"I'd like to watch some TV ..."

"... could you please bring my phone?"

The wonders of Mythmote.

When something goes wrong ...

... it usually happens in more than one place at a time.

The laptop I use as train computer developed a memory problem. The BIOS disables any memory above 88M due to a failure during POST. Yes, that laptop was quite slow, but it did the job, and has a beautiful, huge 1900x1600 display. Evaluating my options:

1. I can go out and buy a cheap desktop computer, put it in the server rack, and run VGA/keyboard through the KVM to the 15" monitor at the rack. That would likely work out to be a DualCore or low-end i3.
2. Ditto, but get just a low-end, low-power motherboard, and memory. One of the current pseudo-embedded CPUs, or Atoms, should do just fine. Install it in a spare computer case and put it into the rack.
3. Try and make do with the 88M memory, convert the laptop to a dumb X-Terminal, (potentially remote boot it), and run JMRI on the server with a remote X session to the laptop. Technically a bit more interesting, a bit more involved, and actually not really something I'm particularly keen on. I get enough overly complicated setups at work.

I think I'm going to throw hardware at the problem, and go with either option 1. or option 2. and give up on the nice display.

---

The Emsingen power district of the layout developed a short circuit some time in the last 48 hours and I have no idea what caused this. The PSX circuit breaker is solidly reporting a short. All 3 PSX's LEDs flicker roughly  every 2-3 seconds, and the amp-meter shows an inrush of current at the same time. Evaluating my options:

1. When I installed semaphores yesterday, something got on the track and is causing a short. I brushed down all tracks in Emsingen. No dice.
2. Maybe a locomotive has a shorted out decoder, or some car is derailed. Removed all rolling stock from Emsingen. No dice.
3. When I cut and glued down the north stub track next to the loading ramp on Wednesday, I somehow caused a short. Unlikely, but I ripped out this piece of flextrack anyways. No dice... Now that's annoying.
4. I somehow jumbled track wires underneath Emsingen. No idea how that even could have happened. Did a visual check, and all connections look good.
5. Powered off everything. Maybe the PSX just got confused. Nope, problem still there.
6. Maybe the PSX is bad. Put the district on another PSX for testing. Still to do.

---

Patricia's computer developed an interesting file system problem. It appears that when the system stats some inode linked from her home directory, the operation hangs forever. This causes process like Nautilus or ls to go into state D+. I can kill -9 the process from another terminal, and get back the prompt. I can do tab completion (e.g. type ls .[TAB] and get a list of all files starting with '.'). I haven't tried every character yet. There are no hard disk related errors in dmesg. smartctl reports the hard disk recorded no internal errors either. I'm suspecting ext4 file system corruption, and will try an fsck next.

---

Bottom-line: What the hell is going on today?

Wireless stopped working ...

Out of the blue, wireless networking stopped working on our Dell Inspiron 1440. It runs Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, and no system update was performed before things stopped working. The Network Manager menu in Gnome shows Wireless Network Disabled, and Wired Network as Disconnected. Meanwhile other laptops in the house have no problem connecting to the wireless network, so this must be something local to this laptop.

In digging through Network Manager, iwconfig, iwlist, wpa_supplicant and friends, all I could come up with was that /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state lists WirelessEnabled=False. Manually setting this to True and restarting NetworkManager gets us plenty of log messages that show the device exists, and then gets disabled.

Finally, I realized that someone must have pressed the Disable Wireless button on the keyboard. Pressing it again resolved the problem. Sometimes it's the simple things ...

Mickey's Fantasmic! vs. World of Colors

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of watching both the "World of Color" show at Disney's California Adventure, and "Mickey's Fantasmic!" show at Disneyland back to back.

Both shows are very well attended outdoor evening shows, so getting there early (and getting the Fastpass for World of Color) is highly recommended. Both shows are good and fun to watch.

What struck me more, though, were the differences both in style and execution.

World of Color - California Adventure

Let's start with "World of Color". This show transforms the big lagoon at California adventure into a colorful spectacle of water fountains, mixed with movie scenes projected on screens made out of water. The execution was flawless. The color effects are mesmerizing. The fountains fantastic. However, to me it felt like this show was "built by committee".

