Something to consider when you have a camera in the nose of a model train. Yoiu will need to model the inside of tunnels, the back side of buildings and so forth otherwise you lose credibility when watching on a monitor. It ain't prototypical when you see plywood inside a tunnel or the back side of a building that isn't finished because it doesn't face outward.
I have seen an N scale layout set in rural England where you watched it on a monitor and every bit of it was finished off in a very realistic manner. Impressive!
Paul Milenkovic oltmannd Paul Milenkovic Model train layout operations hobbyists don't want to be burdened by accurate simulation of locomotive and train handling? I would have an entire layout full of bad ordered equipment! Yes, but one of our esteemed operations-oriented train modelers spoke of wanting to serve an operations session as an "engineer (driver)" or a "dispatcher" whereas many add a "conductor" to the crew following each train around the layout. The roles I would like to see integrated into an operating session include "lawyer" and "government regulator." When is MR going to run an article on this?
oltmannd Paul Milenkovic Model train layout operations hobbyists don't want to be burdened by accurate simulation of locomotive and train handling? I would have an entire layout full of bad ordered equipment!
Paul Milenkovic Model train layout operations hobbyists don't want to be burdened by accurate simulation of locomotive and train handling?
I would have an entire layout full of bad ordered equipment!
Yes, but one of our esteemed operations-oriented train modelers spoke of wanting to serve an operations session as an "engineer (driver)" or a "dispatcher" whereas many add a "conductor" to the crew following each train around the layout.
The roles I would like to see integrated into an operating session include "lawyer" and "government regulator." When is MR going to run an article on this?
On most of the layouts I have operated on, "locals" or switching operations do involve two man crews, and engineer and conductor. Mainline trains however are typically single man crews, interacting with the dispatcher and/or following CTC rules, etc.
As for those other jobs, we let the President fire the regulators and followed Don Henley and Glen Frey's advice regarding lawyers......
Sheldon
Yes! FRA or state PUC inspector shows up at engine terminal and bad orders a locomotives and now you have to move locomotives light from one end of the RR to the to the other...with an operator you don't have.
Or train derails and you have to take the engineer to go to the lap for a..um...test.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Paul Milenkovic alloboard That video was so awesome. Anyone know how that engine was fired? I didn't see any spark plugs or glow plugs. The model engine "Diesels" (they use the same kind of fuel as glow plug engines) that don't need either, however, have some kind of variable compression wrench on the top of a cylinder to aid in starting.
alloboard That video was so awesome.
That video was so awesome.
Anyone know how that engine was fired? I didn't see any spark plugs or glow plugs. The model engine "Diesels" (they use the same kind of fuel as glow plug engines) that don't need either, however, have some kind of variable compression wrench on the top of a cylinder to aid in starting.
It looked like it just spun on compressed air.
Paul Milenkovic SD70M-2Dude oltmannd Paul Milenkovic Model train layout operations hobbyists don't want to be burdened by accurate simulation of locomotive and train handling? I would have an entire layout full of bad ordered equipment! Make sure your layout has lots of RIP tracks, and a hook at every yard. At least if you break an HO-scale knuckle or drawbar "setting out" the car is quite easy with the "Armstrong" lifting method... I think what Don meant was that if the model trains on his layout had accurate train dynamics, the resulting stringlining and other consequences of train-handling errors would end up putting most of his rolling stock on the basement floor.
SD70M-2Dude oltmannd Paul Milenkovic Model train layout operations hobbyists don't want to be burdened by accurate simulation of locomotive and train handling? I would have an entire layout full of bad ordered equipment! Make sure your layout has lots of RIP tracks, and a hook at every yard. At least if you break an HO-scale knuckle or drawbar "setting out" the car is quite easy with the "Armstrong" lifting method...
Make sure your layout has lots of RIP tracks, and a hook at every yard.
At least if you break an HO-scale knuckle or drawbar "setting out" the car is quite easy with the "Armstrong" lifting method...
I think what Don meant was that if the model trains on his layout had accurate train dynamics, the resulting stringlining and other consequences of train-handling errors would end up putting most of his rolling stock on the basement floor.
Yes!
I am not always "gentle".
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Paul MilenkovicModel train layout operations hobbyists don't want to be burdened by accurate simulation of locomotive and train handling?
alloboard Remember that HO scale locomotives are powerfull as hell though.
Remember that HO scale locomotives are powerfull as hell though.
Why do you say that? And what difference does it make? First of all as explained by Paul, all the friction and resistance factors do not scale down.
The average HO diesel loco might barely pull the same number of cars as its prototype, the average steam loco seldom can pull anywhere near the number of cars as its prototype, most don't come close.
