Trains and Rail vehicles

[reinder]

Hi,

Trains and rail vehicles aren't properly implemented currently. Mainly because I'm more focused on the hardware support and other core stuff.

My Idea about Trains and Rail vehicles:
(Rail vehicles because then we can add Road vehicles in the future)

There are two generic types of rail vehicles: Locomotive and Wagon.

• A locomotive has a motor so it can move itself.
• A wagon doesn't have a motor and needs a locomotive for movement.

Additional sub types can be added, e.g. a freight car with properties so cargo weight can be added/removed to simulate a loaded or empty train.

A train consists of one ore more rail vehicles. If it contains a locomotive is powered and can move, else it is stationary. e.g. Freight cars at a shunting track wait for a locomotive.

A rail vehicle can be assigned to multiple trains, however it may be only in one active train at a time. This makes it possible to prepare different train sets.

Splitting a train results in two new train objects, for some situations these might be temporary so trains should have some kind of Persistent property so the can be preserved or remove when no longer used.

By using the scripting engine all kind thing can be built.

Just my thoughts about Trains & Rail vehicles, what do you think, I'm open to suggestion :)

Reinder

[reinder]

@gfgit saw you made some changes to Trains & Rail vehicles area, please share your thoughts :)

[gfgit]

Hi, I was going to ask you that!
I've experimented a Little with TrainProperty.
I agree on multiple trains for single rollingstock idea. But what about freight trains that couple some wagons for each stop?

[reinder]

Freight trains are where it gets interesting. For the program it would be make sense to always use a train object. Even for one or more freight cars that are decoupled. It is just a train that can't move because there is no engine in it.

A single locomotive is also a train.

When a train decouples some wagons. It can be:

1. Extract: Remove the wagons from the train and add them to a new train or
2. Split: Delete/deactivate the train and create/activate two trains.

Depending on the situation both can be useful I think.

Maybe we can create a list of scenarios like:

• Train arrives at station, locomotive decouples, moves to other side of train, train leaves in reverse direction.

Based on the scenarios when can determine the implementation :)

[gfgit]

But should this happen in Edit mode (Before power on) or also during playing.
Because sometime you would change train compositivo randomly but some trains in background could run automatically to simulate traffic

[reinder]

Trains must be editable in operational mode too, else it is impossible to change compositions.

Rail vehicles however should only be modifiable in edit mode.

[gfgit]

A cool feature would be supporting several command station "consist" concept.
Or maybe do multitraction it manually.
I'd say there should be a speed matching dialog to get to know every locomotive.
Then a cool thing would be if 2 different locomotives are pulling same Train, you move one and Traintastic calculates equivalent speed for the other one so they constantly match up.
It could be "master" locomotive and the other get matched up by software or each one on same Level (we detect speed change and update other locomotives in same Train)

[gfgit]

I think this could become a stenght of traintastic because other software are not very flexible in this scenario

[reinder]

Well if you implement all this, you could use it also for internal throttles. But it makes sens to "shortcircuit" the path to reduce latency. We should still keep low code duplication. Speed limit logic should also listen for external throttles setting too high values

The train knows best so it makes sense to operate that, but due to how most command stations work it must be possible to allow "decoder" control. For throttle interfaces that are fully handled by Traintastic, e.g. WLANmaus/Z21app and WiThrottle the commands can easily be redirected to the active train they are part of. Only for throttles directly connected to the command station is it an issue.

Some other thing I think would be nice is train mass simulation. If you know the train mass and traction power you can emulate the acceleration. (Maybe multiply it by some user definable factor to speed up the process.)

Maybe we can break it down into smaller tasks, for example:

1. add speed profile support to locomotive (optional different for forward/reverse, default: 100% throttle = max speed)
2. modify throttle so it can control a decoder and a locomotive (isn't a big task I think and simplifies testing)
3. add basic train support for testing multi traction
4. modify throttle again so it can also control a train
5. ...

I think this could become a stenght of traintastic because other software are not very flexible in this scenario

Yes for sure, that would be nice! Traintastic should be powerful but also easy to learn #challange

[gfgit]

How are WLANmaus and Z21app handled exactly? I understand WiThrottle which does not have an own command station but those by Roco have it.
Also I'm trying to emulate a Z21 with ESP8266 but it's been unsuccessfull :(

[reinder]

Traintastic has two different interfaces for the Z21:

• Z21Interface a client for a real Z21: https://github.com/traintastic/traintastic/blob/master/server/src/hardware/interface/z21interface.hpp
• Wlanmaus: emulates a Z21 command station so it can intercept throttle commands for the Wlanmaus or z21 app: https://github.com/traintastic/traintastic/blob/master/server/src/hardware/interface/wlanmausinterface.hpp

You can find all Z21 protocol related code in https://github.com/traintastic/traintastic/tree/master/server/src/hardware/protocol/z21

[gfgit]

Ok. I confused it with Multimaus Pro (the blue one) which existed before z21

[reinder]

Implemented:

• train composing: add/remove/move/reverse.
• train length/weight calculation (with override support*)

• Using the override it is possible to just add the locomotive to the train and set the length, without the need to add all wagons in Traintastic.

[gfgit]

Related: #44

[gfgit]

I think throttles are not easy to open.
When you are in Rail vehicle editor sub Window, you can click on decoder which will open decoder editor. But to open the throttle you have to go to decoders list, remeber decoder name, scroll the table and then click throttle Button.
Maybe a Direct Button from decoder/vehicle editor could be good. I know the editor is just for stati information while throttle is "dynamic" state, but I don't have a better idea yet.
Same thing for trains, you can access throttle only from table.

Also it would be nice if active train are painted differently in the list, like bold font or colored background

[reinder]

The decoder throttle was mainly a temporary fix, I added it to be able to test controlling a train while the rail vehicle and train objects weren't capable yet.

The object edit dialog could have some improvement for easily opening the throttle, that can be useful while editing. However when your layout is setup, I think the user uses the list to open a throttle as editing is then less needed.

Think we should just experiment with it and see what works best :)

The client/UI can be much more improved, most dialog are generated automagically, which is great for the developers but maybe not always for the (future) user.

[reinder]

@gfgit

I recently added assign to/remove from block to the BlockRailTile and added a list of blocks to the Train.

Next step is knowing how the train is positioned in the block.

----[A B]----

Is the current direction towards A or B?

We need to store some additional information for each train in the block, I was thinking about:

• Face: Towards A or Towards B
• Position: where the head or tail of the train is in the block, if the head and tail are not inside the block use NaN. (future extension)

I was thinking to use the same technique as you did for the rail vehicles in a train.

Instead of A/B we could use N/E/S/W but that would make it depended on the block orientation.

What is your opinion?

[gfgit]

Well direction of travel can be different from direction as in "order of vehicles".
I'm not familiar with NaN but great to learn new things!
About N/E/S/W I don't know, for the moment I would keep A/B and see how it looks first