World of Color - Movie projected on water fountain

The show started off with a season appropriate opener involving a Christmas theme. The fountains were colorful and impressive. From then on short sequences from well-known animated movies, old and new, played back to back with fountain sequences. Some sequences where upbeat, funny, others a bit scary, or dark. I'm still scratching my head why a segment from "Pirates of the Caribbean, On Stranger Tides" was included. The mermaids in the segment are really not Ariel-style family fare... At the end of the show I was both impressed and disappointed. The technical part of it was fantastic, but the whole thing lacked ... heart.

Mickey's Fantasmic!

After a mad dash from California Adventure we made it just in time to Disneyland's Rivers of America for "Mickey's Fantasmic!" . This show also uses water screens for movie sequences, but uses the Pirate's Lair island as a very effective stage for Mickey directing lights, fireworks, and fountains, as well as acting as background for the witch's magic potion scene and even a full-size dragon.

Mickey and the Dragon

Some movie scenes mix with live action of dancing princesses, Peter Pan fighting Captain Hook with the crocodile on their tail... and generally, compared to World of Color, less computer-controlled, more hand-made action. Even though (maybe because) Fantasmic! was a bit less polished, to me it had a lot more charme.


Bottom-line: Try to see both shows, especially when you're in the parks more than one day. Watching the shows back to back is probably only feasible during a slow week outside the summer months, because the viewing areas fill up quickly. Even last week, on a somewhat rainy day, many people got there over an hour before the show started to reserve good spots.

Oh yeah, it's very hard to take any halfway decent pictures of either show...

Is that going to work?

On the workbench

Building a Timesaver in N scale is a little side-project. Above is the result of one long evening. The track is cut, and partially glued down. Let's see how this develops further ...

Kalmbach Books now available in digital formats

Here's another publisher who is having a hard time adjusting to the digital age: Kalmbach, the publisher of the venerable Model Railroader magazine. I'm a subscriber of Model Railroader, and looking at inserts and ads in each issue, it's very obvious that Kalmbach is very good at recycling content from articles in different forms and trying to milk their customers any way they possibly can.

Recent example: The Model Railroader 75 year DVD set ... at a cost of $195. The biggest value here is being able to look up a certain article from a few years ago, but at almost $200 that's really not worth it. miba (the german equivalent to Model Railroader) is selling their 60 year collection on DVDs for 60 Euros, ie. at a cost equivalent to 4 digital yearly editions of miba on CD.

Another example: Kalmbach Books is releasing popular books in digital format by partnering with Zinio.  Take "Basic Model Railroading", an introductionary book to model railroading. Zinio charges $17.95, the exact same price as the recommended retail cost of the paperback version. Sounds fair?
Not really, no-one sells the paperback at retail price. It's on Amazon for about $10-12, and can be found new for as low as $5. While there's certainly some value to be able to carry around your railroad literature on a memory stick, is it worthy to pay more than street price? No, thank you.

And oddly ... I still prefer paper over pixels.

At night

I like this shot of the signals south of Blossom Hill in the headlights of an approaching train. I should come back with a decent camera and try to do this right. A cell phone camera in the end is still a cell phone camera...

The answer

Nothing new

Yep, there's not much going on right now with the layout. The "busy season" has started, and on top of that a lot of things are happening at work. That doesn't leave much time for modeling, building stuff or even running trains. I don't expect to get much work done on the layout until at least Thanksgiving.

However, I'm getting my fair share of running trains over the next week: SVL has the last ops session of the year on Friday, and I'm invited to an ops session at a local layout next Tuesday. Both should be fun, though likely quite different in how they pan out.
The following Saturday, November 5th, 12 noon to 5pm is Open House at SVL.

The Schedule

I designed the passenger schedule for the Welztalbahn around a few constraints.

• The schedule would need to make sense in the real world. My operators most likely don't really care about this, since they are busy with getting trains and cars to where they are supposed to go, but I notice and that's what counts. 
• Provide for some operational interest. I.e. make life a little bit harder for operators by setting up meets and having to think about train priorities and direction through Talheim interlocking.
• Get in the way of freight trains and switching. 