But again, because car weights, tractive effort, rail friction do not scale down, our models do worse on level track, but better on grades and curves than the prototype.
This makes direct comparison to real trains impossable, and makes operational dynamics not the same anyway - why try to simulate it too closely?
I pull long trains on my layout, long by model standards, 40-50 freight cars. That typically requires double headed steam locomotive of the Mikado size range or larger.
But four EMD F7's will pull much more than that, easily 100 cars on level track. Yet in real life two Mikados and four F7's are roughly equal in TE and HP.
Agreed, but that is a seperate hobby from anything commonly associated with model trains.
I have built my share of real automobile engines, hot rod cars, etc. I can watch that video and say that is cool. But I have no desire to own one or do that.
My view is likely typical of those who are currently in the model train hobby.
Small scales like HO are about the "big picture", trying to simulate a small part of a complete working railroad, not focusing in on what makes one locomotive move.
To do that I would work in a larger scale.....one I could ride on.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
OK, I'm a model railroader, and I am into "operation", and I have been at the model railroading thing pretty serious for about 47 years now.
I found the OP's question a bit confusing, but I can provide some more insights into the behavors of a great many HO modelers.
First rule of model trains, there are no rules, other than the ones each model sets up for his layout.
Some modelers want to be the "engineer", some have build full scale cab mockups to that end. There have been any number of electrical simulations of actual train handling, momentum, braking, etc. Some like that sort of thing, most don't.
As mentioned above, most of it does not scale down well.
Long before DCC, any number of control schemes and throttle designs have been developed to better simulate the activities of the engineer and the dispatcher.
Some modelers want to be the dispatcher. Many operation oriented layouts have full scale CTC machines, often in a seperate room from the layout, and someone sits there and "plays" dispatcher while others run the trains.
Some people choose to simplify or stream line all the steps and processes of real operation, while still providing some "sense" of the actions necessary to move a train over the road.
Some built layouts with signal systems, some very complete, others simlified.
Most actually do not build signal systems........cost, complexity, learning curve........
Generally, groups of modelers with similar interest in this area will help each other develop suitable systems, many of which have been documented in the model press over the last 50-60 years.
The one thing that obviously works agains full simulation is selective compression. Even a very large home layout is likely only representing 8-15 scale miles of trackage....not exactly a subdivision......
Many like to just do car switching. Local trains go out with train orders and pickup/set out lists.
Some run with fast clocks, some not. Some simulate CTC as mentioned above.
I have my own version. I still use DC power. I have hand held radio throttles that use push buttons to accel, decel, change direction and emerg stop the loco.
A dispatcher panel, with simplified controls sets switch routes thru interlockings, assigns throttles to the desired track sections and gives clear indications to trackside signals for the engineers who are following their train around the layout, controlling its speed and direction.
In the absence of a dispatcher, the engineers can handle dispatching themselves at tower panels for each interlocking which have redundent controls.
These actions are simplified in my case. One button sets a route thru the interlocking. One more button assigns the next block to an approaching train and provides him with the proper signal indication.
The following features are actual:
Switches in the interlocking can not be thrown if the detection circuit in the interlocking is occupied.
Detection circuits set the signals to red. All my signals are absolute signals at interlockings, no intermediate block signals.....selectivley compressed distances.
Instead, each home signal also has an approach signal mid way in the approaching block, which displays yellow on a red home signal.
Interlocking signals display green or red for main routes, and yellow or red for restricted speed routes.
Did I mention I model 1954......in the Mid Atlantic.
So, rules exist, the "game" is played with the little 1/87 toys, trains on hidden storage tracks come into view, travel over the system, sometimes terminating at a modeled yard, or getting a power change there, then proceed to another hidden storage track. Train move east and west at the same time....some guys model single track with sidings, I model mostly double track, but bolth tracks are signaled for both directions.
One evenings operatons can move 15-20 trains across the "sub", and several local belt line switching runs can be made, while several passenger trains also cover the sub.
But personally, I have no interest in making model operation any more "realistic" than that.
Another feature, ATC - run a red signal and your train stops. Don't ask me how I do it, it's very simple, but hard to explain.
In my case, the layout is specificly designed to support this kind of operation, AND to allow simple display running of multiple trains. Trains in display mode still trip block signals red, and have green or yellows in advance of their route.
I know how a steam locomotive works, I have no desire to simulate those actions just to get my HO loco to move. But I do enjoy simulating the "big picture" of daily operations on my minature "subdivision".
And I enjoy just turning them on and being a rail fan standing on the hill.......
