Railway Vision: railways that run to your song

Railway Vision runs a small railway of its own: tracks with junctions and points, trains of a set length running a timetable, track circuits that know which train stands on them, signals that show red behind a train and step back to yellow, double yellow and green as it moves away, and an interlocking that sets each train's route through the points before it gets there. Every train carries a four-character code that steps from berth to berth as it runs, the way a signaller's train describer shows it.

Everything runs on the song's own clock. Trains leave on the beat and surge a little into each one, routes are set on the bar, signals clear on the downbeat, the build brings more trains out and on the drop every route lights at once. The whole railway repeats exactly every 16 bars, so a loop closes cleanly and a video made twice looks the same both times.

The railways are our own: the stations, lines and codes are invented, and no real operator's map, colours or signs are copied.

• Open the Railway Vision template

Each look is the same kind of railway seen a different way; the settings below work in every one where they apply:

• Track Circuits: The signal box's illuminated panel of a double-track loop with two stations, platform loops and sidings, lit in a dim box with lamp glow and haze. Every track circuit lights in its train's colour while the train stands on it, the route ahead lights up to the first red signal, signals step from red to yellow to green behind each train and clear on the beat, the points throw on the bar and each train's four-character code steps from berth to berth. The build brings more trains out and on the drop every route lights at once.
• Night Line: A railway at night seen in depth: trains of lit windows glide along a viaduct over a river and curve away into the distance, headlights cutting the haze, stopping at a lamp-lit station on the beat. The lineside signals change from green to red behind each train and back, the track lights in each train's colour where it runs, the town's lights and the stars answer the highs and on the drop the whole line lights at once.
• Network Map: An invented city's railway map, four lines of its own colours: every stretch between two stations lights while a train runs it, stations ring as trains call, trains slide along the lines with their codes, and the next route lights ahead of each one. The build adds trains to every line and on the drop the whole network lights.
• Junction: A close view of a busy flat junction at night: the branch leaves the main line and crosses it on a diamond, the points throw on the bar, the home signals clear on the downbeat with their route lights for the branch, long trains cross over under the floodlights and the track lights in each train's colour as it runs.
• Cab Ride: The view from the driver's cab at night: rails running to the horizon, signals and track circuit markers rushing past on the beat, the route set ahead lit in the highlight colour up to the next red signal, platforms and junctions sweeping by, trains passing the other way, and the cab's display showing the train's code, its speed and the next signal.
• Model Railway: A model railway on a table in a warm room, seen from three quarters: trains loop through a tunnel and two stations, signals change aspect on the layout, points throw on the bar, the lit control panel at the front shows every track circuit, and on the drop every lamp on the layout comes on at once.

A track circuit is a length of track that reports when a train is on it. In Railway Vision each one lights while a train stands on it, in that train's colour, so you can follow every train round the railway by its light; the track ahead of each train, the route it may run up to the first signal at danger, lights more softly. Highlight colours chooses where those colours come from: each train its own, each line its own, or the classic signal box panel's red for an occupied section and white for a route set.

Beside the colours, speed, glow and the other settings every look has, the railway has its own, in Classic's look settings, in Studio's layer settings, on a Timeline clip's look, in the Layers tool and on a railway layer in Generate visualizer:

• Trains: How many trains run in the quiet parts of the song. The build brings more out and the drop runs every one. From 1 to 6.
• Train speed: How fast the trains run against the tempo: at 1 a train runs the signal box loop every 8 bars and the whole railway repeats every 16, at 2 twice as fast. Departures stay on the beat. From 0.5 to 2.
• Highlight colours: What the lit track takes its colour from: each train its own colour, each line its own colour, or the classic panel's red for an occupied section and white for a route set. Choose Each train its own colour, Each line its own colour and Classic panel: red and white.
• Routes lit ahead: How brightly the track ahead of each train lights: the route it may run, up to the first signal at danger, and the routes set through the junctions. From 0 to 1.5.
• Train codes: Show each train's four-character code: in the berths of the signal box panel, on the map, over the junction, in the cab's display and on the model railway's control panel. On or off.
• Panel style: How the signal box shows its railway: a lit mimic panel of tiles and lamps, a control room screen, or a glass diagram lit from behind. Choose Lit mimic panel, Control room screen and Glass diagram.

The drop's light-up and every lamp that answers the kick go through a flash limiter, so the picture never flashes faster or harder than is safe for people sensitive to flashing light, and red is never what flashes. Patterns that stream past the eye (sleepers, markers, masts and the windows of a passing train) are held to a safe contrast once they pass faster than the eye can follow, and a fast train's windows run together into one band of light.

Open it from its template page, in Classic or Studio, as the look of a Timeline clip, or as a layer over another look. Layer assets and the Layers tool offer each look's own layers on their own (the lit track circuits, the signals, the trains, the train codes and the scenery), and Generate visualizer, Background Motion, Motion graphics, Music video, Screensaver and the Stream play its looks like any other. The preview, the still and every export draw the same railway.

Ask for it by name or by what you want ("make a railway visualizer", "a train visualizer for my song", "a signal box panel with track circuits", "a cab ride at night" or "a model railway"), and SW Agent builds the project with that look. In an open project, name a setting to change it: "set the trains to 6", "turn the routes lit ahead down" or "hide the train codes".

Through our MCP server, get_engine lists Railway Vision's looks and each of its settings with what it takes, and build_editor_setup opens Classic or Studio on the look you name.