The Transcontinental PRR

[eric220]

I was actually thinking something like a grey primer.

[wm3798]

Hell, just carve the foam, tack it together with a little hot glue and paint it tan.

...and call it benchwork!

[eric220]

Last week, I received two beautiful new Mk II Tower Controllers, which will provide support for the turnout controls, detection, and signalling for the rest of the upper level of the layout.  I plopped them down, hooked them up, and went to my trusty old (and I do mean old) laptop to configure them through JMRI...

JMRI didn't have the decoder files for the Mk II's... No problem, I'll just update JMRI, which will include the new decoder files...

Except that I'm two full release versions behind... and the newest version won't run on OS X 10.6... and I can't upgrade the OS any higher (like I said, I do mean OLD laptop).  It's right around this time that the case fan starts making grinding noises again.  Methinks it's time to replace it.

With all the talk of people getting JMRI up and running on a Raspberry Pi, I thought I might give it a try.  It's an $80 computer, if you get the version with the "deluxe" black case and the basic startup kit, including a 64 GB memory card, so there's not much to lose.  A few days later, the Pi was in my hot little hands, and all I had to do was set it up.  I want to run it headless (without a monitor/keyboard/mouse) under the layout, so I had to get file sharing and screen sharing set up, as well as have JMRI load on login. In my native Mac world, I could have had that set up in under three minutes.  On a Windows box, it might take five to ten, because I'd have to look up most of the settings. On Linux (which is the OS that the Pi runs) it took me the better part of five hours, including a wipe and clean install. I went through feeling my way around command line, making changes logged in as Root (which is no bueno), and trying my hand at writing scripts. Thank goodness this wasn't my first time doing any of that, but it's been nearly a decade. Searching the internet for help yielded all sorts of helpful suggestions that led me to drink. By the time all was said and done, Linux did not make any friends in this household, but I came out victorious.



Thank goodness that's over with.  Here are the directions I used to get everything going.  (I'm putting them here for my reference as much as anything.)

Set up AFP and VNC

Set up Programs to Auto Run

Here's the full JMRI-on-Pi discussion:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=39427.0

[eric220]

Nothing photogenic, but I got the two new Tower Controllers programmed via my screen-shared Pi. I also spent some time with the soldering iron and got block detection pushed forward to the crossover west of Idoho Springs, CO. I've got the wires ready for the Idaho Springs mains and team track, but thanks to distractions cause by the product forum, my wife got home before I had a chance to wire them up.

[eric220]

After a couple of days with the soldering iron and the remote-in Pi, the detection has been pushed to Golden, including translating hardware detection to "OS" sections and other signaling details. Not only that, but turnout control has been pushed through to Golden! A simple push button has now replaced the manual turnout throws that were required to turn a train at the Coors brewery. Not only that, I've built a JMRI panel that controls the entire operable dogbone, including a software repeater of the Coors routing button!



Here we see the test M1 rounding Walnut Hill on the way to Colorado. I successfully tested the panel with said M1 by running it in circles and switching the Coors turnaround solely from the panel (web-shared to my iPhone none the less). We're well on our way to a USS style CTC panel.

The panel also shows my progression in automating turnouts. The solid turnouts aren't hooked up to decoders yet, whereas the gapped turnouts are decoderized and controllable from the panel.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I am very appreciative of your Pi Work. I think I'm going to be embarking on a similar project shortly (although I might just steal my wife's old laptop if I get lazy).

Have you thought about writing it up for RMC? I bet it'd do pretty well there.

[eric220]

I had not considered doing an article. Interesting thought. In the end, I'm not sure if there's enough material there. Also, I have to acknowledge that I'm not a complete noob around UNIX (just very novice), so there were steps in there that I was comfortable with that others might not be. Still, might be worth consideration. I'd have to check on the copyright licenses of the instructions that I used.

[C855B]

You've done a complete, operable start-to-finish, in a blisteringly-short amount of time. You have enough material.

However, don't dwell on it too long, as tech-based solutions like this get stale nearly immediately. We encountered more than enough out-of-date info in trying to get it going, some of only six or seven months old. (I'm sooooo glad I'm not in the biz any more.)

[eric220]

Well, potential issue with the article. I just confirmed that the setup I did was specific to connecting to a Mac. The file sharing service was Apple File Protocol, and the VNC advertisement is done on Apples's Bonjour service. The file sharing doesn't work from a Windows box, nor does Remote Desktop pick it up. There are Remote Desktop and SMB services out there for Linux, but I have no use for them, so I'm not going to go through hours of installing them and risk my current setup. A workaround is to use a third party VNC viewer. I successfully connected with TightVNC's viewer, but I had to enter both the IP address and port number. Not exactly a user friendly option.

I also now appreciate why Microsoft resorted to bribing people to upgrade to Windows 10...   

[OldEastRR]

Looking at your pictures of the Puddington train .... for the last shot, the train in the siding, is it the camera that makes the trackwork look kinky, or what? Specifically the two switches together where the alignment of the straight route looks out of whack is the one that stands out. 

[eric220]

You're right, the switch on the main is out of alignment. I keep thinking I should go back and redo that area, and then I keep running trains flawlessly through it. In the end, the zoom distortion in the photo makes the kink look far worse than it actually is. Of all the projects I have to do, fixing that cosmetic flaw is waaaay down on the list.

[eric220]

I hosted the Gandy Dancers over this week and actually got some hardware work done. We started by undoing that which was done on their last visit. Specifically, we dropped Morrow two inches to increase the length of the grade from the boot of the helix. That will allow the grad into the Chicago staging yard to be a little less severe (it was going to have to be around 4% before).



@mighalpern was on the crew that was tasked with installing some challenging tortoises.



He was a proponent of ripping out two turnouts and replacing them with new ones that still had throwbars on both sides, but I wasn't so keen on that plan. (I removed the throwers because they don't fit between the turnout and the adjacent track, and this area functions just about flawlessly.) Instead they rigged up two remote throws by passing the throw wire through brass tubing.



Meanwhile, I broke out the Digitrax equipment that had arrived in the mail just before the Gandy Dancers. I got the PS2012 wired up and powering my DCS200.



Yesterday, I took it one step further and installed the new DB200. I always intended that the layout would have two boosters powering it, and amazingly, I actually wired everything up correctly in anticipation! Not only that, but I located the correct place to cut the correct bus wires to separate the layout into two districts on the first try. Here's the booster doing its thing.



Incidentally, I heard back from RMC, and they are interested in the article! Just got a couple of bugs to work out, and then to the writing!

[eric220]

Side note, for anyone who has never experienced the pure awesome that is WiThrottle on an iPad with a panel running in Panel Pro, I give you:



It can actually support two double throttles, for a total of four, but two is usually plenty.

[John]

awesome progress ... love the panel as well

[eric220]

Ran some trains tonight. I had three trains going on the upper level. A mixed freight hauled by an M1a, a local passenger train hauled by a GG1, and a coal drag hauled by a Q2. It was really nice to get the Q2 out and stretch her wheels. The sight of that Q2 with a 10-foot long coal drag was downright naughty.