using colored dot (car tabs) to improve JMRI ops

If you've been struggling with using JMRI ops switchlists, try using color-coded stick-on "dots" stuck to the car tops to help you keep track of which car is supposed to end up on which track. It's not exactly prototypical to switch colored dots around, but it does make the whole thing easier and more fun. I've been experimenting with a Lance Mindheim style of "two turnout" switching layout, and the colored dots have really improved my enjoyment (and efficiency) of the switching moves.

In the past year, I've been learning how to use JMRI ops to generate switch lists for my N scale railroad, as a way to "dip my toe in the water" before trying to implement it on my basement HO layout, which currently uses car cards and waybills for car routing. The JMRI computer program has a lot of complexity to learn, but it doesn't take that much effort to enter in, say 100 cars and then have it generate switchlists. But there are two things about it that have been bothering me. One is that the moves are generated by random number generators, so unless you tweak the program a lot, you end up with illogical moves. The other thing is that it doesn't help the yardmaster block cars in the yard for the next train. Here's what a typical switchlist looks like:

I found out from Cal Sexsmith's article in the LDSIG Journal last year that Victoria had some interesting switching areas, and several car barge services to Seattle. So I decided to try doing some switching in Victoria. I put two turnouts on a plank (previously used only as a test track) with 5 pieces of N scale flex track and hooked it up to my NCE PowerCab and voila! Victoria!

Obviously the scenery leaves much to be desired, but it wasn't too hard to add these four tracks into JMRI ops, so I started generating switchlists and trying to use them. The switching was very tedious. Some of the cars needed to be moved, and some didn't. Some were moving offline, and some were moving between spurs. It was hard to remember what I was doing from one move to the next, and the N scale reporting marks are very small and it was hard to read them over and over again while constantly consulting the switchlist. The switchlist itself was formatted in a way that made it hard to keep track of the moves on. (I need to look into switchlist formatting options). Then I remembered I had seen a local N scale modular club using small colored dots as car tabs, so I pulled some out and tried using them to keep track of which cars were supposed to go where, according to the switchlist. It worked well! I could go through the switchlist only once, reading the reporting marks on each car and matching it to the switchlist, and placing the corresponding car tab on top of the car. That done, the actual switching was relatively easy, and fun! I've heard that some people "don't like switching colored dots around", but I'm wondering how different it is from switching cars based on chalk marks on the side of the car, like many prototype railroads would have used for switching. (Before computers, at least).

This operation, with only two turnouts and ten cars, is much more fun to operate than I was expecting! It takes me about 20 minutes to complete the work, long enough to make for an enjoyable break from routine daily activities without requiring a major time commitment. And if I want to make it more "meaningful," I could always generate a ferry run to Seattle and hand carry some of the cars back and forth to the main N scale layout. The only problem I see is that it is completely distracting me from all the other aspects of model railroading that I had been thinking were more important. Oh, well!

Progress towards remote ops

Above is a screen shot of a Zoom meeting set up with six live video views of the layout, suggesting that we are moving closer to being able to try doing a remote op session. I feel like I know just enough about all this to be dangerous, but not enough to make good decisions. Also, I keep thinking that if I can pull off a remote ops session in HO, so can you! :) 

Anyway, what I’ve done so far is to set up 5 older iPhones on tripods around the layout, and log them all into a Zoom meeting as if they were individual participants. I also bought a cheap ($28) wide-angle (90 degrees) webcam and mounted it on the ceiling and plugged it in to my laptop serving as the Zoom “host”. This means that my internet router is pumping all that video up to the cloud. I tried connecting them all up to Zoom last night and it seemed to work with all six channels active, but I need to try it again with JMRI running its web server and real people looking at it from outside. I also suppressed audio from these cameras, to reduce bandwidth load, but I don’t really like that, because it would be fun if people could hear the engine sounds as their train moves past an area.