Emsingen is the hub of activity on the layout, closely followed by the interlocking in Talheim. Above constraints led to the following principles:

• Passenger traffic flows mostly between the big cities "surrounding" the layout area, as well as commuter service to Freiburg. 
• Emsingen is "Eilzugstop" (i.e. the faster passenger trains stop only in Emsingen). 
• Trains arriving from Prechtal via the (imagined) branch line either terminate in Emsingen, or continue on to Freiburg.
• North-bound passenger trains to Prechtal can meet a south-bound Eilzug to Freiburg in Emsingen.
• South-bound passenger trains from Prechtal can meet a north-bound Eilzug from Freiburg in Emsingen.

That yielded the following sequence of events:

PT = Prechtal, FR = Freiburg, ST = Stuttgart, TB = Tuebingen,  EM = Emsingen, TH = Talheim

(S) = running south-bound, (N) = running north-bound

• EM switching
• PT -> P 8114 (S) meet E 3577 (N) at Emsingen -> FR
• FR -> E 3577 (N) meet P 8114 (S) at Emsingen -> ST
• Ng 83271 (N) prep
• Dg (S)
• Ng 83721 (N)
• ST -> E 3576 (S) -> FR
• FR -> P 8115 (N) -> PT
• Dg (N)
• PT -> P 8116 (S) meet E 3555 (N) at Emsingen -> FR
• FR -> E 3555 (N) meet P 8116 (S) at Emsingen -> TB
• Ng 83720 (S) prep
• Ng 83720 (S)
• FR -> P 8117 (N) -> PT
• TB -> E 3554 (S) -> FR
• EM -> Ueb 97 836 (S) -> TH (Switching)
• PT -> P 8118 (S) meet E 3579 (N) at Emsingen -> FR
• FR -> E 3579 (S) meet P 8118 (S) at Emsingen -> ST
• ST -> E 3578 (S) -> FR
• FR -> P 8119 (N) -> PT
• Dg (S)
• PT -> P 8120 (S) meet E 3557 (N) at Emsingen -> FR
• FR -> E 3557 (N) meet P 8120 (S) at Emsingen -> TB
• TH -> Ueb 97 836 (N) -> EM
• EM switching

There are still several flaws (e.g. meets in Emsingen are always the same direction, and there are no returning trains from Tuebingen), but I liked how the schedule left room for switching moves, and allowed for ebb and flow of traffic.

Third Ops Session at the Welztalbahn

Today marked the first time the Welztalbahn saw an operating session with 3 operators. Although, ... it almost didn't happen.

I prepped for the session early this week, wrote a short description of the layout, its "history", and setting. I created scheduled trains. I did some (minor) staging. All that was left to do this morning was cleaning track in staging, and testing one or two trains that changed, and/or were known to be a balky. I also had set up a Chromebook with a connection to JMRI's mini-web server and planned to operate the turnouts in Staging from that. 45 mins of prep on the layout and plenty of time to get other chores done around the house as well. When I threw one turnout, hell broke loose...

LocoNet went nuts. One of the semaphore signals was being set to red over and over again, two turnouts did the same thing. I cut power to the stationary decoders. ... Deep breath. ... turn power back on, and it all continued. Power-cycle everything, and it still continued. Further debugging showed it came from JMRI Logix, but that didn't seem to make that much sense either. There's nothing in the Logix doing this. After ripping a lot more hair out, fruitless debugging, and contemplating to cancel the ops session, I realized this all started with when I threw a switch in staging which I haven't done since I added semaphores ... could it be ... 4x DS64, 2x SRC16 ... that they draw just too much power on the 12V DC bus? ... Indeed! That bus is powered by a wallbrick rated for 1A, and when the system comes live, there are short spikes of up to 1.5A, multiple DS64 charging their capacitors. Overloading the wallbrick can cause all kinds of funky problems.

Robert brought along a DC powerpack, things worked well with that, and the session could start. I took the mole job running staging, while Balazs manned Emsingen, and Robert took Talheim. We ran a total of 19 trains (out of 20 planned; BR50 didn't want to cooperate for the last Dg run). Aside from the BR50 issue, there where no mechanical problems, and no derailments! The session ran for abot 2.5 hours at a leisurely pace that left time for chatting on the side.

The operator positions are based on location.

Running Emsingen is mostly a switching job, sorting cars in the yard, switching the sidings in Emsingen, and swapping cars from the local freights. This position also includes running the Emsingen tower.

