., and I am especially interested if it can be done without having to take electrical engineering classes .

Can anyone relate to this method of enjoying operations, and have you accomplished it?

Paul,

Being an electrical engineer, and for the last 45 years having been tasked with designing automation of many, many different sorts there is no truly easy way to automate your small railroad.  However there are pieces of automation available, and some of them have, perhaps quite surprisingly, been around for a long, long time.

The good thing about our real-world miniature stuff, as opposed to virtual miniature stuff (video games and simulations), is that it mimics real life very closely, just on a smaller scale.  Unfortunately this means that the automation you seek is very nearly identical to that which is used, or would be used, in 1:1 scale railroading.  Only the physical size and distance between the components used to locate trains and control movements is different, being substantially smaller on your layout than in the big world.  The logic behind signaling and control is exactly the same.

People have tried to make this easy for decades, with some success seen in various parts of the challenge, but nothing totally successful for every aspect of control.

There are several members of the OGR Forum who have accomplished impressive things.  I'm hoping that they'll chime in here.

In addition to old fashioned relays and ladder logic, newer building blocks include Lionel's Layout Control System (LCS), as well as JMRI, LCC and CBus.

Follow this link for an example:

     Model Railroad Wiring for Automated Train Operation | Building Your Model Railroad .com

or if you're in to Centralized Traffic Control (CTC):

     Computer Automated Traffic System (CATS) | CATS 4 CTC

Finally as food for thought I'll leave you with a rather amazing device that seems to have started the discussion, nearly a hundred years ago, that you're adding to with your questions.

Introducing the Midget Dispatcher, manufactured by Western Coil and Electrical Co. in Racine, Wisconsin (photo of ad thanks to forumite @Jim O'C from a post back in 2018):

I'm looking forward to the rest of this thread.  The topic of layout automation always brings good conversation.

Mike

I think what you are looking for is built right into DCS called Record/Playback an operating session.  You can record up to 90 minutes or 500 presses of the buttons on the remote.  So you can stop, go, pause, blow horn etc and then play it back and just watch.  Provided you place the engines in the same position before you recorded,  you can play it over and over again.  Read up on it in the manual.

I also think Lionel has an Action Recorder that does the same thing.  Might be built into the new control - don't know.  Check them out.   Bill

YES, check out TrainController software.  It is software developed by Freiwald.  

Enter TrainController on youtube to see it in action

Do a search on freiwald.com.  To see versions Bronze, Silver and Gold.

Simple automation, like two trains running conventional on a track with a single siding, has been done for a long time with simple relays and isolated track blocks.

But I don't think there's any simple or off-the-shelf solution for more complex automation, and definitely not if you want to use command control. I built an automated system using TMCC/Legacy and DCS around the Arduino microcontroller, but it required (1) division of the track into logical blocks between every switch with isolated block occupancy sensing at each end of each block; (2) identification of trains by RFID as they entered the system, and (3) lots of programming to work out the automation logic.

As Mike says, the problems and requirements are probably not much simpler than real railroad automation.

If the goal is to run two trains on the same loop, the IR controlled format I devised in 2007 is a simple  solution. It has been replicated by a number of forum members.

There's also a middle ground here. An old-fashioned kill section (25-30" dead center rail) will stop a train before a single track section, and you can put your beverage down to restart it at your leisure once the opposing train passes. Personally, I have no wish for automatic operation, but some wiring to make it easier for one person to run multiple trains ( not on independent loops) safely is welcome.

Even easier with dead rail

Thanks for the input.

Per Bill's suggestion, I researched and found this article on DCS recording/playback. While the article doesn't state it, in theory with an AIU hooked up connected to the TIU, this function would allow switch positions to change, though that would likely involve programming routes ahead of the recording session, not a big deal if your switches are already wired to an AIU, which mine are not, though I do have an AIU in storage somewhere.

DCS Tips & Techniques_Article 2.cdr (mthtrains.com)

Battery power would require that the layout control approach be embedded in the necessary R/C control system as opposed to a track powered layout in which the train movement is based on controlled track sections. Much more complicated, but probably doable.