Hi Martin.
I will contact Rich Bunting and see where I can help him. It sounds like he knows a lot more about the subject of documentation than I do. As a IT system administrator, I consider myself more to be a victim when it comes to documentation than an expert
Hi Tim/Richard
I would also like to offer my help in starting to sort out the minefield that is the documentation.
It's not so much that the information is not there, its simply it's not in an obvious and clearly refenced manor. I don't think it could even have been another way, when you consider in the beginning, it was just one man with a concept, which he then had to evolve into something meaningful, and try to explain it at the same time.
Today a lot of the concentration is on plug track and cot track. I don't doubt its these two elements that are attracting most peoples interest.
This then creates a very interesting conundrum, there is no doubt you can today, mainly because its been well explained, make a simple turnout (James Walters has covered this very well in some of very good you tube posts)
However that's a long way from designing more complex sections of trackwork say a double junction or even a complete layout.
In order to do that, in addition to the few chairs that are still needed to make these more complex formations (clearly the only person who can currently do that detail of programming is Martin himself.)
You will also need a very good understanding of the more complex functions within Templot itself. To be honest I would argue more than ever before. Even before plug track you could to a certain accept fudge Templot printouts. if you had not got the trackwork 100% in Templot right, for example if two elements did not exactly meet or smoothly flow into each other, it did not matter to much as this could be sorted out as you built the trackwork. After all you have the track gauge to fall back on.
If you do the same thing today with plug track or COT your asking for trouble, as its now Templot that is also doing the gauging.
All of this brings to my main point, I believe there is already a quite logical way we should be approaching the documentation.
here are my thoughts on it.
1, Using Templot as it was originally designed, IE as a commuter programme which has the ability to accurately create prototypical trackwork in any scales. (this last bit needs a qualification, in so far as, its actually imposable to create 100% accurate track in a scale thats not accurate in its own right). At this point everything is a compromise and Templot does a remarkable job of handling this issue.
This needs all the information pertaining to using Templot as a design tool avaible in this section.
The companion is a good starting point.
2, Plug track and Cot First steps using REA 1926 track furniture.
This section needs all the information pertaining using 2D and 3D exports from Templot, as well as a full explanation of the "tools" to create these 2D and 3D exports. This should also reference things like machine types and custom profiles used to get the best out of building track.
Note it is already apparent, this is a quickly evolving topic in own right. So some of early recommendations have been supersede. I believe this section should be limited to plain track and simple turnouts only (effectively what we can do with Plug track right now without any kludging)
The documentation should complied in such a way that either section 1 or 2 can be read and the reader can achieve a result without having to swap between the two sections. most of the information for these two sections has been written and only needs collating (noting only needs collating is actually a massive task)
3, A little bit in the future, is full blown integration of Templot and plug track/COT (Martin's dream if you like) where if you can conceive it in Templot know matter what it is, you can make it with plug track or COT and how to actually do that. As I said we are still someway of getting there, but section three is the place for such things. Examples are the still need special chairs, in REA a whole mountain of information and drawing of other types of chairs both before and after the 1926 REA designs, flat bottom track to at least as far as Martin has taken current Templot. And maybe given somebody what's to take up the mantel, all the way up to current railway track practice.
Given section three is both in the near present and the future a lot of it will be the waiting to be written section.
Section three is where you move to once your have mastered, or at the very least feel comfortable with both sections 1 and 2
The next thing is getting volunteers to start working on the breakout of the documentation.
cheers
Phil