One of the old iPhones is pointed at the TV monitor that displays a live video feed from my one camera train. Crude, but it works. The camera train video output is three RCA plugs - one for composite video and two for right and left audio. I would like to plug this into my computer but don’t know how of if it is possible with some sort of converter. I also have an old video camera that probably still works, and has a similar output to the camera train. It’s too big to put on a flatcar, but I could use it to show a portion of the railroad.

But now that brings up the issue of how to bring multiple video feeds into a single computer, and then have that composite video be displayed on Zoom. I’ve gotten the impression from OPSIG meetings that a program called OBS is the only way to do that, and I’ve also heard that only the PC version, not the Mac version, will work with Zoom. I’ve been doing everything lately from a Mac, but have some old PC’s sitting around, so I might update them and see if I could combine a couple of video feeds on OBS and have them join the Zoom meeting as well. I have a security camera from DLink looking at my Tacoma staging yard, and would like to make that visible to my dispatcher online as well. All this seems like a lot of work. It might be easier to just find another used iPhone and point it at the monitor that we already use to watch the staging yard:

But the best thing of all for remote ops would be to have more than one live camera train. Some of the OPSIG guys have been mounting Arduinos (or was it a Raspberry Pi) and corresponding tiny cameras in well cars, having the Arduino broadcast the video stream over wifi to a computer with OBS. A technically simpler approach might be to set up a couple of mirrors and set an old iPhone sideways in a well car with the mirrors pointing forward. I know I've seen pictures of somebody doing a 3D printed holder for the phone and mirrors, but don't remember where. Getting the optics right might be tricky.

But switching is what I really enjoy. Switching is going to be very limited in a remote ops session. I’m thinking of just having one or two block exchanges per train, and not even bothering with individual cars. That way, I can do whatever uncoupling is needed on the physical layout without getting overloaded with requests. The only good part of this is that I have a lot of unit trains and special trains that we never have time to run during regular op sessions, because we’re always so busy switching. The remote ops can exercise those trains instead.

Can a first try at a remote op session be far off? Stay tuned!

a master plan for holding virtual op sessions

How do you hold a virtual op session? Where people stay home and enjoy operating on your layout by running trains or dispatching from their home computers and/or cellphones? I've found the question complicated and confusing, and have watched a number of OPSIG layout tours that gave examples of people doing it. So I put together the above "mind map" to try to wrap my hands around the whole thing.

Like many things, it's good to take it in baby steps, so I now see that step one would be to simply provide some cameras for live coverage of the layout in action, and IP addresses to operators so they can log in to a WiThrottle and run a train, when and where instructed by me. The second step would be to provide a remote dispatcher with access to my JMRI computer and have the dispatcher issue the movement instructions and have control over key turnouts. Beyond that, we get into challenging areas like how to provide Zoom access to cameras riding on moving trains, etc.

Here's the complicated diagram with only the first level items shown. The green boxes are already in place. As of this writing I have set up 4 old cellphone cameras as Zoom attendees, and a fifth for broadcasting the camera train. Also, I learned how to help people use my IP address for getting into JMRI with their cellphone throttle apps, by doing "port forwarding" on my home router. All that's left now is to write up some instructions and a new schedule of trains that we might try to run in such a session. Clearly they would mostly be through freights and passenger trains, since I would be the only switchman in the room helping with pickups and setouts. 

Stay tuned! It doesn't look impossible...

Yard switching times vs. mainline running times

Here's the shocking fact: It takes at least 30 minutes of real time to break down a 15 car train in my HO layout's main yard, Interbay (Balmer). That's assuming there's only one person doing the switching. In theory, it would be faster if there were two people, one working each end of the yard. In practice, they would have to spend time coordinating their moves and keeping track of what goes where, so it's hard to say how much real time would be "saved." I put the word "saved" in quotes, to question whether saving time is the purpose of the "work," when model railroading is supposed to be about play, right?

I discovered this (obvious fact) accidentally by filming and editing a video on "how to break down an incoming train". I was thinking I could do it in 15 minutes, working by myself, but it took 30. If there had been another incoming train during that time, it would have taken much longer.

