Each block displays the name of a locomotive assigned to it when it is in use. When Rocrail is running in Automatic Mode, all locomotives are assigned to a Block, and only one locomotive may be in a single block at a single time.Īs Rocrail moves your locomotives around the layout, it uses the blocks to keep track of where the locomotives are. More complex sensor arrangements can allow for slowing and stopping a locomotive as it enters a block.īlocks only work when you are running in Automatic Mode. The Sensor on one end can tell Rocrail that something is coming into the Block, and the sensor on the opposite side can tell Rocrail that it has actually arrived.ģ sensors (one on each end, and one in the middle) can make a locomotive stop in the middle of the block instead of running out to the end of the Block. This would be 5 pieces of track: regular, Sensor, regular, Sensor, regular. Using more Sensors to define a block will give better results.Ī better solution is to use 2 Sensors, one at either end of the block. When a locomotive triggers the Sensor in the middle, Rocrail will know something is in that track. On the layout, you need at least 3 pieces of track to make a block: two regular sections with a Sensor section in between them. The Block is the basic part of automating a Rocrail layout, and they must be set up when you lay your track by placing Sensors that Rocrail can read while it is running. The route and the block together have the same capacity as the block of the prototype.
Generally the Rocrail block thus starts from the spot where the train has to start breaking if it has to stop and ends at the stopping point or signal. It is usually a group of track sections with no turnouts in them, and at least one sensor.Ī Rocrail block does not exactly match a railway block of the prototype: Whereas, for example, the section between two block signals on a line is called block, this section in Rocrail is divided into the route to the block and the block itself. Only one locomotive or train at a time can be in a block. At least until I get to the point of building a physical CTC machine.A Block is a single place on the layout, where trains should stop or are at least allowed to stop. So, I am quite willing to give RocRail a try, although I may end up writing my own VB program to be my virtual CTC panel, driving my homemade control system which is loosely based on CMRI using Arduinos. It's just a lot less intuitive (JMRI) when you get to that level - and I say this for someone who has been writing computer programs since I was 11 years old, back in 1977 when the TRS-80 came out.
#Rocrail blocchi software#
Everything was the same, in fact, except the software - same Locoobuffer interface, same laptop computer I was trying to use JMRI on. And same hardware - no false block detections. Well, one weekend I went ove,r he had downloaded RR&Co and in a week had the trolley line automated like he wanted - me the computer guy couldn't get it working in JMRI but he, a lawyer, got it working in RR&Co. And still it never reall worked - spurious occupancy sensing was the biggest problem, and it's always bneen blamed on the Digitrax hardware. I could never get the script to work, and making a mistake in drawing the track plan meant I had to pretty much just start all over, erasing back to my mistake in block numbering and then finishing it caused all sorts of weird problems. I guess I lost some faith in JMRI when I tried to help a friend automate a trolley loop on his layout with it. It seems a lot easier to do this via RocRail than with JMRI.
#Rocrail blocchi Bluetooth#
Possibly my other idea of a small Bluetooth add-on to any smartphone so you have the touch screen to turn functions on/off or select a loco, but an actual knob to run to control the train. The HTML interface is allowing me to experiment with my idea of a simple universal throttle using an Arduino. are intriquing to me because it's not written in Java, and writing scripts for it doesn't need Jython which if it isn't the world's worst scripting langues is in a close race for it. Their panel and also their simple HTML web interface for smartphones etc. I am giving it a shot, at least as far as using the virtual CTC panel portion - I don't think their decoder programming facilities are as good as JMRI (but I rarely use JMRO for that - I use all the same decoders so it's not hard to memorize the settings I use for all locos).
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