QUAKER VALLEY Railroad - JMRI Panel Tutorial 
Updated July 2015
The Quaker Valley Railroad has been developing a CTC Panel using
the
Panel feature in Decoder Pro since 2003. In the summer
of 2006, I attended the NMRA Philadelphia Convention and sat in on all
of the JMRI clinics. From that experience I have taken up the
challenge of preparing an online JMRI panel tutorial. This will
cover the development of a Layout Editor panel and a CTC panel using
the JMRI Panel Editor. When you are done with the tutorial, you
will have two panels similar to those shown below.
This interactive panel file will allow you to see the completed CTC
panel
editor and
layout editor and how the turnouts, sensors, routes, Logix and Simple
Signal Logic (SSL) are all included in one place. The tutorial is
developed in a Word document and published as pdf format files.
It is in three parts and is now complete. The Layout Editor
portion is in part 1. Part 2 covers the US&S style CTC panel
development in Panel Pro. Part 3 covers signaling for both
the layout and CTC
panels.
Comments and corrections are welcome.
The US&S style CTC Panel shown to the left was developed in Panel Pro.
The layout diagram on the right was developed with the Layout
Editor. The CTC panel and the layout panel share the same
internal sensors and turnouts and the Logix establishes the
signals. These two panels operate together. Turnouts
thrown on the CTC panel are animated on the layout panel.
The set of three parts of the tutorial show you step by step how to
construct these two panels and the Logix to control them. After
completing the tutorial you should be equipped to develop similar panels for
your own layout.
If you want to jump ahead and see how the panels work, just download
the Part 3 xml file from the last link below. Load
this panel in JMRI using NCE simulation and you can check it out
without having any layout hardware.
Table of Contents
Part 1 - Focusing on the Layout Editor Click the title to view or right click to download the pdf file.
Page 1 Background
Page 3 Layout Editor
Page 5 Panel Editor
Page 8
Getting Started
Page 9 JMRI Tables
Page 9 Turnout Table
Page 12 Sensor
Table
Page 16 Layout Editor Development
page 19 Adding Track
Part 2 - Developing a CTC Panel with Panel Editor Click the title to view or right click to download the pdf file.
Page 1 Panel Editor Development
Page 6 Adding Turnout and Signal
Plates
Page 7 Adding Turnout Levers and Code Buttons
Page 12 Adding
Turnout Lever Logix
Page 16 Time to Automate the First Lever
Page 24 The CTC Panel Track Diagram
Page 31 Activating
the Block Sensors
Page 44 Logix for the Interlocking Sensors
Page 52
Adding Block Detection to the Layout Panel
Page 56 Panel Startup
Route
Page 58 CTC Panel Components
Page 59 Tutorial Part 2 Conclusion
Part 3 - Adding Signals and Simple Signal Logic Click the title to view or right click to download the pdf file.
Page 1 Adding Signals to the Layout Panel
Page 8 Creating Simple Signal Logic
Page 12 Adding Signal lamps, Levers and Control Logix to the CTC panel
Page 20 Adding Signal Levers
Page 21 Logix
Page 32 Finishing Touches
Page 36 Panel Startup
Page 37 Tutorial Conclusion
The sample files referenced in part 1 are available for download. You
can download the sampleCTC.gif file here and the second sample You
can download the Quaker Valley CTC track diagram QV_CTC.gif here
As indicated in the tutorial, these gif files are to be placed in a
directory on your PC for use in the second tutorial. The gif
files can be viewed on most browsers, but need to be downloaded to be
used with JMRI.
There are a set of three xml panel files corresponding with the end
state of the three parts of the tutorial. These files are not to
be opened with your browser. They are to be opened with JMRI and
used to explore the
panel features. If you want to skip the tutorial entirely, or
preview the finished product, just download the Part 3 xml file and
load the panel in JMRI. This last xml panel file can be used to
explore the coordinated features
of Panel Pro and the Layout Editor.
If using Firefox, right click on the link and select "Save Link As" and place it in a convenient
directory to load from JMRI.
If using Internet Explorer, right click on the link and select "Save Target As" and place it in a convenient
directory to load from JMRI.
If using Safari on a Mac, right click on the link and select "Download Linked File As..." as shown. 
Place it in a directory convenient to load from JMRI.
You
can download the Part 1 xml file here
You
can download the Part 2 xml file here
You
can download the Part 3 xml file here
Special thanks to Dan Foltz for helping with the format of all three parts of the tutorial.
JMRI Panel Pro is still freeware. Learn more about the JMRI project, Decoder Pro and Panel Pro at http://jmri.sourceforge.net/
Check out the newest Quaker Valley JMRI CTC panel at http://www.quaker-valley.com/CTC/QV_CTCnew.html
Updated July 25, 2015 - typo corrected in part 2
Bob Bucklew
Quaker Valley Software
bob@quaker-valley.com
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