Down another Rabbit Hole

 Anxiety about the house move and the future of the ELR is getting to me. Today Teddy comes home, seven years after his first arrival, and tomorrow I start track lifting.

I had a dreadful dream about it last night, but all is not doom and gloom because the nightmare also included, incongruously, an idea for a micro layout.

Actually, I can see how my unconscious mind came up with the key concept, an on-scene fiddleyard. I've been reading lots of back numbers of Railway Modeller. Fiddleyards were much less common than today. many layouts ran from station to station and had all the track on display. My plans for the Tern Valley have also deliberately avoided identifying the fiddleyard boundary whilst I figure out how to arrange it. I've considered the idea once before, for an HO layout with a car float acting as a side facto fiddleyard. 

I've no idea how the idea in the dream could be made to work, it would certainly involve some visual trickery.

Thinking for the Tern Vally has also progressed

I'm increasingly keen on the idea of access to the foreground goods yard, engine shed, and carriage shed being from the fiddleyard. It was actually part of the original plan in Voie Libre. It would simplify a lot of things and make operation more flexible.

At this stage, the White Rabbit still hasn't made an appearance.

Ah, here he comes, late as always.

When I was a teenager I used to look through the Maplins/Radio Shack catalogue at the electronic components and kits. I never had an actual use for them, apart from once building an electronic dice set.

I also used to spend my lunchtimes coding, initially on punch cards, in the school computer club. Coding played a big part in the early years of my career as a statistician, IT auditor and lecturer.

And then I stopped.

New and very different languages came along, but I had no real reason to learn them. My view of coding was always as a means to an end and I simply didn't need to code anymore.

I must admit that the Raspberry Pi piqued my interest when it appeared, but it was back to the days of the Maplin catalogue. I saw interesting projects, but nothing that would be useful for me.

Recently though I've been thinking about how I'm going to control any future layouts. Especially if any one day expand beyond being micro layouts. My day job means it would be remiss of me not to build in long-term maintainability and resilience. 

DCC seems the obvious answer, or even radio control going forward. But that doesn't solve every problem, and much of my narrow gauge stock will never be DCC.

At the Spalding show I was both impressed with the digital displays on St Ruth, and worried by the number of comments from operators that related to mis-set turnouts and isolating sections. If I ever exhibit a layout it will likely be singlehanded, and that is when you make mistakes.

I'm beginning to think about adopting the MERG CBUS system, or at least elements of it.

And now we follow the rabbit.

So somehow I now own a Pi Pico. Unlike the original Pi which is a computer on a single board, this is an even cheaper microprocessor on a board. How cheap? £5.





I'm still at the playing stage, getting to grips with Micro Python and Thonny  But I can see real potential. In particular, it can control multiple servos for point control, 16 from a single Pico, and integrate with different sensors.

Given that wireless and Bluetooth can both be integrated I'm also wondering about possibilities in the garden. I'm mostly using Loco Remote for the battery locos, but I could imagine using the Pico to change points.