Hi everyone, another question related to RocRail.

For my planned layout, I will have some long (8 meters) transitions between lower invisible staging yard and top layer.
- Should I divide this in 'normal' blocks (aka 4 separate blocks of 2 meters each) with each one an 'Enter' & 'In' sensors?
- Should I use Staging blocks instead with a single 'Enter' and 4 'In' sensors that are 2 meters apart?

What if I have an extra long train (2 locos with a bunch of freight cars) that is longer than the usual 2 meters limit
- will this create an issue of ghost train in the above scenario as it will reach the 'In' sensor but still have the back inside the previous block?
- how will this work if the longer train is not allowed to stop in a 2m block, but the 4th block (in the last 2 meters) is still occupied with another train? It will still have to stop, right??

Thanks for your answers!

Benoit

Hi Benoit
Here a user of Rocrail with normal and staging blocks

Staging Blocks
- you may part a long strech of track into sections (7 in my case) and it works perfectly well whatever is the length of the train to accomodate (but smaller than the total SB length)
- you must enter the length of each train so that RR may decide how many sections a train will occupy
- the operation of a staging block is slower than a normal block. This is due to the lower coasting speed
- when a staging block is adjacent to other blocks, RR will always prefer (give priority to) the normal block
- the staging block is always one way (cannot reverse direction) and the trains in it are always ready in start position (no stopping)

Your questions
Should I use a staging block on a 8 M long strech? In my opinion SBs are very convenient to store variable length trains so on 8 M length you may store from 30 locos to 6 trains. It is a bit more work and you must enter ALL the train lengths (in my case each car has its specific length and RR makes the adding-up
Because many of us tend to get more and more trains, a staging block is a great addition for storage
In my case the segments length are 320 mm but you may pick what you want. In my case the observed spacing of trains is around 30 mm minimum (but can go to a little less than a section's length). The more sections, the better use of the available space
What happens if a 2 M block accepts a 4 M long train? You have a ghost train. Each block must be longer than the train it accepts (In my case all my blocks have a speficied - real - length and a train will only be permitted to enter if its length is smaller

Cheers
Jean

I have similar "transitions" in the form of helices between my lower shadow yards and main levels on my layout. One helix is about 7m in length while the other is about 10m. Both are double track. While I use iTrain, the concepts should be the very similar.

I chose to divide my 10m helix into two blocks (for each of the double tracks), a lower and an upper, each roughly 5m in length. For my 7m helix I decided to leave it as a single block. More blocks aren't necessary for me as I wouldn't want a 2nd train entering the helix as soon as e.g. the first block of 4 blocks was free. If you leave the transition area as a single block, just keep in mind that no other train can enter that block until the previous train has completely vacated the block (at 8m in length, that could be a while). If you want the next train to at least have the possibility of entering sooner (e.g. when the previous train is in the final 4m of that transition area), you may want to have 2 blocks.

I can't speak for RocRail, but when it comes to iTrain, having a train longer than a block will not create a ghost train issue. While I tried to have most of my blocks longer than my longest train, it's not always possible. If a 4m train must stop in a 2m block, iTrain simply holds the previous block as occupied until the train has in fact vacated it. It knows how far a train has travelled and how long it is so it knows if the previous block has been vacated or not. To avoid this situation, you can mark shorter blocks as "critical" meaning that no train will enter it unless the next block in the route is also available to be reserved.

"how will this work if the longer train is not allowed to stop in a 2m block, but the 4th block (in the last 2 meters) is still occupied with another train? It will still have to stop, right??"

If a train is not permitted to stop it a block, it should never stop in that block. If the following block isn't available, I would expect the software not to allow the train to even enter that block (i.e. it stops in the previous block).

Hope this provides a bit more clarity than confusion!

Roland

Hi Benoit
"staging block is adjacent to other blocks": in a fiddle yard, if one of the blocks is a staging B and others are normal blocks, for an unknown reason, the trains will be directed to normal block and only if all are full then to the staging block. This is a bit annoying so I created a program to compare the length of trains in the fiddle yard and then take the shortest to reverse and be forced to the staging block

In case of a short, I don't observe any issue. Simply at the end of day, you must wait until all moves are finished (true for the staging blocks but also for the turntable

Using normal blocks means you must pick a length that is bigger than the longest train. If you have a long strech (8 meters) it is not a problem

Staging blocks are really fun. It is advisable to select identical or similar length for sections. Better document which section goes with which sensor (I use multicolour flat ribbon cable.
Because the SB does not display which trains are in it, I wrote a program to display the trains like this


In my case, I have 7 segments that are approx 320 mm long each
In the example above the BR 06 train occupies 5 segments while the SVT 137 occupies only 2 segments.
Detection is by occupation detection of the last 30% of the segment length
I chose not to install detectors on the rest of each segment so I have 8 sensors for 7 segments (instead of 16 sensors for 7 segments
Works like a charm. My only regret: it is in a hidden zone so I cannot enjoy its operation.

Cheers
Jean

Oops, sorry I managed to overlook this info…