Model Railroad Electronics and Control

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Terry Chamberlain

I am an electronics engineer by profession and I live in Macclesfield, Cheshire, England with my wife Sue and one fluffy cat (Tumble). I met and married Sue over 35 years ago while finishing off my PhD in computer graphics at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. We then spent six years in Cumbernauld (near Glasgow in Scotland), where I was working for Burroughs Corporation on banking computer development, before moving back south to Macclesfield, and a new job for me with Ferranti Computer Systems designing and building sonar systems for the Royal Navy. And that's where I stayed for over 24 years, while the company evolved through a series of owners and name changes - finally, as Thales Underwater Systems, being part of the Thales Group - a French multi-national corporation – until I took early retirement. I still work part-time as a consultant for a small company developing aerospace systems.

Like many engineers, electronics has always been my hobby as well as work - my excuse is that it keeps my hand in with the technology while my full-time job developed into that of a paper-pushing manager. My first involvement with home computers was with the (primitive) Sinclair ZX81, but blossomed when I encountered the Atari range of 8-bit machines. Based on the 6502 microprocessor, and with a beautifully structured operating system, they were a joy to program compared with the complexities of Z80-based machines, and a range of small projects laid the groundwork eventually for my magnum opus - the A-TRACK system for DCC model railroad control.

Unfortunately, the Atari 8-bit machines became obsolete a long time ago with the relentless march of the IBM PC, so the future of A-TRACK continues as PC-based software. Learning about the complexities of the PC, Windows, Visual Basic, and USB peripherals has currently occupied most of my leisure (?) time for the last 10 years - but a brand-new A-TRACK with much-expanded features has now evolved and is in operational use. Watch this space for further developments . . . .

Although I have accumulated an appreciable stable of HO-scale model locomotives and rolling stock in the course of developing and testing A-TRACK, I regret that I have not yet had the time to produce a proper model railroad layout. The nearest I have got is to design a couple of possible track configurations on the computer. Progress did not get any better despite taking early retirement, but it’s still something to look forward to within the next few years - like all good hobbies, it’s the dreams that count . . . .

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Page Last Updated  6 November 2011