I can fully understand the "Show me lots and lots of trains running around your dream layout" comments here (and I too would love to see some more of that) BUT... I think it's very important that McKinley publishes the tech details of how it has gone about taking forward train control on this scale and at this level of sophistication to advance the hobby. After all, if tech enthusiasts in other areas had not shared the details of their proto developments in the past a lot of good things we now take for granted might have never been. For just one example, electronic ignition control on cars: heaven forbid, but we'd all still be using moisture prone flakey rotor arm ignition systems on cars that did 25MPG on a good day. So, although this could all seem very arcane to people with no IT background, it is stuff that can provide benefits to all if these ideas were adopted and packaged by commercial companies.
I asked the same question six months ago and I am still waiting. I am beginning to think this is just a database program but instead of using graphics in front of it like "train sim" they are applying the principal to a model railway but when it will actually go live is anyone's guess.
Hi Glenn, I have replied to a few other tonight on this same subject. We are still building the layout so I have held back from running trains because it won't look particularly impressive without scenery, but we will give it a go. I will try and get something out before XMas.. Regards David
Fascinating a to see how you have been able to plug the shortfalls in the latching functions and lucky you can remap the functions on the handsets. A real shame the manufactures didn't put in the thought you have the industry has missed a trick; for 99.9% of us we'll just have to do manually and remember! See your bit status chequer board is a great diagnostic tool too. Thanks for the insight. Stephen
Glad you liked it Stephen. The best throttle interface I have seen is the Z21. It allows you to configure everything. I haven't had the time to try and get it working on McKinley. There's always next year.
Hi mark, If we could get you here, I'd give you a copy on the condition it was a zero support contract as It is so bespoke to McKinley. The API code we have built is stored on GITHub, but you'd need to refashion the database code to something like mySQL. Do you have any expertise in that area? David
@@dattouk Many years ago I was a systems architect for IBM so I would have to say I’m no DBA. I’m more into data format and transmit ion, or at least I used to be.
I'm so glad I decided to go with RailPro for my Loco controllers. I can decide how the buttons will act and how they will be sorted on my screen for each Loco separately. I still power the layout with DCC (DigiTrax) but I don't use DCC Controllers to run the trains. The Loco's can be run either by RailPro or Train Controller as the RailPro chip can be set to use DCC addresses as well.
@@dattouk David, I have tried over 6 times to give you this information on here and every time YT deletes my reply. I much also apologies for my delay in replying but I work away from home up North of Western Australia on mine sites. I will be heading back again in 4 days time.
That's a blast from the past. Not used or even seen Filemaker since it was flat file on PowerMac back around 1992. Had to swap to PCs, Access, then Oracle
Agreed that in IT terms it's no longer a widespread product - and I was suprised that McKinley had not used something like the free community version of MySQL - but I guess they went with what they had the expertise on - and for this purpose the actual DB engine functionality or performance is not critical - it's hardly going to be doing a huge TPS rate.
You are right about the data transaction rate, but the key driver is the user interface. Finding expertise was actually a huge problem. If there was a product that allowed me to define the relational structure in the user interface at the form level and have it reliably working on a cross platform basis, I would have gone down that route, but the ability to modify forms and fast prototype is not an easy product to find in the database world. MySQL would have been great as a back end, but we cannot do what we want with web-forms. David
Is it? Or is it a very worthwhile means to an end. It's certainly an excellent people together socialising while doing something project. It also seems to be a chance for (mostly) retired IT project managers and other professionals to continue exercising their life skills in a miniature version of a massive project that conceive, develop, respond to massive external events, etc. As such, it's a miniature, but much bigger in real world distances and range of destinations and types of rolling stock, version of Docklands Light Railway which has no drivers. It took DLR several years to be smoothly operational as ever deeper issues in the controlling software and hardware came to light over that time - much to frustration of us passengers left standing on bitterly cold platforms that were highest points for east winds east of Ural Mountains. Don't do trains myself but like watching the craft and the tech development related to my old job while recovering from heart attack. I've seen a few other sites where the trains are an incidental means to an end of adding movement to a sculptural scene. Everard Junction is a brilliant example of a deeply intelligent project of social history and comment at least as much as toy trains. Clearly many people emphasize 'model' out of the two words. Doesn't mean they're not interested in the trains. Just that the actual trains are part of a bigger picture - and all the more interesting for that
Hello TLF, I share your wish and dream of running all the stock we have been building and painting, but its not easy to do that right now as we are still building the railway and pushing the technical envelope to make the operations interesting. We are probably six months away from being able to run the extension just because it isn't complete. So please bear with us. I have taken your point and will try and get something out before xmas.. Regards David
Hello Stephen, Thank your for your comments. We are enjoying the journey and I hope that shows in the videos. Building a semi-automated large layout is quite a technical challenge. We want to make it so simple to operate that we can have guest visitors come and play for the day and have a great experience. BTW... Your assumption on the retired IT bit isn't quite right my friend. Half of us have to work just to pay for this and most of us don't have an IT background. :-) Take care and good luck with the recovery. David
Sam, Thats the point about this video, I couldn't, so we built some software to watch the LocoNet bus and send the function key messages off from the software back out over LocoNet. When the throttle that "owns" the Loco sees the FKEY off message for that engine, it turn it off on the throttle. The command station sees the message as well and sends it out to the Loco which also turns off the Fkey.
