Simulator

Well making three threads in three separate sections is a great start!

I have moved this one to the correct area, and deleted all your other posts.

All you are going to do by multiple posting is annoy the members, mods and admin alike, so please refrain.

Every thread gets read every day, so I'm sure someone can answer your question, but be a little patient.

A couple of signalling/controller type simulations I know of are Train Dispatcher (at www.softrail.com/ - basically American) and Train Director (at www.backerstreet.com/traindir/trdireng.htm - free, basically Italian). AFAIK, neither has LU scenarios (though Train Dispatcher has some NY subway ones), but both have provision for you to write (and contribute) your own, based on wherever you choose (with whatever information you have).

The layout may be guessable, as might some of the interlocking...

However my understanding from past discussions is that a view is held that a detailed simulator of a real signalling location might provide technical insight to those wishing to use the information not for genuine research or analysis purposes, but for the commission of acts that are not in the interests of the integrity and security of that infrastructure... The Simsig developers have respected requests from the rail industry about not covering certain locations BTW.

And isn't the american way of showing front/back contacts normally live/dead far better than BS 530 or BS 376?

<well, *I* think so, it would help with (N) or (R) WKRs/WKLRs>

I think it depends what one is used to. Having originally been a telephone engineer, in my 35 years in telephones, comms, signalling and electrical I have had to read diagrams and drawings to many different standards. The standard used in NXSYS can also be found on some LU drawings, typically the Westinghouse Central Line Tunnel Telephone rack drawings are drawn to the same standard.
In the telephone world relays are presumed to be de-energised and are normally drawn as such, sometimes an exception would be a power detection relay drawn with its contacts shown operated.
In some subscribers telephone equipment drawings it is usual to show circuit elements with keys operated. In these later cases it is clear that the contacts are in the operated state as the symbols show the moveable springs at a different angle. Also normal contacts can be shown horizontally, vertically, left to right or right to left as well as right side up and upside down, the position of the symbol makes no difference to its state. Of course in traditional signalling the way a contact is drawn can or will determine the general designation of the relay as the various types of relay have front and back contacts drawn differently to make the busy bookwirings more readable and to eliminate doubt where the quality of copy may be poor.
For many who have work in related fields the disciplined arrangement of traditional signalling symbols into circuits and the fact that relays are usually shown operated is often quite a headache. The Westinghouse computer generated drawings are in some ways easier to read with nice straight lines and simple up/down arrows but also can make drawings less readable. Personally I find them no better no worse than any others I have perused over the years, just different.
To be honest if I had to have a preference it would be for traditional linen strip prints and framed relay room signal selection drawings from the 1940s and 1950s or thereabouts which were very common when I began my LT career. Worst of all for my money are the paper strip prints for the Picc west of Acton Town with their double cut circuitry and mile after mile of coincidence lines going back and forth between the trackside locations, it used to be a nightmare testing out after changing a few pairs of QN1s in the trackside kiosks!

As a tester, I find the Central Line stuff great. As long as you know how to read the bookwirings, everything is cross-referenced to each other and finding things can take a matter of seconds. In traditional LT bookwirings, you almost need to have a sixth sense of where something is likely to be in order to start looking for it. This is especially true of relay contact schedules - the traditional ones state the circuit name and you then have to go and find that circuit. Easy if it's 123GQ, but the odd stuff can take a while to find, and it's often best to seach for 'Miscellaneous PRs' and start from there. TD circuit are even worse... The other good thing is that they are often a lot less cluttered than traditional bookwiring sheets - I wonder if the aim was to fit as many circuits as possible onto one sheet?
However, the use of CAD does lead to a cut/paste mentality which has been known to catch people out!

As for auto strips, drawing them is as bad as reading them. Linen is very hard to draw on neatly because of it's texture, and film smudges too easily...



There is a Drawing Office Notice about the overall length of an auto strip - I can't remember what the dimension is though.

Not sure how relevant this is to OP, but SimSig (www.simsig.co.uk) has recently released the Wembley Suburban simulation, which includes the Queen's Park to Harrow & Wealdstone portion of the Bakerloo line.

I know it's run to NR rules, but still very interesting and a nice little simulation.