I built a tiny live train departure board for my desk. It shows real departures from any station, updates every minute, and looks like a miniature version of the dot matrix boards you see on platforms across the UK. Just about space for a couple of departures, delay information, platform number and the time. I…
All posts by oliallen
Detecting danger on the rails… With some plumbing pipe and a Raspberry Pi
I’ve put together a working semaphore signal for my garden railway. The arm raises when a train passes and resets once it’s gone. It’s not prototypical to any real signal, but it works, it looks the part, and it was a satisfying little project. The Basic Idea The system is simple: When the train clears…
2024 South West Peninsula Spring Rally – Ride Report
The South West Peninsula Spring Rally is a one day scatter rally taking place in the South West of England. Participants are challenged to visit between 10 and 19 locations during the day riding anything between 150 to 400+ miles. 2024 was it’s 15th year. A few weeks before the rally, you’re sent a map…
Dedicated Android GPS Sat-Nav Setup
This is the setup I’ve been using for an Android GPS Sat-Nav setup. In use on my bike but would work just as well in a car. Device – Samsung Galaxy S7 An older model but still very functional and now available used on eBay for £30ish now, cosmetic condition not important as it’ll be…
2023 National Road Rally – Ride Report
The National Road Rally is a “navigational scatter rally” for motorcyclists around England – a sort of two wheeled treasure hunt, with riders being given a map of locations around the country, challenged to plan a route between them and visit them on the rally weekend – scoring points depending on distances between each location…
Groudle Glen Railway, Santa Trains
The Santa trains at Groudle Glen on the Isle of Man are a great family day out. I took advantage of some cold but clear and still weather to get some photos from the air.
Welsh National Rally 2019 – Ride Report
The Welsh National Rally is an annual event organised by Clive MCC challenging motorcyclists to explore towns and villages all over Wales in a single day with awards given out depending on number of locations visited. The 2019 ride took place on Saturday May 4th. The entry cost was £25 which covers your map of…
A First Visit to The Isle of Man TT Races
If you’re after photos of the racing itself, there are others who have done it much better than I would (my pictures are all taken on my phone and racing bikes are fast! In fact, looking back over these photos, the only ones I seemed to capture were sidecars!). This should hopefully give more an idea of the experience of enjoying being on the island for two weeks, which was a great trip in it’s own right, even aside from the racing.
Controlling an Arduino with PHP
Since PHP is my language of choice, it wasn’t long before I wanted to use it to control my Arduino. This turned out to be easier said than done – under Windows anyway, with a lot of vague (mis)information out there. Not to mention a lot of “RTFM” advice. The way I ended up doing…
My First Arduino
A short year and three months after Nd suggested to me that I should acquire an arduino, mine arrived yesterday. I went for the starter kit from Earthshine Design because, to be honest, I had no idea what kind of components I would be needing to get started – or even what to build! The Earthshine kit…