Hello Dave, Congratulations for the whole layout ! I am particularly interested in the software/database part of your project. Is there any way to have access to the FMInterface that you have developped ? Best, Francois.
Hi Gilbert, TrainController runs the trains through LocoNet. Our Database runs the world and plans train Journeys for the operators to prepare. It triggers TrainController to run the trains when appropriate. The Interface application (the glue in the middle) we have written is called FM Interface and is coded in python and runs on a PC. It makes extensive use of the RRAuto code from Parry Manole. to read an write to LocoNet. www.perecli.com/rrauto/ The database back-end is FileMaker and we access that through the Data-API in the FM Interface application. It downloads the lists of sensors, switches signals and Locomotives from the database and store them locally in RAM to cross-check what is being generated on the LocoNet bus. So for example we don't store real-time data about the Locomotives in the database There is no value in that, but the FM Interface cross checks what is happening on the LocoNet by working with a cached copy. We do upload the sensor and switch states to the database. With respect to the RFID, we funnel the RFID data through an MQTT server. The FM Interface code is a client to the MQTT server and gets notified of Tag X and point Y. This is fed into the database so it can update the real-time location of wagons, coaches, locomotives and trains in the database. I hope this helps. David
Gilbert, I asked Steve Winter to write a fuller and more accurate description of our code world. Here's his reply. Operations of McKinley Railway rely on three previously disparate systems: LocoNet for operational control, FileMaker for timetabling and scheduling and a newly introduced system of RFID readers to allow for accurate stock positioning. The primary objective of the FMInterface software was to join those three systems in a meaningful way to enhance operations. For example, when the final stock set of a train is detected as having arrived at a particular platform through an RFID read, the FileMaker database can be updated to show it as being present. In turn this can result in checks being done on the ’next destination’ for that stockset, and issuing LocoNet commands directly from with the database to trigger the release of a schedule and have the train move forward to its next location. FMInterface also holds realtime tables of the state of the railway, monitoring for hardware which doesn’t report correctly, runway trains, power shorts on the layout etc and being able to alert appropriate operators to these issues. In order to track and monitor what FMInterface is doing a web front-end has been added. This shows the state of the locomotive slots, signals, sensors and switches on the layout as well as the times of the last change in state for those elements. It also monitors the flow of traffic between the different components of the system (LocoNet, FileMaker and RFID readers) and can alert operators to internal issues. The application is written in Python, a ‘utility’ programming language which is ideally suited for such tasks because of its broad support for both hardware and software protocols. Libraries already existed to interface with FileMaker, and with the subscribe / publish model (MQTT) used by the RFID system. The only missing piece was communicating with LocoNet however a Windows library (RRAuto from Parry Manole) already existed for this which we have been able to ‘wrap’ in a way which also makes it accessible to Python.
When I was senior librarian at Bournemouth Library, I sometimes had to do IT support in the evenings. Now I know why other libraries didn't call me when I was on the rota! I'd just tell 'em to turn the computers off and on again.
Hello CBCH, I share your frustration at one level as I dream of running all the stock we have been building and painting, but its not easy to do that right now as we are still building the railway and pushing the technical envelope to make the operations interesting. We are probably six months away from being able to run the extension just because it isn't complete. So please bear with us. I have taken your point and will try and get something out before xmas.. Regards David
This is the one model rail channel I don’t enjoy anymore unfortunately, the reason is it doesn’t seem like it’s an enjoyable hubby but trying too hard to run an actual railway. A bit more running of trains and a layout tour would be good and less of this endless database nonsense. Do you really need to know where every wagon is all the time??
@@mickh121 nor me i'm afraid it ceased to me model railway ages ago . It seems to be an exercise in cramming as much track and tech into whatever space is available . Will it ever be finished though .
@@shauntaylor9251 I honestly don’t see the enjoyment of looking at a screen and seeing how many signals or devices are working or not. I don’t know who bankrolls this layout but to me it’s becoming a monster!! To big to complicated. I worked on the railway 40 years and enjoy watching what people can reproduce to scale and some is absolutely amazing but this one is just boring now.
Thanks for your comments. Come back in a year or so and see if we are getting there. Our goal is to run trains and have fun and hopefully you will see some of that then. Take care. David