Others have their own mix of how detailed or simple operations are. I have operated on a number of other schemes on other layouts.
But again, very few are interested in actual cab controls, and few are interested enough in signals to learn/build a system. Even fewer would be interested in an actual diesel engine in a small model. For most, that is not what model trains are about.
If I was looking for that experiance I would go get a job at Strasburg......
There were similar tours-de-force from Sandia and Livermore, from a couple of the guys who designed and built some of the PAL devices before etched MEMS came in.
I was fascinated by one man's hot rod at this tiny scale that was complete with working hydraulic brakes and Bowden-cable speedometer. In order to work on some of these he used a blowup device like a light table that was modeled on the machine the Hamilton watch company used to inspect escape-wheel tooth contour and finish, just to be able to see some of the components.
We can do much smaller now, but much of the fun of the hand-craftsmanship era goes out when seeing some of the design details now requires an AFM...
I thought I might return to the original post, which I found a little confusing.
However, it allows me to relate a story which at least touches on the points mentioned.
As a student, I had a lecturer named Arthur Sherwood, who had a special interest in miniature devices. One of his tasks was to manufacture specialised medical equipment such as metal braces for damaged or defective human backbones and spinal cords.
However his hobbies involved similar miniature items. He had built an O scale live steam Norfolk and Western 2-8-8-2, probably a Y6b, but also an British OO scale Great Western 2-8-0 tank locomotive. But he became more interested in much smaller locomotives, and built a series of steam locomotives in 1/240th scale, Z scale being the somewhat larger 1/220th.
I think the first of these was the Delaware and Hudson triple expansion 4-8-0, selected because the casing over the water tube boiler and the wide firebox allowed a large boiler for the scale.
He had to develop special techniques for the mechanism of these locomotives. he had to use trunk type pistons with spherical connections to the piston rods since he could not machine pistons and cylinders to sufficient accuracy in the small scale.
He had built a series of increasingly smaller single cylinder model aircraft engines, all of which worked, but the smallest had to be heated to fire since scale effects meant that the heat generated by combustion was not enough to maintain the temperature in the relatively thicker cylinder body. Despite this, he had machined shallow rings in the cylinder body so it would appear to have cooling fins like the largest (which was a "normal" sized model engine of the period.)
He built electric models as well, and one day I recall him showing me a small chemical test tube. Inside was a tiny piece of brass. When I looked more closely, I realised it was a 1/480th scale Reading Class G-1 Pacific and tender. The Wooten firebox provided more room for the tiny motor.
To run these really small locomotives, he made up a circular track which the machined on a lathe to get accurate radius and gauge and even superelevation.
Another 1/240th model was a model of the first streamlined Pennsylvania K4 3768, which had the streamlined casing made from stainless steel giving a silver finish. Running on its circular track, the exhaust beat was very high pitched, as a result of the small size.
But I think the answer to the OP is that scale factors and the need for extreme accuracy made building very small working engines impractical. Today with computer controlled machinery capable of much greater accuracy much more could be done to make such equipment, but the scalefactors would still apply, meaning a small diesel engine might not run because the heat generated in the cylinders wuld be insufficient to maintain combustion.
Peter
VR360 is still a bit large and unwieldy for HO -- but making a proper mount for, say, P:48 or its Russian-gauge equivalent wouldn't be difficult.
Problem is that deconvolving the fisheye "360-degree" pictures the thing generates is a major pain, similar to viewing the anamorphic Steeleye Span album cover without a mirrored cylinder. And doing the image correction in realtime to match the 'viewport' of the phone-in-the-headset as its accelerometers feed it your head orientation is not something I think the phone architecture is geared toward.
Where I think Samsung (and the others, including the MotoMods people) may be missing the boat is in providing aspheric lensing to go over the phone screen to increase the VR field past the normal human-eye field, similar to bringing your eye up close to the viewing lens on one of those old handheld slide viewers. It is astounding how quickly this puts you 'in the experience' of what the camera sees, and with a little remedial eye-tracking to keep actual high-resolution rendering in sync with the fovea during natural saccade it can hold the rendering bitrate to sensible levels...
I still think it's better to have active pan and tilt (which would be comparatively simple to implement on a ball camera) and make the lens(es) less aggressively fish-eyed and provide workable telephoto capability. Then we can work on light sources to keep camera output reasonably stable when going through radical changes in illumination or color. The feedback control from the phone in the headset to the power mount might make a nifty maker project...
In interesting workaround might be to place a Samsung Gear VR 360 camera on an HO scale flatcar, and use the Samsung Gear VR Headset for exploration.