The Talheim position gets to run most passenger trains and freights on the visible portion of the layout, as well as operate the interlocking tower in Talheim. The interlocking can get a bit busy at times. For balance, towards the end of the session this position switches Talheim industries, while the Emsingen operator gets to run some trains.

The mole job is responsible for positioning trains at the staging exit for the operators to pick up, and storing trains arriving from the visible portion of the layout in staging. This position keeps track of the schedule and occasionally runs trains when the schedule asks for a passenger train meet in Emsingen.

Suggestions for improvement:

• Better indication of direction. For both stations it's unclear which direction is North or South.
• Prepare instructions for the individual trains that explain the required moves. Especially expectations about direction, station stops, and meets.
• Better instructions for how to operate the interlocking panel.
• Control all switches from the panel.
• Explain color codes of trains and waybills somewhere.
• Make sure to have English labeling for everything.

The sequence schedule I cobbled together worked surprisingly well. I'll have a separate post about that.

Overall, this session was a much bigger success than the last time, and everyone had a good time. 

More Backdrop Painting

When I got home tonight I needed to decompress and started painting more of the backdrop along the wall near Hochwaldtunnel. Not only did I feel a lot better when dinner was ready, but I really liked how the landscape now frames the layout in that corner.

So after everybody was in bed I cleaned up the edges of the existing backdrop painting and kept going around the rear corner almost to the tunnel portal behind the roundhouse. I'm quite happy with the result. Most of the painting in the rear corner will likely be hidden by the town of Emsingen, but I hope at least some of it will remain visible.  ... and if not, I can always paint the mountains a bit higher...

Jetlag

It seems I dropped my body clock somewhere on the East Coast on the flight back. In the evenings I rarely make it past 8:30pm, and in the morning I'm awake by 5am at the latest. Arriving in the office while it's not quite daylight yet ...

Interlocking now working in Talheim

I finally completed the interlocking in Talheim, including working semaphore signals.

Here's a rough overview of how I implemented it with Logix in JMRI.

1) The panel: I built an actual panel with push buttons. All approach tracks as well as the station tracks in Talheim have a button. A route is requested by first pressing the origin, then the destination push button. The panel is built using a Team Digital SRC16 and connected to LocoNet.

2) Button state: When a push button is pressed, it causes a Loconet Sensor (LS) message and a respective Internal Sensor (IS) in JMRI is set to active, as well as a IS for "button pressed".

3) Route Selection: When the second button is pressed, the IS of the first button, the "button pressed" IS, and the LS of the button just pressed, uniquely identify the route being requested. For each route I wrote a Logix with the precondition of the respective sensor combinations. In the action part of the Logix, I trigger a JMRI route to line the switches, reset the "button pressed" IS, and set the interlocking internal sensors.

4) Interlocking: Each route through Talheim potentially conflicts with another route. There is an Internal Sensor for each valid route. When the respective Logix for a route is triggered, it sets the Internal Sensor for this route to active, and all conflicting routes to inactive.

5) Route Execution: The JMRI routes selected in 3) trigger the switch machines and line the switches. When the route is set, an Internal Sensor becomes active that indicates the route is set.

6) Signals: Each valid route has associated signals. When both the IS for the route is active, as well as the JMRI route sensor is active, the signal allowing a train to enter that route is set to Green. Since the interlocking sets routes to inactive, another Logix rule triggers on the IS of a route becoming inactive, and sets the signal to red.

Phew.

The logic works very well, and since the flow always originates with the panel and goes "downhill" from there, I don't think there are loops or races in the logic.

I have not yet implemented setting the signals to Red once a train passes, since I don't have the respective track sections wired up.

Uuuuuuufff!

Fuer Patzi

Laecheln!

An afternoon in Rems

There wasn't much water in the river. 

I like the many tones of green.

I never quite realized that his house on Hegnacher Strasse has this bridge mural.

Friendly company on this walk.

Swiss Accuracy

A train is not "about 15 minutes" late in Zurich. It's about fourteen minutes late. And we left pretty much exactly at 15:24...

Eurowest 2011 BEMO Layout

This is a narrow gauge modular layout usually shown at the annual ETE Eurowest show. The lighting in the exhibition area was very bad, so the video came out a bit dark.