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Lets visit the completed railway ten year into
the future....
Coming into the door, the place looks normal enough and you are greeted and ushered to the living room. Immediately you notice the CTC panel on a desk. Looks good - a VR based panel, with a black with white lettering. The operator has a TV monitor in one corner, a clock and a telephone on the desk, along with some written forms and instructions. The monitor is showing what looks like a staging yard throat. At the moment a XPT is departing the staging, past the camera. "Shushh, he's on the line to a station operator" whispers our host. The operator is clearly busy. The panel has only a few lines lit up with red - must be train on the system. My host then takes me to another room - WOW! "A part recreation of a VR "G" class loco," my host explains. Another Operator is in the chair driving a train. "What computer simulation is this" I ask. "Not a simulation that is a picture from a loco below", replies the host. Looking at the picture a bit closer it is apparent ( one can never make scenery totally mimic miniature) - I could see the huge giant operators in the background when the loco rounded a corner. I noticed the Driver was operating the controls. The driver looks up and introduces himself. "Great concept this, I'm just rolling into a passing loop to meet a pass. See the signals, I'd better stop now." My host then ushered me back past the CTC operator and down some stairs. The railway room was not busy, I noticed only two other people down here. The layout is double level and the layout is lighted well, with no lights in the walkways making the scenery stand out. Lots of signals in use, all fully operation I guessed. On the facias I noticed the mainline painted on with extra lights."Those are repeater signals for operators, one can not drive a train from behind and see all the signals - so they let you know what is happening. And believe me you have to obay the signals or you may cause a accident !" I knew the layout had DCC - you could see the many throttle plugs around the layout. "You only have two people down here at the moment and two upstairs, yet it all seems rather busy", I stated. My host then showed me one of the reasons for this - a computer system. "This computer handles the control of most of the railway -I have three, one for the CTC panel, one for the loco simulators and a third one, this one directly interfacing with the railway. At the moment two stations are being run by the other two operators. They handle the shunting in their yards. The driver in the ‘cab' is running trains for them on the mainline. The CTC operator works with him and the station staff. To keep things busy at the moment the computer is actually taking trains form one operator and driving them in and out of the staging yard. "I see a third train in use on the mainline - who is driving that one ?". My host pointed to the computer. "Actually that is a friend in Queensland - the computer has a Internet connection and he is operating that train using another camera equipped locomotive." We went into a adjoining room, with a train rolling past on the lower level. "See this station here ? It only get used when there is shunting, or we have enough people. We use different timetables depending on who turns up. Sometime we are all down here just running trains and using human interlocking not to have a cornfield meet. At the moment my friends are using the railway their way." All very interesting and I start to wander around as my host heads upstairs for a while........... Conclusion: No one bit of benchwork had been built, not one point made, not one electronic circuit built. But this dream is possible ,today ! Realistically it will be many years, knowing me. It shall be interesting how much of this comes to pass. |
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