Goals

After a some time developing MyRailIO we are facing real opportunities;

The first real railway is being built with MyRailIO- and JMRI technology.

The goals are the following:

1. Demonstrate the values-, easiness-, usability-,  and robustness of MyRailIO.
2. Create a test-rig for MyRailIO continuous Integration (CI).
3. Provide a demonstration- and innovation platform for the things MyRailIO do now, and potentially could do going forward.

This page intends to follow the construction of the myRailIO test-rig.

Building the rig-table

The MyRailIO test-rig will serve many purposes: as a test-rig-, as a concept demonstrator-, and for further feature development. The focus is on technology, but as it might be used for demonstration appearance is also a factor. Following design goals have been defined:

1. It must be portable, weight and robustness is of great importance.
2. It must provide visibility to the technology and the appearances it enables - the main technology components must be visible and no tunnels or obstructions may hide locomotives, cars, turn-outs or signals.
3. It must visualize as much of the MyRailIO capabilities as possible - signals, turn-outs, sensors, Servos, light effects, etc.
4. The appearance must be reasonably attractive - providing a somewhat professional touch.

Based on the above design-goals we decided on a form-factor of 900x650 mm; Made out of a stiff 6 mm glass-fiber re-enforced core and a 10 mm extruded foam top;

Everything framed with Teak and 4 short stands.

Test-rig rail-layout

The MyRailIO test-rig layout needs to be very dense in order to host as many automation challenges as possible: Blocks, turnouts, loops, signals, crossings, etc.

To achieve the density as much as possible - compromises need to be in place:

1. Only short trains are allowed
2. Slopes exceeds normal maximums - up to 10%
3. It is only possible to change to one direction (counter clock-wise)

The proposed layout looks like this (still going through updates):

This layout supposedly provides dense and variated railway operations with two main-lines, a revere-loop, a three rail station, and a trickle-yard providing opportunities for both relatively simple-, as well as more complex traffic plays. This includes train marshalling-, and train directional change at the station or in the trickle-yard.

This layout - as dense as it is-, as compromised as it is-, and as complex as it is- will hopefully provide enough challenges to proof MyRailIO and it's integration with train-controllers (JMRI).

Special attention needs to be paied on the positioning of the de-couplers - this needs more empirical trials - which we currently don't have.