Welcome to the project website for the Computer-Controlled Railroad Simulator. I developed this project during the spring semester of 2008 as a part of the Senior Capstone Experience.

The CCR Simulator is designed to simulate a model railroad and the trains that run on it. The simulator internally tracks the states of the trains, turnouts, and sensors that are controlled electronically, and this program can be used to predict what a physical railroad might do under similar conditions. In addition, the simulator can receive hardware commands intended for the railroad and use them to change the state of the virtual track. The CCR Simulator will be a great tool for developing and testing programs to manage real computer-controlled model railroads.

Building the CCR Simulator ended up being a pretty fun challenge. I had to use many of the Computer Science concepts I learned in my undergraduate studies to build a good, usable program that would not only be functional and easy to use, but one that could easily be upgraded and expanded upon by future programmers.

For my final program, source code, and manual, check the downloads webpage. I presented this program to the St. Norbert College community on Tuesday, April 22, 2008, and my presentation is available for download here. The original project requirements can be found on the Problem Specification page. My original goals and deadlines is available on the Project Timeline page, and my actual rate of progress was fully documented in my miniblog.