The Future of Train Control ?

[Madann01]

 :idea:Anyone up for clockwork 'n'

[Bealman]

Hey don't knock it.

I started off with a Hornby tinplate 0-4-0 loco with tender in BR green with two blood and custard coaches.

The loco was green because it was a passenger train.

Freight was black, but both beautifully lined.

Anyway it had two actuating rods sticking out the back of the cab, you'd pull one, and it would take off like a rocket around the tinplate track oval.

To stop it, you had to pull the knob, which meant catching it! 

[Madann01]

I too had a lovely clockwork train set when a child and I can remember the endless fun I had experimenting in how many turns of the big silver key it took to go around the circuit a couple of times and stop at the station (formed out of books)
I'm sure the technology is out there somewhere to replicate this and some mechanical wizard would be able harness this power in a realistic form on model railways, whether or not they have the inclination to do this is a different matter

[ntpntpntp]

[I'm arguning against] the "let's make everything a smartphone app which requires a working internet connection to the cloud" tendency one finds increasingly in many areas.

Yep. Standing behind some girlie in the post office yesterday evening waiting to post a parcel, and she's faffing around cannot get Apple Pay to work on her phone and the guy has already started the transaction so tricky to cancel it.  I wanted to shout "For heavens sake just get a tenner out of your purse!!"

[red_death]

Games On Track has had a voice control system for DCC for quite a while now.  I've used a friend's and it was surprisingly easy.


Cheers Mike

[NeMo]

:idea:Anyone up for clockwork 'n'

Or an updated version, anyway.

Whenever I see something marketed as "the next level of model train control" I check to see if electrical contact between the wheels and rail is required.

If it is, I'm unimpressed.

Dirty track and dead frogs are the things that cause me grief. Sure, you can keep the tracks clean, but really, it's an obvious weak link in the system. Get the power on-board the locomotive, and have that controlled wirelessly, and now you're talking!

I know people have played with this, and in the larger (garden) scales it's pretty common. It just seems blindingly obvious that what's needed to make toy trains more reliable for every user is this particular quantum leap (in the metaphoric sense, so physics graduates need not tell me a quantum leap would actually be really tiny).

Cheers, NeMo

[guest6107]

The technology to do it is out there now, but why would you want to? Voice commands would be a very blunt tool for something quite nuanced like controlling a train. "Slow down the EWS 66 by 3 speed steps... no, the other EWS 66... no, not the 60, the E-W-S 66 by 8 speed steps" *train ploughs into buffers*

Come on. Play the game. It's important for Amazon and Big Data to know what you're up to all the time.

[Paddy]

Totally agree with NeMo.  There are lots of great things about model railways and what you can learn from building one and this is great.  If electrics/wiring are your thing then more power to your elbow.

One observation I have is that other countries seem more in to running their trains than the UK.  How many times have you read in a magazine layout article that the author gets most of their pleasure from building the layout and that running is secondary.

All very interesting...

Paddy

[Chris Morris]

I happily choose analogue for my N gauge. I have operated layouts with DCC and have not seen anything to make me want to go the DCC route . On my garden railway I use a fair amount of battery powered radio control. I like this very much as you know you will never stall. Somehow it feels right.
I use one small handheld transmitter that controls 12 receivers (locos). All the binding is done at the transmitter end; just switch the receiver on and then use the bind option on the transmitter. I like this so much that I am currently converting an old 00 Warship to BPRC. The only issue I see with N gauge is finding a means of installing a rechargeable battery .
For me the best way forward would be for manufacturers to start building BPRC locos in smaller scales. BPRC means zero track wiring and no stalling or track cleaning ever again. That's got To be a big step forward. I don't think this will happen because manufacturers get a lot of revenue from dcc related products . For instance, bring out a new loco with 24 functions and suddenly everybody who buys the loco needs to buy a new control unit that can control 24 functions.

[Madann01]

So it's been confirmed my new layout will have a DCC main line with a computer interface allowing voice control add in a few old fashioned isolation sections so I can use up all the wire and switches I own, a commutor line in DC to keep me occupied, a single line branch possibly in clockwork ! Oh and some sort of maglev technology so no track cleaning (,will make SWMBO redundant) built in a lead lined room to stop industrial espionage,and controlled from the pub by phone! 

Think I'll take up Golf

[daffy]

You've forgotten the camera interface to your phone/pad/laptop so you can actually see what is going wrong on. But then the lead lining might prove the issue there.

Yep, better to take up golf, and ruin a good walk.

[railsquid]

Ah, but did you know the latest golf clubs come with built-in motion sensors, which together with the built-in GPS locator in the ball, upload the metrics of each shot to the cloud so you can review it later on your smartphone in combination with the health metrics from your smartwatch?

Actually I just made that up, but I'd bet actual money I'm not the first to come up with the idea.

[grumbeast]

This is a very apropos conversation, its persuaded me not to get the new Kato Bluetooth smartphone controller and spend the money on another DC locomotive instead   (but what... hmmmmm)  I also watched the film "The Circle" on netflix last night and I want to go but a bunch of copper mesh and build a faraday cage around my house!

[Madann01]

Ah, but did you know the latest golf clubs come with built-in motion sensors, which together with the built-in GPS locator in the ball, upload the metrics of each shot to the cloud so you can review it later on your smartphone in combination with the health metrics from your smartwatch?

Actually I just made that up, but I'd bet actual money I'm not the first to come up with the idea.

Think someone was listening in to this forum! just been online and the type of equipment you describe is being developed for the the Pros to monitor their swing

[Madann01]

This is a very apropos conversation, its persuaded me not to get the new Kato Bluetooth smartphone controller and spend the money on another DC locomotive instead   (but what... hmmmmm)  I also watched the film "The Circle" on netflix last night and I want to go but a bunch of copper mesh and build a faraday cage around my house!

Isn't Netlfix a digital platform? What ever happens to good old anolouge TV ? Only 5 channels and relatively free  so much easier and cheaper than today, Ring a bell with what's going on in our hobby?


Not heard of the film the circle but will try and find on my fibre optic cable interface system