As part of preparation for this project, I read through last year's report, focusing on the areas related to the mechanical design of the bogey, the track, and the scale model. I did note the lacking of functionality made apparent in the very first meeting, namely the lack of a fail safe, the slow switching of the bogey steering mechanism, and the need of track redesign to support the addition of elements such as wayside power pickup. As I'm sure many people have pointed out these problems in their own blogs already, I'm going to focus on something I mentioned in my last post: the track network design.
During the first meeting, I did the following sketch to explore what a potential four-way intersection would look like:
As the image shows, there are a great many problems with an intersection like this using static track segments. Two cars cannot be going in different directions along the same track, so parallel tracks would need to be used somehow. The problem then is in looking at the implementation of a traditional intersection done without expanding the tracks vertically. One track can be split into many directions, but not without cutting off tracks coming in from different directions seeking to go elsewhere.
In brainstorming a solution to the problem, my initial idea is to simply make networks out of nothing but continuous loops, with the cars traveling exclusively along the outside of these loops. However, more specific implementation and possible needed exceptions to this will need to be explored before a large, expandable system can be implemented.
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