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| Busman's Holiday 19/10/2009 at 07:04 #123 | |
Tallington
254 posts |
Geoff, we thought you were going on holiday for a complete break after your hard work setting up the website.... Now we find you hiding in America at the NMRA North Central Region convention! Aided and abetted by Lardybiker - no less.... obviously you won't get any decent beer over there, just that wappy stuff he likes :( Hope you did get a break and don't come back with an American twang! Log in to reply |
| Busman's Holiday 19/10/2009 at 07:04 #3693 | |
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Tallington
254 posts |
Geoff, we thought you were going on holiday for a complete break after your hard work setting up the website.... Now we find you hiding in America at the NMRA North Central Region convention! Aided and abetted by Lardybiker - no less.... obviously you won't get any decent beer over there, just that wappy stuff he likes :( Hope you did get a break and don't come back with an American twang! Log in to reply |
| Busman's Holiday 20/10/2009 at 19:55 #3717 | |
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Lardybiker
771 posts |
LOL....Yes indeed he was here! SimSig Fort Wayne meet '09! I believe (though he can confirm it for himself) that he actually DID find some half decent beer!! As for the convention, two things sparked Geoff's attention 1) There was a trip to the local Norfolk Southern Dispatch center (aka the local signalling center) 2) I was doing a presentation on SimSig following a request from several of the local NMRA members The dispatch center was very interesting. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos so I can't show you what it looks like. The center controls trains as far away as Chicago, Detroit and Cincinnati. A total of 1200 route miles. It is split into 7 divisions and each has it's own separate sound proof room and its own dispatcher. Each dispatcher has a bank of eight LCD monitors, three of which show the area they are controlling, two show fringe boxes and the others show various miscellaneous information screens. The dispatchers all have radios that they can use to talk to any driver in there area. All the track data and radio traffic are also recorded 24/7 for investigation should there be any incidents. The area apparently is very busy with 200 trains a day being dealt with. Bear in mind that there are a lot of single lines and trains travel at significantly lower speeds than the UK traffic does. However this pails into insignificance against say, Kings Cross, which has about 60 route miles and in the standard Simsig timetable, over 1100 trains (though that includes light engine and other such movements)!!! For the SimSig clinics, I presented two one and a half hour sessions,one Saturday morning and one Saturday afternoon. Geoff helped out by answering questions and helping with the running of the sims. The first hour and a half overran by 30 minutes and Geoff and I almost missed lunch! The second was scheduled for another hour and a half but as we were the last group in our room, we could overrun...it started at 3pm....it was still going at 7pm! Signalling trains seems to be addictive..... I used my laptop with a PC projector to present the clinics. I also had several other machines for others to use plus some attendees brought there own. The sessions themselves started with a brief history of what SimSig was and where it came from. I then ran a tutorial using Royston using my machine to show how it was done and explain some of the SimSig concepts (this also meant having to translate our terminology into US terminology!!). The attendees then followed my lead running the first train into platform 1 and then back out again. I then went on to explain about other simulations, showing them Kings Cross as an example, before setting up a networked game of Cambridge and allowing those taking part to work together as a team. All in all, everyone seemed to enjoyed it. There were several local group members I talked to afterward who were unable to make the sessions themselves so I am going to try and organize another session sometime so those that missed it could have a go. Log in to reply |