I don´t see any indication that Bronze could handle switching duties with uncoupling and tasks like that all automated.
The problem with RR&co is that to make a timetable with automated trains, is that there is so much different tasks to program......
Swedish Custom painter and model maker. My Website:
My Railroad
My Youtube:
Graff´s channel
TrainController BRONZE will do what the OP wants, that's what my friend uses for his trolley automation. He figured it all otu and got it working himself, with a coupel of calls for support - and he is in no way a computer guy. How I even got involved in helping him on his layout was because he wanted some help wiring up the DCC stuff. I tried using the automation in JMRI to do it and kept runnign into problems, mostly because defining the layotu is EXTREMELY picky, make one mistake and you have to start over again. He downloaded a trial copy of Traincontroller Bronze and got it workign so he bought it. He still uses JMRI for programming since in that respect JMRI has them all beat.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
rrinker You can accomplish this with any base DCC system that has a supported computer interface, using either JMRI or Railroad & Co Traincontroller. --Randy
You can accomplish this with any base DCC system that has a supported computer interface, using either JMRI or Railroad & Co Traincontroller.
$389-$584 for a control program....... + the cost of the DCC system? And then to make them do what YOU want it to do? I tried the RR&co Traincontroller, and in the Gold version you can do most of the things that the OP wants, but the learning curve is STEEP!
JMRI isn´t much better in the way of user friendliness......
You can accomplish this with any base DCC system that has a supported computer interface, using either JMRI or Railroad & Co Traincontroller. So basically of the popular systems that leaves out MRC. You will need occupancy detection and optionally signals - sicne the trains will be computer controlled and all the computer needs to know is where they are (the block detection), the signals would be just for show. You do NOT need Tansponding or Railcom, Traincontroller is quite adept at following a train as it proceeds based on an initial starting position. It's a highlight of the program actually, to the point where they gave it a name and list it as a key feature.
A friend of mine has a trolley loop through one of his town areas. The track is isolated from the main layout, but all run off the same Digitrax system., He installed Traincontroller to run these trolleys in an automated fashion while the users run the trains on the main. Works very well. Oh yeah, these are N scale trolleys, 4 wheel Birney-type cars. Most are 2 car sets for better pickup plus the non-motor trailer car houses the Lenz ESP pack so slight dropouts don't bring everything to a halt.
There are software packages that can handle the movements just as well as the Hornby system, the problem is, as gandydancer19 said, the fact that magnetic uncoupling is not 100% reliable. The couplers and uncoupling system that Hornby and many other European manufacturers use are completely different from American style knuckle couplers and magnetic uncouplers. They use a ramp that physically pushes a part of the coupler up, which is pretty much 100% reliable. If you could tune your couplers and uncouplers to a point where they operate 100% of the time, then switching automation would be feasible.
Individual industry and yard switching by a computer has not been set up in any program that I know about. Magnetic uncoupling, even by hand operated throttle is not fool proof and does not work 100% of the time. So trying to do it by computer is just about out of the question. It would also take very accurate sensor placement. I should know, I tried it on my present layout, in a different configuration. I was using CTI to run a hidden interchange DC locomotive that would push cars out over a magnetic uncoupler. Then I would move in with a second switcher to pick up the car. This was possible because, first, it was simple; and second, with CTI you write your own program code so you can do what you want.Before that, I was using CTI for more automated operation on a previous layout. What I did (the computer) was to bring trains out of a staging loop one at a time. Only one automated train would be on the mainline at a time. I would manually operate and switch one town at a time. So when the mainline train came by, I would push a button on the control panel and the computer would slowly stop the train. Then I would take manual control of it, perform the switching moves required, then push another button to send it on it's way. All of the turnouts to and from staging, and within the staging loops, (4 tracks) would be operated by the computer, as well as the reversing parts of the loops and wye to the mainline.What I am doing now is all manual operations. I am using a program called Rail-Op to generate trains and switch lists to run them by. Cars are picked by the computer program for each train, and where to take them, and what cars to pick up. The program is structured so that you can set up the industries to take the types of cars you want. Because it is a random selection, you don't know what is coming. To me, that makes operations more interesting.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
Check out www.rnrdigital.com I don't know if they can do individual switching.