Some History

Way back when in the late 1990s, a software application called "Mad River and Big Timber" was developed for the The Sacramento Modular Railroaders. The software took into considerations the nuances of a modular layout and the impact this would have on operations.

For many modular layouts, especially Free-mo setups, the layout changes at every setup. Also, rollingstock most likely is not know until module owners add cars to their modules.

Mad River and Big Timber (MRBT) solved this problem for modular clubs by creating a system that did not track car details during an operation session the way other software packages do. This methodology works well with some home setups as well.

The last active effort on MRBT was in 2001 with a minor update made to the software. A lot has changed since then with computers -- Heck an iPad or Smartphone was a Buck Rogers fantasy back then.

I do love operations as it pertains to model railroading. I personally followed along articles and wrote the program in Model Railroader back in the early 90s as they published articles using the Basic programming language to create a switchlist for operating your layout. MRBT is used by my local Free-mo club, the New England Free-mo's, and it's limitations are apparent.

My goal for the first version of ModuOps is to bring the ideas of MRBT to a modern platform. I'd love to see a Mac, Linux and Windows version of the software on day 1. ModuOps is an Open Source project and will be FREE to download. ModuOps incorporates a modern interface by today's standard and is ready for future expansion (tablets and smartphones are on the white board).

Version 1 of ModuOps will attempt to replicate the logic of MRBT with a couple of upgrades (detailed in later Blog posts). While MRBT is the inspiration, you will see that ModuOps looks nothing like the original software.

If you'd like to stay up to date on the progress of the application, please follow this Blog. I am progressing quite nicely with the software and I'm getting close to version 0.1.0! Stay tuned...

Welcome to the ModuOps Blog!

As part of getting the public side of ModuOPs going, I've created this Blog for the software. ModuOPs is an application in development to assists in the operations of Modular Layouts, especially Free-mo. The software takes into considerations of a setup where the layout changes from setup to setup, and the rollingstock is not known in advance.

We also think ModuOPs can be used for home layouts as well. The system's design is very easy to learn and very forgiving of mistakes made by operators.

I'll be posting more details as the software moves forward. I've got lots of ideas for this software and I hope we can help make operating your Modular layout more interesting and manageable.