I am into train simulation too. I have Train Simulator 2017
Thanks for the reference for this very interesting article that you posted.
Paul MilenkovicAs I said, I am thinking that more realistic locomotive and train handling is more for the train sim people than the model train layout operations people's tastes and interests.
Yes, and that's certainly a big part of 'why' there isn't any use of telepresence in model railroading other than the occasional staring cell-phone camera taped at cab-window level for a couple of YouTube turns around the pike. Even the crude train-sims let you change the POV, run on full-scale curves easily, model whole divisions of the PRR for a few bucks. Modern game-engine technology evolution would get you to photorealistic detail much quicker and neater than the same exercise even in the hands of the Gene Deimlings of this world...
I dusted off the old approach specifically because alloboard said he wanted the 'full' railroading experience running HO trains. Now he knows how it can be done, in terms that I think are much better and more appropriate than simulating the multiphysics of the diesel engine, or putting interactive engine detail behind the hood doors, on his models.
I like your idea of the "steam engine simulator" -- it could probably settle a number of arguments regarding steam-era operating practices?
It certainly should, at the appropriate time in the 5550 development process.
But again, maybe it is just you, me, and a couple other guys (plus Juniatha) who are even aware of why a person would be interested in such a thing?
Alas, yes. On the other hand, we're going into an era in which the old steam heads are dying off without training their effective replacements (one reason for the emphasis on Bene Gesserit TQM in the recent UP Heritage operation) and I think the provision and use of simulators is likely to prove extremely valuable. How many of them could I build for the price of a set of replaced or re-turned driver tires, for example? How good a multiphysics representation of water-treatment management could I build for the cost of remediating the swimming-pool-chemical episode in 844's boiler?
Also, I think, true that many people would be interested in the thing once someone does the hard work of building and debugging it, a bit like the Far East interest in evolving and manufacturing DRAM chips after IBM dropped a potload of money discovering the learning curves for the technology. The Internet got much more interesting to a great many people when it acquired the World Wide Web overlay... that might be true on a lesser scale for many people in modeling once the 'system' is more than just a kit of arcane parts requiring a variety of modern skillz to put together.
RME:
The sense I get is that people who "operate" model train layouts (as opposed to relax and watch the trains roll by) don't want that level of realism because they like what they are doing now and don't want train handling to get in the way.
There is an awful lot of selective compression going on in addition to the proportional scaling from HO to the 87.1 times larger prototype. You have fast clocks in operating sessions, much shorter train lengths, nowhere near the amount of track in a major yard, selectively compressed route lengths and so on. An operating session on a model layout may have as much to do with actual prototype operations as the game of Monopoly does to actual real estate speculation -- that is, not all that much. More realistic momentum and train dynamics would probably confuse and confound many operators, much as a more realistic game of Monopoly would involve being put in legal trouble for sharp business dealings rather than simply losing some turns for "being in jail."
As I said, I am thinking that more realistic locomotive and train handling is more for the train sim people than the model train layout operations people's tastes and interests.
I like your idea of the "steam engine simulator" -- it could probably settle a number of arguments regarding steam-era operating practices? But again, maybe it is just you, me, and a couple other guys (plus Juniatha) who are even aware of why a person would be interested in such a thing?
The necessary convergence between hardware and software never quite happened, more because cost-effective satisfaction came to the different communities involved before full working 'convergence' came about. But that doesn't mean you couldn't do it: all the necessary parts of the 'puzzle' were available by the late '90s, and are probably more readily achievable today.
I can date when I saw the 'future' coming in HO: it was an article in the old RMC magazine in the early '70s describing the fascinating future use of the CCD camera, which (they said) would permit operators to see a perspective view out the windshield of their model locomotives, on TV. These cameras have, of course, now been manufactured by the hundreds of millions for cell-phone use, easily integrated with simple controls to do tilt, pan, and video corrections, and given wireless transmission. Well-established VR and AR techniques allow insertion of digital controls, etc. in the view, perhaps best derived from the second available technology: video train simulators. These provide all the physics necessary to do effective momentum simulation, train dynamics, etc. to actually control DCC 'correctly' rather than present operators with a rat's-nest of goofy command codes, errors, and low-level register settings.
