I have trainplayer - the latest version.. and I also just bought Train Simulator 2012 - love both of them, very amazing programs. Both have the ability to lay/build/design your own route. I was thinking of building a model rr of a yard and a car float on my real model rr and then model the other portion of where those go into one of my other programs then be able to move the cars through a complete cycle.. anyone done this? thanks
Yes. There are various computer interfaces like Digitrax PR3; LocoBuffer. They connect to the computer and a DCC command station. The railroad can be controlled via software like JMRI; RocRal; Train Controller; Model Railroad Automation I've tried a couple and writted about them in my blog: Rocrail & iRoc; Model Railroad Automation - First Thoughts; JMRI First Thoughts Greg
no that's not what I'm talking about.. I'm saying to run your train.. lets say I model a yard and car float on my physical model rr.. then when I load up the car float and it goes off to it's destination. I then put those cars in my computer program and then fire up my train in my computer simulation to then drop off those cars to there destinations in the computer and then vice versa when they come back to my layout..
That actually sounds like a fun way to expand the reach of your layout. Basically put the un-modeled portions of your layout in the simulator. Closest thing I am aware of would be some of the virtual interchange groups that are around, where you load something up on your layout, spot it at an interchange, notify me, and I "pick up" the load and deliver it to a destination on my layout.
Brian to it sounds to me more like you want to have your virtual RR interchange with your model RR. I don't know of any one who does this but it sounds interesting. The closest thing I can think of is how Bruce Carpenter's BNSF interchanges with 6-7 other model RRs in his round robin ops group. It's talked about on the Allen Keller VHS of his layout here http://www.allenkeller.com/videoPages/GMR42.php. They have simulated interchanges and when a car gets dropped off there, the model car actually gets shipped to the other layout on it's journey It sound like you will need an exact replica of the interchange track on the model and create it again in the virtual RR. The model would drop off cars on the inter change track, you program them into the exact replica of the interchange track and continue them on their journey. Give it a try and let us know how works out ratled
I was thinking of doing something similar on my harbor layout. The car float makes it pretty easy. I use XTrakCad and can enter my entire roster of rolling stock and motive power in there, then put them on and take them off the layout in any way I want. It doesn't have the car load info, but I could do that with cards, I suppose.
They actually ship the cars back and forth? That sounds like some serious realism, but would get pretty expensive!!
I suspect there will be a small problem unless you model the real part of your railroad in the simulator, too. Or you could model an interchange yard on your real layout i.e. the cars get put on the shelf and going the other way the cars come to the interchange, are enter in the database of your railroad and a real car is added to the shelf. But how would that handle random cars that come from the rest of the continental system?
TD they are pretty serious about it. It takes several months for a car to go out and come back. AK has his VHS - you remember them don't you - on sale for $15 so it makes it a worthy watch if you like diesel era. I got it originally for all of the larger foam core buildings he does like the one pictured in the link. They are simple and very basic but if you don't look close you don't realize the lack of the detail that the expensive kits have ratled
Well, random cars would show up somewhere else in the simulator, and the sim train would haul them to the interchange point. If he doesn't have a physical car to match (say the random car is SOU 13578 and he doesn't have a SOU 13578) then he would have to designate an "alias" car on the layout (e.g. B&O 96874) to take the place... a little bit of record keeping would allow the two cars to represent the same load. Same thing we do with the online virtual interchange stuff. The system I work with actually assigns two cars to each waybill - one from each participating railroad's roster.
the more I think about this the more excited I get. I think I'll model a stub yard and a car slip and then from there I can then virtually model anything really..
Yeah, this really does sound fun. The car float on mine will make it quite easy. I'd also even joked with Nimo over in India about having our layouts interchange, though mailing rolling stock would complicate things!