At one of my favorite op sessions in memory, everything was going great, and the yardmaster at Everett (the next town to the north of Interbay) asked me "is it true there is no train length limit on trains between Everett and Seattle?" To which I said "yes." So he sent a transfer run to Interbay with a cut of 40 (unblocked) cars. Since the longest siding in Interbay holds about 25 cars, this incoming monster filled the only remaining track in Interbay and blocked the north yard throat and both main tracks, preventing any further train moves out of Interbay to or from the north (which is most of the layout).

I don't remember what happened next. I think the Interbay yardmaster broke the train in two, but the only available track to put the second cut on was the mainline. Now both the yard and the mainline were plugged. There was still a lot of switching going on around the layout, so I think what happened is we ran down the clock and let the session come to an end, without unplugging the railroad. It took me hours of (very enjoyable) switching to get everything straightened out, during the following days. But I learned my lesson - maximum train length 25 cars. No exceptions, except for unit trains that don't require yard switching.

But today I'm thinking about another lesson. If it takes over 30 minutes to break down even a moderate length train, how many merchandise trains is it feasible to run in an entire op session? It only takes 2 to 5 minutes to run the 1 or 2 scale miles between my staging yards and the first yard they come to, or between yards. If we are going to have fun with a dispatcher and trains passing each other on the mainline, it's going to have to happen with unit trains and passenger trains.

My operating sessions are based on a condensed version of the actual prototype trains that ran during a typical day in 1973 in the greater Seattle region (BN, MILW & UP). I started out trying to do that in a single op session of about 7 hours. (3 hours before lunch, 4 hours after lunch). We never came close to finishing it, so I moved to having 14 hours of op session, over two days, with a 2:1 fast clock. And we never finish that either. What I'm thinking now is, forget the fast clock, just don't run more than one merchandise train in from staging in each direction (N, S & W) until the yardmasters are caught up. Regardless of how long that takes. There is plenty of work going on with all the locals and unit trains to keep everyone busy, without clogging up the yards too much by excessive adherence to prototype merchandise train schedules. 10 or 12 operators is not enough to simulate hundreds of prototype railroad employees.

Forms for "off-spot" vs. "constructive placement"

To simplify and recap a number of discussions that I've been having with railroaders and model railroaders, of various eras, there are basically two ways to make a mistake delivering a car - the railroad's fault or the customer's fault. Beyond that is a lot of detail about types of customers, prior agreements between the railroad and the customer, railroad specific practices, etc. But I wanted a simple and fun way to introduce this basic difference into my operating sessions (if they every happen again!). So I drafted these two colored inserts, to use whenever I become aware that a car is not where it's supposed to be, after (or perhaps during) an operating session. Here is a photo of my two forms:

I'm interested in any comments you might have about these forms, or suggestions for improvement. I printed the off-spot form on salmon stock to flag its urgency, and the constructive placement form on yellow to indicate caution but not as much as for off-spot.

If you want a refresher on this whole topic ("refresher" might not be the right word!), you can read my previous blog post that laid it bare ("bare" might not be the right word, either.). 

In the meantime, I finally finished re-staging the railroad from the previous op session, and caught myself admiring the lineup of westbound trains at Skykomish staging, ready to pounce. I can't seem to get tired of this particular view of the railroad. You're lookin at 20 or 30 thousand horsepower right there!

Helicon Focus at last!

Lee Marsh tipped me off to how easy it is to use Helicon Focus, and I watched several NMRAx presentations on model railroad photography this week, so I finally bit the bullet and produced my first photo using Helicon Focus and Photoshop. This is the view from the Dravus Street bridge over Interbay Yard, looking south towards downtown Seattle. Classification tracks on the right, arrival/departure tracks on the left. Helicon Focus smashed about 10 photos together to get the whole shot in focus, and then I used Photoshop to erase the overhead deck (that you can see is still causing a shadow on the backdrop). The photos were taken with a Pentax K200D DSLR at f/13 and ISO 800, using layout halogen and florescent layout lights and one LED fill light to the right of the switch engine, so you could see its brakeman.

