Model Train-related Notes Blog -- these are personal notes and musings on the subject of model train control, automation, electronics, or whatever I find interesting. I also have more posts in a blog dedicated to the maintenance of the Randall Museum Model Railroad.
2023-08-23 - Conductor 2: Route Statistics
Category Rtac
The latest fix for Conductor 2 using a virtual block for B504 is now installed and has been working very well.
The latest change I did to Conductor 2 is to compute end-of-route statistics. Each time a route has finished, we log the time spent on each block as well as the error status of the route. This is sent to a little server over a basic JSON RPC, and in the statistics/status page we get a quick overview of the latest route -- how many times we ran that route during the day, when the last one finished, and how many seconds the train spent on each block:
This also keeps track of all the recovery attempts.
Having the time per block should help me fine-tune the automation script later. We can see the time spent on B321 for example, and directly relate that to the observations made in the previous post.
Finally I also have the info in the server log, which is rotated daily, which means I could compute statistics later. I’m interested in getting the time spent on each block for long term analysis. Can we get trends out of it? How consistent are these running times? For example, could we detect erratic behavior, or do engines suffer some kind of loss of performance before they stop working?