MyHome-Railway

Non-digital but computer-controlled: an apparently inconsistent statement or just the definition of an unusual control tecnique? Briefly, it’s just the way I applied software to control my old, analog railway (so old that some parts date back to my teen-age), so enabling trains to perform more dynamically. The final effect is impressive, at least for someone who used to be a teen-ager a long time ago…

 

Four trains run on just three circuits, stopping at the fictitious railway station of Cortina d’Ampezzo or under a typical Märklin crane, to upload and download containers. Neither human operator, nor digital control panel is required: the job is done by two Lego RCX bricks and a bunch of relays.

As the movie shows, the railway is composed of two circuits lying on the ground (the red and the black in the diagram) and of and a third one (the blue one) that lies on a suspended structure. The upper and the lower level are connected by ramps (dotted lines in the diagram); the red and the black are connected through a double slip switch.

 

Each letter in the diagram indicates an electrically independent section; trains stop on the sections marked by red and green signals.

Red triangles indicate reed contacts , activated by small magnets placed under one wagon in each of the three trains running up and down between the black and the blue circuit. The fourth train never leaves the red circuit but stops on section F whenever one of the other trains crosses the section between the double slip switch and the right turnout S₂. This train is detected by an IR (infra red) sensor (the yellow triangle), that – when enabled by the Lego controller – stops the train and opens some turnouts.

 

The train circulation is managed by switching sections on and off and by opening and closing the turnouts. This is performed by the Lego computer and by some electro-mechanical control devices, mostly placed on the control board (see picture), which is connected to the railway by a 48-pole cable with connector.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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