<story><title>Playing with model trains and calling it graph theory</title><url>https://11011110.github.io/blog/2019/05/02/playing-model-trains.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dekhn</author><text>The book Hackers has an entire chapter on the TMRC &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Tech_Model_Railroad_Club&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Tech_Model_Railroad_Club&lt;/a&gt; engineers (students) build early track switching systems using relays and mainframes (later I think it was transistors and later microcomputers).  This let them experiment with all sorts of train routing algorithms and those students often went on to influential positions in the telecom and computing industries.</text></comment>
<story><title>Playing with model trains and calling it graph theory</title><url>https://11011110.github.io/blog/2019/05/02/playing-model-trains.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>vibrio</author><text>Thanks for this, I&amp;#x27;ve been obsessing about track layouts while playing trains with my kid, how to avoid getting stuck in permanent loops, having bi-drectional routes on all parts of the track etc.  As I&amp;#x27;m not a math person, I&amp;#x27;ve not had a logical framework with which to think about it. my kid doesn&amp;#x27;t care but laying out tracks been a surprisingly fun mind game for me.</text></comment>