I have an idea for creating an AI dispatcher for my model railroad. One I could call on a phone and get a voice response back. It doesn’t seem that hard to do now, given the availability of AI APIs and ElevenLabs voice synthesis.

Why would I want to do this? About 20 years ago as I was building my railroad, I installed a PBX that could handle up to 8 phone connections. I made sure the PBX could work with dial phones to make it seem like something from the 1950s. I was thinking of having friends help me run and dispatch the railroad.

That never came to pass, but I still have the PBX and the old dial phones. Now I need to see if I can build an automated dispatcher.

Stay tuned…