The chevy on the bridge is just like one my Uncle Fletcher drove (well into the '70's) (same color, even!), so I left it in the picture. The railroad cars in the yard are standing just as they were left after the last op session on 13 March 2020, just before the Covid lockdowns. All I did was add locomotives to the cut on the A track, and position that train to hide enough of the green BN center flow hopper car so you can't see the warped walkway on top. And I turned the DCC power on, for the headlight on the switch engine.

See if you can find (at least) one glaring mistake in the photo. I know I can! But, in my defense, I was in a big hurry to try testing my newfound software and skills, so I didn't take the time to set up the shot properly. For example, it's a shame to have the running gear on the F-units obscured by boxcar roofs.

Thanks to Lee for all his coaching, and to NMRAx. Now I'm sliding down yet another "slippery slope" in model railroading fun...

Which do you prefer - Switchlists or Waybills?

What does it take to make up a meaningful train?

(1) someplace to go (a layout)

(2) something that needs to go there (train cars)

(3) power (locomotives)

(4) crew (conductor, engineer, switchpersons, and cabooses)

(5) an operating plan (trainmaster, yardmasters, etc.)

(6) safety (dispatcher, schedules, permission to occupy track, rules, etc.)

(7) money to pay for it all (waybills, billing clerks, etc).

You knew all this. I've been thinking about the long-running feud in model railroading about which is better, switchlists or waybills (often handled as inserts into car cards, but not always). And I've decided that the reason it's hard to decide, is it depends on whose job you enjoy doing the most. If you enjoy getting out on the road and banging cars around, it's easier to have a switchlist tell you what goes where. (Assuming you can read and understand the switchlist, something I often have great trouble doing when I attend an op session)(See an example below). If you're a "why" person like me, you like to understand why you're moving those cars in that train, and you kind of enjoy the job the conductor has of trying to figure out which cars to deliver to which customers in which order. With a switchlist, you just get told what to do, and check things off with a pencil as you go. With car cards and waybills, you get to keep sorting them and organizing them and blocking your train accordingly as you go.

One of the frustrating things about computerized switchlist programs like JMRI ops is that they don't have the ability to block (order) cars in staging (as far as I know). They may give you the cars in the same order as they went in, or they may not, depending on how the previous crew blocked that train. But there you are, at the beginning of a run, with a train full of cars in a certain order accompanied by a switchlist with the cars in a different order. I don't find that fun to deal with. If I can sort the car cards in the same order as they are standing in the train, I find that fun.

When I re-stage the railroad between op sessions, I manually (by hand or with a locomotive, depending on how much time I have or fun I'm in the mood for) re-block the cars in the train (after flipping the waybills to their next destination) so that the operator of that train will receive it blocked like it would have been blocked by the yardmaster at the yard that train is coming from. (See an example of a blocked train in the photo above). I would be happy to have a computer do all that, but how is a computer going to pick up and re-order cars in my staging yards? Not to mention, what about the adding or removing of "live loads" such as lumber on flatcars, or ore in hopper cars?

So, I'm kind of stuck in my position on this question. As an operator of a train, I like to make my own decisions about how to prepare and execute my switching moves, like a conductor would do, not just have it handed to me on a switchlist. And as a layout owner, I like to give my operators trains that are set up in the right order, to make their (often quite complex) jobs as enjoyable as possible.

Another factor to consider is that railroad practices evolved from totally manual paperwork to computerized paperwork, during the 60's and 70's. So my glorified view of how fun the conductor's job was changing during the period I model, 1973. Therefore, if I have the conductor make up a switchlist based on car cards/waybills, or use a computer program like JMRI to generate switchlists and track cars, both would be "prototypical" in a sense.

I might be missing something. Maybe I haven't had enough experience operating with switchlists. What do you think about this long-standing debate?