Hi Norbert
Here a Märklinist from Paris, France, using Rocrail since over a decade, lately using a CS3
Don't go away yet as principles in TC or Rocrail are VERY close if not quite identical.

Here is the little I know
- never try to replicate what Rocrail or TC does for you (e.g. control a train, its speed in a direct way as TC or Rocrail controls it in as both control those in respect of WHERE the train is and the possible occupation of nearby blocks). This direct speed ,control may lead to very confusing and CONFLICTING results (starting slow, progressive and then full throttle.)

- you want to start a train with delay. In Rocrail, this is called a schedule either started by an absolute time (e.g.: 15:37) or by a relative time (e.g.: T0+37 minutes). This schedule lists the blocks or areas (when multiple tracks for destination exitst in parallel), possible change of direction, etc. Of course all this will be executed only if safety permits (non-occupied blocks, etc). Of course the clock may be the real time (a bit too slow) or with accelerated time x2, x3, ...x10)

- now you want to trigger fonctions. With Rocrail (probably very similar with TC, they are called ACTIONS) you may include one specific fonction (public announcement, turn on platform lights etc) in a block (when entering, when departing, when reserved), in a route (when reserved, when freed, etc), you may condition an action for a given loco or train, when in forward, when in reverse or indifferent) and each time, associated with the fonction triggering you may set a delay timer

- you want to change speed of trains Instead of doing it directly you must set FOR EACH loco, the line speed, station speed, minimum speed (so that an heavy freight does not behave like a TGV
- Next you must set the inertia adjustement for each loco IN THE LOCO ITSELF by programming its decoder.
- once you have done those adjustments, TC or RR will set the station speed or line speed in accordance with signals and settings (you may check the box for reduced speed on a zone full of track pieces.

Here is what I do with Rocrail (correcting the speed, position the loco exactly above a decoupler (loco-specific program) before commanding decoupling.
Approx 2:12 into the video, you may see a program to position each loco exactly in front of the water crane and a fonction (Action) that triggers the water crane either to the side of the tender or to the center of the tender depending where the water hole is located


I hope this helps (sorry there is so much more to say)
Jean

Hello Norbert,

To provide a contextual explanation, here's a quick overview of my setup. I have a Marklin 3-rail system using ECoS as command station and running TC Gold 10. Nothing is programmed in ECoS because everything is handled by TC. All my locos are Marklin, fitted with either MFX and LokSound 5 decoders. There is no momentum set in the decoders themselves, and all minimum speeds and acceleration are set to 0 because all locos have been calibrated in TC.

I'm attaching screenshots of how I setup one of my locos in TC (all my locos are setup in a similar way, with minor variations in timing).

Refer to screenshots for the descriptions below:
- "Start Delay" (#1): The waiting time before a loco starts moving. This is setup on the "Speed" tab.
- "Begin of Start Delay" (#2): Things you want done before loco starts moving (i.e., during the "Start Delay" time that you've setup above). This is setup on the "Operations" tab.
- "Stop" (#3): Things you want done when the loco stops moving. This is setup on the "Operations" tab.

Now for the missing link. On the "Speed" tab, select "Automatic Speed & Brake" (#4). When you calibrate your loco and have a "Speed Profile", you must also set threshold values for "forward" and "backward" speeds. This is done on the "Advanced Fine Tuning / Threshold Speed" tab (#5). What this does is sets the internal TC values that define at what value the loco starts moving.

Now go to the "Start Behaviour" tab (#6) and define the wait times and actions for specific speeds. In my case, I have a "Start Delay" time of 5 seconds for this loco (#1). But TC will start ramping up speed as soon as you command the loco to run. So speed is ramping up but loco is waiting ("Start Delay"). Then what happens is after this "start delay" expires, the speed of TC is already at some high value and the loco quickly accelerates to match that value. This is what causes your "take off at full speed" condition.

In order to prevent this sudden "take off", you must specify the "Start Behaviour". This will smooth out the unwanted "racing" of the loco. What you set in "Start Behaviour" is delays at specific speed steps. In my case (see #6), I've setup a 2 sec. delay at speed step 1 and another 2 sec. delay at speed step 2. Since the "Threshold Speed" of my loco is set to speed step 2, the loco will not "race" but will slowly accelerate to match TC speed (which has been delayed by this "Start Behaviour" setting.

It's all a bit complicated to explain in words, but once you play with these settings, you'll get it right and it will be easy to setup.

I hope this helps. Feel free to ask questions because I might not have expressed myself clearly.

Cheers,
Andry

#1


#2


#3


#4


#5


#6

Thank you very much for the great input. Sounds like Rocrail and TC are very similar. I have all my locomotives calibrated and speed profiled to my liking, now I'm just trying to learn how the software can help make things more interesting, and trying to fiddle with the settings to get the software to do what I want it to do.

Your layout looks great and I really love the roundhouse and all the action of the turntable. You did a great job! Is the turntable also controlled by Rocrail?

Thanks again for your advice.
Norbert

Kiko, thanks so much! This is a big help and for the most part I'm on the right track. Bad pun, sorry.

I do have a few questions if you don't mind. I'll try to go in order of your paragraphs.

"There is no momentum set in the decoders themselves, and all minimum speeds and acceleration are set to 0 because"
1) do you set the maximum speed on your decoder to what looks good running on your layout
2) so acceleration delay, braking delay and minimum speed are all 0?
3) you also set your braking delay to 0, does that prevent the brake squeal sound?

