TrainController Gold and Silver - Freiwald Software

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18 Special Applications
18.1 Mixing manual and automatic Operation
TrainController will not supersede you – the human operator. The software can
make large scale railroad operations manageable by one person, matching operations
found on the largest club layouts. In many cases, several trains will run automatically
under control of the computer while certain other trains remain under manual control of
the human operator.
Very often certain parts of the layout are controlled fully automatically by the computer
(e.g. hidden yards) while other parts of the layout remain under complete control of the
human operator (e.g. fiddle yards). In this section, it is outlined how trains can be
passed from manual to automatic control or vice versa.
A typical example is displayed in the block diagram below:
Diagram 184: Mixing manual and automatic operation
On the left side of the layout, a hidden yard is located. This hidden yard is operated fully
automatically by the computer. On the right side of the layout, a small yard is located
that is operated manually.
The left part – the automatic part of the layout – is equipped with indicators in each siding.
A block diagram with blocks and routes and additional schedules have been created
to control entry and exit of trains into and out of the left part of the layout automatically.
The right part – the manual part of the layout – is not included into the main block diagram.
The track layout is indicated in Diagram 184 with gray lines.