The third available technology is computer gaming, and this is where some combination of 'Railroad Tycoon' and a first-person gaming engine could easily produce the appropriate context for an interactive operating session in the cab of an engine, or in a caboose or tower, or whatever. An interaction between the gaming engine and some simulator features could easily provide random emergencies (and appropriate feedback/guides for their handling, including 'multiplayer' crews over the Internet, as has been done quite effectively for free games on phones and cheap computers for a decade or more)
The other thing 'missing' is a good haptic set of controls, at right scale, for operating. The closest thing I saw developed was a complicated and not particularly North American thing called 'RailDriver', which to my knowledge is no longer made and might not even be supported on many modern platforms, but it showed the way toward what could be done. Relatively easy to incorporate pots, feedback motors, digital representation of analog gauges, etc. into something very like a prototype control stand...
I went quite some ways toward building a steam 'simulator' along these lines a few years ago, using the same sort of PVC framework flight-simulator aficionados use to make a full cockpit. This would have produced tiny proportional motion of valve gear, brake foundation, and emission of simulated steam from appropriate places on the model, as well as controlling its operation appropriately. (I didn't go so far as to model accident kinetics from, say, closing the throttle too fast with a heavy simulated following train ... but I did think about how you could do it...)
I don't think it would be particularly hard for someone savvy on social media to put together a group that would do the necessary convergence, perhaps following a Linux-like development-community model and setting standards and defining forks as it goes.
I want and need to know how it is like and how it feels to run a live scale railroad in HO scale, even if papperwork has to be involved. I'm going full hardcore in HO scale!
I can only speak for myself, but when I run the O gauge layout all I want to do is sit back and watch 'em roll, I'm doing it to calm down and relax, not complicate my life further. Others can do what they want, but the above works for me.
A very well intelligent answer and reasoning. It makes sense. Thanks
Some long while ago, perhaps in the late 1960's, there was an editorial article in MR titled "Let's Model the Johnson Bar." What was meant by that was that the typical variable transformer or rheostat model train "throttle" was far from a realistic experience of operating a Diesel or an electric locomotive. In that era, there were transistor throttles that at least attempted to represent the train's momentum and have separate controls for throttle and brake. A steam locomotive, however, had three main controls -- throttle, brake, and steam cutoff (or reverse), the last being called the "Johnson bar" in reference to steam locomotives before power actuation of the reverse protected crews from the manual exertion along with risk of serious injury from kickback of the "Johnson bar."
No, the editors weren't advocating that train modelers be given a realistic railroad experience of risking a broken arm or worse from a model simulation of the pre-power reverse "Johnson bar." What they were talking about was that there is quite the art to operating a steam locomotive successfully in manipulating both the throttle and reverser controls in such a way to not slip the wheels or stall the train on starting and to not lose boiler pressure from using too much steam at higher speeds, and they thought that using the then transistor throttle to represent that might be interesting to some people.
There is a community of model railroaders who are interested in realistic operation of large model train layouts. The extent to which people go to have the realism of train orders with the train crews following their model train and a dispatcher in a separate windowless room, well maybe I shouldn't knock it, I have never seen it because even though I have met people who are "into operation", I am not close enough to their social circles to be invited. But it seems an awful lot like real railroading, which to the people paid to do this is hard work, rather than a "fun" activity as a diversion from what the model train people do that is a different kind of hard work.
There was, a heated discussion on the Trains forum about a new rule being applied to real railroads regarding the apportioning of revenue from carloads routed from short lines to Class 1's back to short lines for final delivery. I joked that MR should have an article "Let's Model the New Federal Rules For Apportioning Revenue Across Railroad Interchanges", and in addition to "engineers and conductors" operating model trains and filling out paperwork and the dispatcher in the windowless room next to someone's basement layout, operating sessions could use "marketing people" to drum up business and "attorneys" along with "government regulators" to fight over the revenue splits. No one with any real railroad connections thought this to be the least bit funny, and no one on that thread shared by sense of irony regarding, let's say, the earnestness of model train operating sessions.
"Let's Model the Johnson Bar" is nearly 50 years ago, and you would think by now that with computers and everything today you could come up with highly realistic simulations of steam locomotives. I ran this by our most recognized "operations modeler" at a local train show, and his take is that for an operating session, he didn't want to even deal with model steam locomotives with their potential for erratic running on account of binding siderods and whatnot -- he wanted to focus on "operating" and not on train handling, and he didn't even want an accurate simulation of a Diesel let alone a momentum throttle.
I haven't gotten into that part of the hobby, but there is an entire Forum here dedicated to train simulators, and I suppose if someone is interested in the latest computer software simulations of old-fashioned steam operation, complete with the train-handling challenge of coordinating throttle and reverse controls along with maintaining steam pressure, boiler water level, and adequate reserves of water and coal in the tender, that is all done in the virtual world of those train simulators? Model train layout operations hobbyists don't want to be burdened by accurate simulation of locomotive and train handling?
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