New Layout

[Anonymous]

Hi everone,

I thought it was about time I contributed a layout, ever so basic though it may be!

This is a digital layout. Can be downloaded from

http://hometown.aol.co.uk/dpletts/RTB.zip” class=”bbcode_url”>http://hometown.aol.co.uk/dpletts/RTB.zip

Included in the zip file is a file of notes you may care to read.

Cheers,

David

[Anonymous]

Hi dpletts

I just had a quick go and I don’t know how it works but it’s great.

Thanks Dave

[Anonymous]

Hi David,

I mostly build Digiboards. I´ll study your board and will see the different or the same to my boards. You can dload my boards on Willi´s Hobbypage

Look for Peter´s board 01 and 02. They are large a little bit.

[Anonymous]

Hi David.

I just wanted to say how much I am enjoying your layout. I do like layouts which you can actually interact with and this one has so much activity and yet you can still throw switches etc without causing chaos! Great fun on a grand scale. I haven’t made any digital layouts myself but I do want to understand how and what your control track is doing.

The bonus for me? I love trams!

[Anonymous]

Hi David,

It´s easy to control by hand and auto,but funny

It´s a little offtopic but ask a modeler for a tramwai to go. May be someone has it for Pete.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Thank you all for your interest in and kind words about my RTB layout.

All the control track does is to control the three signals giving access to the junction where red trams continue round the city circuit, and the blue ones join and diverge, the junction I call Karlstrasse. It makes those signals behave like traffic lights, so they change to ‘go’ in turn, while the other two change to ‘stop’. However, when they change to ‘go’ there is a 3 second delay, so that any tram already on the junction has time to clear. Also, when a tram approaches one of those signals a control forces the signal to ‘stop’ to avoid accidental collision, particularly with the trailer portion of the ‘tram’. These controls came about through trial and error, and now I think that section of the layout will perform without collisions.

At first I made the control track too small. As there is no way of setting the speed in a digital layout (not that I’ve found) I had to enlarge it. I added the coaches to try and slow things down a bit, but it didn’t help a lot. I left them in anyway!

Even though I made this layout, I love watching the way the trams integrate. There appears to be a certain amount of randomness to it, but, of course, various factors actually control what happens.

A side effect of this traffic light system is that the trams stop at some of the tram stops instead of wizzing round non-stop. Further controls could probably be added to force trams to stop at every ‘station’.

Of course, colour-light signals would be much more tram-like, something which it seems we might see in the future?

Cheers,

David

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