How to get signal data

[splashoutradio]

just uploading some photos of where i am up to. nearly finished the hardware

drilled a bit too far through on two of the holes

not sure i've labeled all the signals correctly

I've use the track map from opentimetimes

That's really impressive!

Not sure if it'll be of use to your project, but Phil Wieland has a superb OpenRail GitHub - https://github.com/philwieland/openrail/wiki.

I've previously played with it to read the state of signal berth data in NRs train movement feed and generate pulses into an Arduino which in turn illuminated LEDs. It was all very basic compared to your impressive work though.

 

[DaChezePufz]

Hi all,

I have been working on and off for the past year trying to make sense of the data for the ZY (Yeovil) TDC, but specifically the Salisbury area, as no online maps that I can see show route data, only signals at best.
I have fairly easily created berth level maps, however while looking at the S class data stream I am having trouble decoding it all. There does seem to be work done previously - https://wiki.openraildata.com/index.php/ZY - however this doesn't seem to line up for me?
Any suggestions for what I could be doing wrong would be very much appreciated.

 

[Urgentemente]

This looks great , will be great to see it working.

I'd recently been wondering about doing something similar, albeit I was only thinking of making one signal, using 3 or 4 DMX ParCans, and to have it mimic one particular signal (configurable somewhere in the code/as a parameter) (I'm slowly teaching myself the basics of DMX in MagicQ at the moment, just because I've always been a bit of a lighting geek but with barely any time to play with it..)

About 10 years ago I wrote a very basic bit of php that used stomp to read some of the local Merseyrail movement data, and had it put a picture of a train arriving, plus playing the tannoy noise, just for fun and doing a first bit of coding in how-many years...
Have been meaning to resurrect it/start fresh for quite a while now,

 

[Trains1]

i thought i had a working python code to get signal data but i've come back to it and now it dosen't work

probably should add i was getting the data from https://raildata.org.uk/

does anyone know of example codes that are knowed to work

Thanks

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Feb 2025 ==

Hi all,

I have been working on and off for the past year trying to make sense of the data for the ZY (Yeovil) TDC, but specifically the Salisbury area, as no online maps that I can see show route data, only signals at best.
I have fairly easily created berth level maps, however while looking at the S class data stream I am having trouble decoding it all. There does seem to be work done previously - https://wiki.openraildata.com/index.php/ZY - however this doesn't seem to line up for me?
Any suggestions for what I could be doing wrong would be very much appreciated.

i presume you have seen opentiumetrains? i know it shows some routes

 

[Trains1]

I did manage to work out the main signals for the MP area around a year and a half ago, I'll list them below. Decoding S-Class data is a love-hate relationship, it's a painful experience but once you figure some out it gets easier. Took me over a year to decode the Crewe Area which I've put on the Open Rail Data Wiki, I'm in the process of decoding areas M7 and M8 which are the Crewe South and Independent Lines, some of which has already been added to the Wiki. Hopefully this will save you the pain of decoding it yourself:

Address	Bit	Function
52	7	S320
53	2	S324
53	3	S326
53	4	S332
53	5	S334
54	1	S340
54	3	S341
54	5	S342
54	7	S343
55	1	S344
55	3	S345
55	5	S346
30	4	S347
30	6	S349
31	0	S350
31	2	S352
31	4	S354
31	6	S362
32	0	S364
32	2	S366
32	4	S368
32	6	S372
33	0	S374
33	2	S376
33	4	S378
33	6	S380
34	0	S382
34	4	S386
35	1	S389
35	2	S390
35	6	S393

Those are pretty much all of the main signals for Platforms 1-14 and some of the signals headings To/From the station, I didn't decode any of the routes but hopefully that helps you somewhat.

Sorry to bother you. how do I get/work out the Address and Bit for the Shunting and subsidiary signals please

 

[Rhysdabeast]

Sorry to bother you. how do I get/work out the Address and Bit for the Shunting and subsidiary signals please

Typically I will look at the Wiki first but in your case with Manchester Piccadilly nobody has put any mappings on the Wiki. As I said in my post before I worked those mappings out a few years ago, I just had my C# script running and logging the S-Class messages and then OpenTrainTimes diagram behind it, then screen recording it for 30 mins - 1 hour. You can then play it back and look at the messages and work out which Address and Bit links to which Route/Signal. Not an amazing way to do it but better than looking at the raw movement data and trying to figure it out.

 

[Trains1]

Typically I will look at the Wiki first but in your case with Manchester Piccadilly nobody has put any mappings on the Wiki. As I said in my post before I worked those mappings out a few years ago, I just had my C# script running and logging the S-Class messages and then OpenTrainTimes diagram behind it, then screen recording it for 30 mins - 1 hour. You can then play it back and look at the messages and work out which Address and Bit links to which Route/Signal. Not an amazing way to do it but better than looking at the raw movement data and trying to figure it out.

ah thought that might be how it's done even worse for Shunting signals on the engine sidings

 

[takno]

ah thought that might be how it's done even worse for Shunting signals on the engine sidings

The upside of doing it from the feed is that you can record a week or so of data and run all the way through it. Honestly though it was a process I didn't enjoy at all where I have done it, and even with various automations and lots of data the results for shunt signals and routes were disappointing.