New Control Point CP Indy at MP B501.5

[LakeATCS]

Burnham is waiting on the NICTD.

Should get a South Shore view out of it, and with their Gauntlet tracks, that should be Hilarious to try and get ATCS to deal with.

[LakeATCS]

It looks like Burnham might have gotten the long put off update.

[LakeATCS]

http://southshore.etaspot.net/

If you need help figuring out which say the south shore trains are going.

Doesn't show freights. But it should give you a big head start

[LakeATCS]

Looks like on the CSS&SB side we can see the four signals, the two OS circuits, a request for each track, and an ack for each request.

No approach circuits or views of the dang gauntlet tracks. Probably for the better, they would have been a nightmare.

[justalurker66]

Does NICTD control the diamond? Or is it NS Chicago District's interlocking with NICTD asking for permission to pass through?

It would be interesting to see how this interlocks with NICTD's CTC. It sounds like NICTD sets the route (including their own switch settings) and requests a clear signal. NS acknowledges the signal request and grants a clear signal. Once NICTD gets the clear their signals are set accordingly.

All the gauntlet stuff is irrelevant to NS. I'd like to see how NICTD displays the gauntlet, but it isn't a place where trains can be on both the main and the gauntlet at the same time.

[9xs]

also looks like the bit patterns were rearranged, train 11 the express and the one following it went trough 5he diamond, showing cross traffic occupied on it. An NS train was on the track immediately to the south, but no track there showed occupied.

[tttodisp]

I have posted the updated kit for the NS Chicago District, but I still have not been able to figure out the data in terms of ATCS handling, as the bit patterns are not normal for train movements. If anyone has suggestions, I would like to see them.

Has anyone been by 110th Street recently? I wonder if new signals are mounted, as the signal data is still very old.

[justalurker66]

The Chicago District movements look good. I have not seen anything on the diamond track, but that shouldn't be too hard. Direction is usually difficult at a diamond, but you have Calumet Park close by.

The two NICTD tracks are CTC but normally each is run in one direction. Track 1 (5 on the layout) headed west and track 2 (6 on the layout) headed east. With the Hegeswich platforms within the interlocking I would not expect to see a train running against normal traffic.

Based on the codeline captured since midnight, it appears there are four bits in use for each NICTD track. Have you see the additional bits go active that are labeled in the kit? I noticed some duplicate names.

Here is the pattern I have seen:
Westbound Track 1: K72 Request for Track, K71 Request Granted, K64 NICTD Signal Cleared (5WGK allow train), K61 NICTD Train Present (5TK - K72,K71,K64 bits normally clear within a few seconds), K61 clears a few minutes later after the station stop.
Eastbound Track 2: K73 Request for Track, K65 Request Granted, K74 NICTD Signal Cleared (6EGK allow train), K62 NICTD Train Present (6TK - K73,K65,K74 bits normally clear within a few seconds), K62 clears a few minutes later after the station stop.
I see no evidence of approach circuits on NICTD, just the occupancy which coincides with station stop times.

Displaying on ATCS ... a challenge. I'd probably mark the approaches as dead track so they don't light up with the 5WGK and 6EGK signals (and stay lit since the approaches never occupy). If you have seen additional bits that you are sure are NICTD related that may provide 5EGK and 6WGK indications.

[tttodisp]

Thanks for the details. What is confusing to me is that a friend who had view-only access to the NS screen has watched the CSSB trains go through and they show the "normal" progress with approach indications on both sides as well as the TK (OS) section.

[justalurker66]

Thanks for the details. What is confusing to me is that a friend who had view-only access to the NS screen has watched the CSSB trains go through and they show the "normal" progress with approach indications on both sides as well as the TK (OS) section.

Dispatch may be getting a better picture direct from NICTD on fiber. While we like it when railroads share their feeds over the air, NICTD has a dual fiber network (one group of cables buried, one group of cables aerial) along their entire ROW. They don't need radio or satellites to get information between locations or back to the dispatcher. (Excess fiber capacity is available for lease.)

Perhaps the minimal information we are seeing is intended as a backup in case the full information fails?

[justalurker66]

It looks like NICTD sent a westbound train on Track 2 just after 11pm CT ----

Westbound Track 2: K76 Request for Track, K75 Request Granted, K66 NICTD Signal Cleared (6WGK allow train), K62 NICTD Train Present (6TK - K76,K75,K66 bits cleared within a few seconds), K62 (6TK) cleared 2:49 later.

23:02:08=K76 {Request Track}
23:02:09=K76,K75 {Request Granted}

23:03:10=K76,K75,K66 {NICTD Signal Cleared 6WGK}

23:07:31=K76,K75,K66,6TK {Track Occupied}
23:07:37=K75,6TK
23:07:44=6TK

23:10:10={cleared}

[NOTE: THIS IS BASED ON ONE SEQUENCE. With the rarity of WB traffic on Track 2 we may see a second sequence, but I only saw this once in 24 hours of monitoring.]

BTW: I double checked the logs for K65 and K74. K65 (what I call Request Granted for Track 2 EB) goes active before K74 (6EGK) by 15 seconds or more. I only saw one occurrence on Sunday where K74 went active first.

[justalurker66]

And now it looks like NICTD sent an eastbound train on Track 1 just after 2am CT ----

Eastbound Track 2: K67 Request for Track, K71 Request Granted, K68 NICTD Signal Cleared (5EGK allow train), K61 NICTD Train Present (5TK - K67,K71,K68 bits cleared within a few seconds), K61 (5TK) cleared 86 seconds later.

burnham190512.PNG (2.02 KiB) Viewed 7349 times

[LakeATCS]

The approach blocks seem to operate like the Amtrak line at Porter in that the approach bits seem to be one way and artificial conditions sent from the other signal system to the NS system.

[tttodisp]

I was just playing back some logs and I noticed that as soon as the TK's drop out for EB moves, the approach blocks at N State Line come on, so I am going to tie the east approach blocks at Burnham to AWA and BWA at N State Line.

Thanks for all of the help with decoding. I will hopefully upload a new version tonight.

[LakeATCS]

Well 75509210040202 showed up.

Any clues? everything else is still online.

[tttodisp]

There is a new control point 116th Street at B509.20 on Main 1 with a single switch to the west, but the screen shows "no track" for the spur.

[LakeATCS]

There is a new control point 116th Street at B509.20 on Main 1 with a single switch to the west, but the screen shows "no track" for the spur.

Quick look on the latest Google Earth scan shows a nice clean ballast sub grade from 509.20 to 110 but that is it. Must be part of some future 510 reconfiguration

[LakeATCS]

I have word that Pullman Junction is waiting on Create EW3

http://www.createprogram.org/BUILD2019/ ... matics.pdf

BRC has opted out of EW3.

There will be two new OSes.

Stony Island at 512.1
Pullman Junction at 512.2

It also shows how the exiting CRL switches work. Boy that is fracked up. Look at all those hand thrown electric locks, and depending on which way the hand throws are lined it lines various signals. What a pain in the arse, especially since there are no display bits for ANY of those switches! Yep... just going to leave it alone. It's getting replaced anyway.

[tttodisp]

Thanks for the link. I will check this out in detail.

I tried to see if anything else was available, but I get blocked. Do you have any access to any other drawings?

[LakeATCS]

Looks like CN Crossing, Tower, West Sprigsborro, Fort Wayne, or whatever the heck it's called now is cut over finally.