I have been trying to get 8 trains running in automation on 4 loops for at least 5 years or more and have not succeeded. ?The first issue is mechanical. Can you run the specific engine and cars over the route you want with a throttle ,stopping and starting, changing speeds, for at least 15 minutes without any car or engine coming off the track especially when going over switches. ?If you can then you can run that train over that route for 15 minutes before physical failure. ?
You must have a different transit for every train you run. Each of your 10 transits can have the same sections but each transit ?may require a different starting section. ?I dont know if the same list of sections with a different name will work. ?You have to experiment. But if you have 10 trains in a yard then you have 10 tracks and each track must be its own section and have its own detection. ?You create a section starting at that tracks section ,list the sections in the route you want and finish with the yards starting section. You can tell the transit to end or repeat although i dont know if you repeat wether you can insert a 10 minute delay.
The next issue is how many trains are running at the same time. The best i have done is 4 trains for 5 minutes before software/comuter/loconet failure.
I assume you’re using digitrax and loconet. If you are using something else then everything i say may not be accurate. ?The next problem is digitrax detection bxp88’s. ?I just had 5 of the go bad at a single instant of time and digitrax wants 3-6 months to repair them. One was brand new,recently bought to replace one that went bad. ?So my layout is down for 6 months because the rumor is digitrax got a large batch of bad chips.
The issue is that the jmri automation software can only keep track of the trains if the loconet command occur in the proper order. ?As you increase the no of trains in automation at the same time commands on the loconet can overlap or not get executed. The automation software will slow down a train when it’s 2 sections away from a train in front of it. ? This constant change of speeds of multiple trains can overload the loconet and cause issues in the automation. ?You can by controlling the default speeds keep them the same so the slow down speed is the same as the running speed. You should not use momentum unless the momentum does not cause the train to leave the section it was suppose to stop in. ?If it overruns your automation will fail.
Because of my difficulty in running trains in automation i bought a European program. ‘ITrains’. ? It’s not much better except it’s easier to restart an automated train should it fail. ?Also i was using an older apple mac computer and changed to a latest dell windows computer which seamed to give better results perhaps because its faster.
The issue is both the jmri and iTrains software was written to run one train along a route and not multiple trains in loops as apparantly i am the only one in the world trying to run 8 trains,2 per loop, on an 8x8 n scale layout.
If you succeed please let me know what you did to get 10 trains running at the same time.
Tony
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On Mar 17, 2025, at 2:19?PM, Scott Nelson via groups.io <wa6blf@...> wrote:
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What is the best way to do this automation? ?My goal is to have trains start from a yard, one after another, go the whole layout and the park back in the yard and rest about 10 minutes. ?I hope to keep about 10 trains running at any time, while another 10 are resting.
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It’s a large layout. I’ve added block detection throughout the layout, and used the tools to create sections. We have seven layouts all permanently interconnected, so there are multiple routes to make a loop.
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So, I have started by trying to dispatch a train after I had successfully started another train (automatically run) along a particular transit, but that transit isn’t in the list!
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Am I going about this in the wrong way? Does this mean I need to create at least 10 transits that use the same sections in the same order?
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Thanks for any suggestions or advice.
Roger Merritt
Ken Heywood
