Layout Elements

Layout elements

Track

• Straight
• End
• Corner
• Curve
• Crossing
• Left turnout
• Right turnout
• Double turnout

Track elements define the visible railway. Rotation changes their geometric connections. Turnout elements additionally store the physical accessory address and logical closed/thrown mapping.

Control and information

• Sensor — reads a DCC-EX sensor address and can be used by signal rules.
• Signal — displays an aspect and writes an aspect bit pattern to consecutive DCC accessory addresses or DCC-EX VPINs.
• Output Button — controls one DCC accessory address or DCC-EX VPIN as a toggle, timed push pulse, or press-and-hold momentary output.
• Block — represents an occupancy/reservation section and can hold a locomotive assignment.
• Route Button — stores an ordered set of turnout element IDs and required physical states.
• Automatic Route — requests a path between start and destination block IDs.
• Label — centered text with offsets measured from the element centre.
• Level Crossing — runtime crossing representation.

Every element has a stable generated ID. Automation references the ID rather than copying the DCC address. Changing a turnout address therefore preserves route and signal references.

Block occupancy

In runtime mode, select a Block element to open the locomotive picker. Assigning a locomotive to a new block automatically removes it from its previous block, so one locomotive cannot occupy two blocks at the same time. Use the remove action to clear the selected block.

Block assignments are shared with every connected browser and saved by the EX-CSB1 in /runtime-state.json. The saved assignments are restored after a restart. References to blocks that no longer exist in layout.json are removed automatically during startup. Cached turnout states are stored in the same runtime-state file.

Block occupancy is runtime data and is deliberately not written into layout.json. The normal release-independent export currently backs up layout configuration, locomotives, images, and Signal Logic rules; copy /runtime-state.json separately through the Files page only when the live block and turnout state must also be preserved.

Address rules

• DCC accessory elements use linear addresses and send <a address 0|1> through the command station.
• DCC-EX VPIN elements use virtual pin numbers and send the equivalent digital <z VPIN> / <z -VPIN> operation through the dedicated WebSocket API.
• Signal address length is configurable from 1 to 8; the normal DigiSignal setup uses 5.
• Avoid overlapping signal output ranges unless the hardware is intentionally shared.
• Run the global integrity checker after deleting or replacing elements.

Output Button behaviour

Select an Output Button in Edit mode and configure:

• Output type — DCC accessory or DCC-EX VPIN.
• Accessory address / VPIN — the physical output identifier.
• ON value — whether logical ON writes 1 or 0; OFF always writes the inverse.
• Toggle — each press alternates between logical ON and OFF.
• Push — writes ON, waits for the configured pulse duration, then writes OFF automatically. The duration is limited to 50–10000 ms and defaults to 250 ms.
• Momentary — writes ON when pressed and OFF when released. Pointer capture also releases the output when a touch is cancelled or moves outside the button.

Output state is confirmed by the EX-CSB1 rather than only being changed optimistically in one browser. The firmware broadcasts the resulting accessoryChanged or vpinChanged event so every connected client redraws the same state.