"On the "Speed" tab, select "Automatic Speed & Brake" (#4). When you calibrate your loco and have a "Speed Profile", you must also set threshold values for "forward" and "backward" speeds"
1) How do you determine your Threshold? I know how to set it, but do you find a certain speed to be the best or is it trial and error for each locomotive? I'm thinking mine are way too low because I usually hit "set" as soon as the loc starts moving. Your number shows 36 and all of mine are like 8 hence my ramping up starts a lot earlier?
2) Is your workflow when you speed profile? Do you set the threshold speeds first then run the speed profile, then do the brake compensation?
3) I'm assuming if I change my threshold speed, I'll need to re-do the speed profiling?


I've setup a 2 sec. delay at speed step 1 and another 2 sec. delay at speed step 2. Since the "Threshold Speed" of my loco is set to speed step 2, the loco will not "race"
1) How do you know what speed step your threshold speed is at?

Finally, on the last screen shot, the "Enable by Function" you have set to Operating Sounds. It looks like you have that as a Macro and that is the first thing that occurs in your Start Delay Operations. Must something be indicated in those fields? If I leave it to "Non" or Kien as it shows in German, will the Start Behavior still "activate"? Curious about that and how it can be used.

Finally, Finally, on screen shot #4, what is the purpose of the accleration and deceleration sliders? Do they get "over ridden" when using schedule, auto train and spontaneous runs? In other words they only come into play when running trains manually with the slider on a train window?

Appreciate your time and effort, this helps so much more that the manual and it also helps bouncing these questions off someone. It definately shortens the learning curve which is needed because I can only spend so much time in the basement before the family come looking for me.....and typing away on my laptop can look like I'm doing actual work.

Norbert

When I was active the major difference between TC and other programs was that TC stored the measured speed table per engine. No other programs did that. (Well, there was a Swedish beta version that did this in the background when the trains was running on the layout). The stored speed tables enables TC to know exactly where the head and end of any train is when needed. As an example you can specify that any train have to slow down 48 cm after passing a feedback sensor. The slowdown to a crawl will use another 100 cm. 150 cm after the feedback the engine should stop. And this regardless of the speed when passing the feedback.
Another thing was that speed is always given in scale speed, not speed steps. This made it easy to make consists unless one decoder played sounds before moving. In version 10 it seems to me that even this can be solved.

Hello Norbert,

Yes indeed, you are on the right track! I'll try to address all your questions in order.

"Momentum"
1. The maximum speed on my layout is 60 km/h but most blocks are set for 40 to 50 km/h. My layout is mountainous and rural -- Era III with short trains. Therefore, I set top speed of all locos not according to the prototype capabilities, but lower in order to take advantage of all speed steps for slow running. Top speed is set using the TC "Speed Profile" -- similar to calibration, but running once between markers and checking what TC reports. I then adjust the decode "max speed" and repeat until I get the speed I'm aiming for.
2. Acceleration delay and braking delay are set to "0" in the decoder. TC controls these parameters (see picture #1 in my previous post).
3. "Brake squeal" is sometimes an issue. I've read many posts on this topic (on the LokSound forum) and have yet to figure out how to make this work consistently for all locos when braking. The truth is that I've not spent too much time on this issue because for steam locos it's not that important. The chuffing and steam blow-out are enough to create the sensation of a loco slowing down. (See my "Roundhouse & Turntable" video).

"Speed"
1. Threshold is adjusted on a per loco basis. When I figure out the lowest crawl speed for a loco, I usually bump the threshold by a few speed steps. Internally, LokSound 5 decoders map the 28 speed steps to over a thousand internal steps. When adjusting threshold, many internal decoder steps map to the same km/h speed. I like driving my locos slow at start up or in yards/turntable but I don't really need them to drive at 1 or 2 km/h. So, I just set the threshold to around 3-5 km/h. This also plays well to the "Start Behaviour" setting I discussed previously.
2. I usually set the threshold first, before doing a calibration, but I don't think this matters much at this stage. It becomes important for running the loco. Once calibration is complete, then I do the brake compensation routine at two speeds (40 & 60 km/h) and two lengths (40 & 60 cm). I find that this is good enough to get my locos to stop precisely at "stop markers" (within a mm or so) every time.
3. No, because the threshold value is used for TC to run locos once speed curves are calculated and stored. It becomes the minimum speed when a loco starts moving, i.e., when a loco is told to "run", the speed curve is started but the loco does not move until the threshold value is reached.

"Delay"
1. When you look at your speed curve in the "Advanced Fine Tuning / Speed Profile" tab (see attached picture), you'll notice the speed steps.

"Enable by Function"
This is not a macro, it's the function (usually F1) to turn on loco sounds (see second attached picture). I want the sounds to be turned on before a loco starts moving.

"Acceleration & Deceleration Sliders"
These are important setting because they determine how fast you loco accelerated from stop and how far it will coast when coming to a stop. This is like "inertia". The best way to see how this affects you loco is to set these values at minimum then maximum. These values are stored with the loco parameters and will be used for everything, even when running your loco manually under TC.

I'm glad to be of any help. Let me know how this works out and ask questions if my responses don't make sense.

Cheers,
Andry