Garden Railway Forum

I thought some of you might be interested in this track occupancy system which my mate in Oz has produced.


It's not a signalling system in the proper sense, as it is designed for operators of his garden railway to use when he has visitors to help ensure there are no head-on collisions on the single track section of his line.

Greg has been tinkering with Picaxe chips for years - most of his rc battery locos are controlled with them and all his sound cards are made with them. He's in the process of writing-up the project on his website if anyone fancies following in his footsteps - http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/satr/electronics.htm

Rik

Thanks for the link, Rik, very interesting.
Having got that far ( if I was up to the electronics, which I'm not!!) I think I'd be tempted to fit N/C reed switches in the locos, and solenoids under the track, powered from the Stop aspect, to actually stop the loco's and physcally prevent crashes.

I just found that Rik had posted this topic on my behalf, before I joined up.
In case anyone is interested, my website has more details on my trials and tribulations of getting this to work.
http://www.trainweb.org/SaTR/glatest.htm

philipy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 19, 2018 11:55 am Thanks for the link, Rik, very interesting.
Having got that far ( if I was up to the electronics, which I'm not!!) I think I'd be tempted to fit N/C reed switches in the locos, and solenoids under the track, powered from the Stop aspect, to actually stop the loco's and physcally prevent crashes.

The number one requirement of my design was that it had to work with visiting locos - so no mods to any trains! NO magnets, reed switchs, RFID units etc.

Great work Greg, stuff like this would added much needed operating interest on my little line.

Very interesting. Electronics are a complete mystery to me and I have no need of this facility, but I do find these articles fascinating. You guys with so much knowledge of these things have my admiration.

I'm sure others will learn a lot from your posts.

Ian