Track Circuits

Do the circuit detector or insulator serve any purpose yet? Id like to use them to basically function as trackwarrants. So I could have only one train occupy one section of track at a time, but I don't know if theres any rules that interact with the cicuit assets yet.

The only elements, so far as I am aware, that currently make use of the track circuit blocks are the Enhanced Interlocking Towers and associated Driver commands - all by author pguy. You can certainly use those to protect single tracks.

Hi.

May be you can explain more in details why you want to use track circuit blocks and why invisible signals are not good enough for your usage to protect some track sections.

As John (Vostrail) has explained, Enhanced Interlocking Towers (EITs) assets enable to use on option track circuit blocks, but there may be some other scripted assets usage not documented or under construction. But if you have some new interesting ideas for track circuit block usage, let explain them and we can tell you how to develop such script or even develop it for you if it is of general usage for the community ...

Regards.
Pierre.

Hi

I use these with Pierre's Enhanced Interlocking Towers and commands to control multi track stations and yards with trains automatically searching for an unoccupied track. They work very well when set up correctly. As mentioned above, they can be used to control single line sections very effectively as well.

The one drawback in that situation is if it is a very long section where normally trains traveling in the same direction would be allowed to follow one another through. In those situations I still use the Enhanced Interlocking Towers but not the track circuits. I use a couple of variables, one to indicate if the section is clear and one to indicate direction of travel if it is occupied. This also works well and keeps the traffic flowing on busy routes.

Regards

Brian

Besides using them with the EIT I also use them with the drivetotrackmarklist command. The dttml command works OK until the train stops then the trackmark is cleared and another train will try to use the occupied block. With the TCB the trackmark stays occupied when the command finishes.

I believe he is referring to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_warrant
Here's another website that discusses what he's talking about:
http://www.lundsten.dk/us_signaling/index.html
I've always wondered why Track Circuits were included in TANE myself.

pguy said:

Hi.

May be you can explain more in details why you want to use track circuit blocks and why invisible signals are not good enough for your usage to protect some track sections.

As John (Vostrail) has explained, Enhanced Interlocking Towers (EITs) assets enable to use on option track circuit blocks, but there may be some other scripted assets usage not documented or under construction. But if you have some new interesting ideas for track circuit block usage, let explain them and we can tell you how to develop such script or even develop it for you if it is of general usage for the community ...

Regards.
Pierre.

Click to expand...

Track warrants are used to allow a train to travel from Point A to Point B. Lets say 'A' and 'B' are stations. Train 1 gets a warrant to occupy track from station 'A' to station 'B'. No other train can be on that stretch of track until train 1 clears up its warrant. In trainz I would use it to hold trains at certain points. Lets say train 1 is west bound and train 2 is east bound. Traveling towards each other there is a section of track where its single main. Train 1 gets there first and proceeds west. Train 2 would have to wait in the siding until train 1 clears the circuit there by clearing their "track warrant". Then train 2 may proceed east. The same thing could basically be done with haveing train 2 wait for train 1 to trip a certain trigger, but I think the circuit system could be used to make the process more automatic.

Kennilworth said:

Hi

I use these with Pierre's Enhanced Interlocking Towers and commands to control multi track stations and yards with trains automatically searching for an unoccupied track. They work very well when set up correctly. As mentioned above, they can be used to control single line sections very effectively as well.

The one drawback in that situation is if it is a very long section where normally trains traveling in the same direction would be allowed to follow one another through. In those situations I still use the Enhanced Interlocking Towers but not the track circuits. I use a couple of variables, one to indicate if the section is clear and one to indicate direction of travel if it is occupied. This also works well and keeps the traffic flowing on busy routes.

Regards

Brian

Click to expand...

Could you show me how you set it up?

Chadd04 said:

Track warrants are used to allow a train to travel from Point A to Point B. Lets say 'A' and 'B' are stations. Train 1 gets a warrant to occupy track from station 'A' to station 'B'. No other train can be on that stretch of track until train 1 clears up its warrant. In trainz I would use it to hold trains at certain points. Lets say train 1 is west bound and train 2 is east bound. Traveling towards each other there is a section of track where its single main. Train 1 gets there first and proceeds west. Train 2 would have to wait in the siding until train 1 clears the circuit there by clearing their "track warrant". Then train 2 may proceed east. The same thing could basically be done with haveing train 2 wait for train 1 to trip a certain trigger, but I think the circuit system could be used to make the process more automatic.

Click to expand...

Ok. I now better understand what you wish to have.

The first thing you need to know is that a track circuit block can only be easily retrieved in a script from a trackside object embedded in the track circuit block.
So to implement what you want, you will also need a named trackmark or trigger, that you will embed in a track circuit block that you will build using track insulators and a track circuit detector.

Then it is quite easy to develop two new driver commands RequestTrackWarrantForTrackMark and ReleaseTrackWarrantForTrackMark which will have the trackmark or trigger name as parameter.
The request command will retrieve the trackmark, the embedding track circuit block and if the TCB is not occupied will lock the TCB for the train (using the same library than DriveToTrackMarkList v2). If the TCB is occupied, the command will wait until the TCB lock is released and the TCB is not occupied. In case several trains are simultaneously waiting for the same trackmark warrant, the order for granting the warrant to each train cannot be predicatable (random not FIFO or LIFO)
The release command will also retrieve the trackmark, the embedding TCB and will release the TCB lock making the warrant available for another train when the TCB will no longer be occupied.

If these very short specification seems convenient for your idea, let me know and send me via PM your email address for further discussion and beta testing. As all the needed script subroutines already exist for DriveToTrackMarkList v2, it should not take too much time to build these new driver commands (probably end of October beginning of November).

Regards.
Pierre.

I think this is also helpful for those in the UK and elsewhere that use tokens and keys to lock a line from access outside of a single train that has control of that line.

Hi Chadd04

You have a PM.

Regards

Brian