Turntable Schematic

[St1ngr4y]

Ok John, here goes....

As you know, I use programs almost exclusively to run my trains. I have my Hornby TT configured both as a TT and as a loco. In a program, there are two commands used to command it as a TT - "clockwise n" and "anticlockwise n", n being the number of roads you want the turntable to rotate. Also in a program you can use the Forward and Reverse commands to run it as a loco. For its definition as a proper TT, you need to include two entries in the Railmaster.ini file, namely, speed and timer. I set the speed to the same as the cruising speed in its loco definition. The timer is the number of seconds it takes to move from one road to the next. 

On my layout, I have one "entry" road from the rest of the layout, and I have the bridge pointing towards this road when it is idle. Most of the time in my programs, I run the turntable as a loco, starting it off either Forward (clockwise) or Reverse (anticlockwise) at cruise speed, then I stop the TT n seconds later where n is (number of roads to rotate x timer). The small advantage of doing it this way is that the motor is continuously running during this operation. If I had used the clockwise n command for example, it briefly switches off the motor at each road, in the same way as it does when you operate it from the schematic icon.

The are some instances, however, when I use the clockwise/anticlockwise commands. Those of my programs which are returning a loco into the engine shed, need to finish by returning the TT bridge to the default position aligned with the entry road. Here I use the clockwise or anticlockwise command as the last command in the program. As soon as this command starts the TT in motion the program finishes, allowing me to run another program if I want to, while the TT continues to rotate the n times specified in the command. If I had use a loco command to start to TT rotating at cruise speed, I would have needed an accompanying stop command n seconds later, which would keep the program active for all that time.

Ray