First of all, there is the log message view which you should always have open and visible because it tells you what is going on in SharpMrc and on the railroad:

The activity overview window is also very important:

On the left hand side, this window shows all or only the invisible blocks and the locomotives. Here you assign your locomotives to the blocks by double-clicking the desired block in the list. The arrow denotes the relative driving direction of the locomotive, i.e. arrow to the left means the locomotive drives to the "Left" when driving forward.

On the right hand side you can see the routes that are currently active and in the activation queue. A route is placed in the activation queue when you try to activate it, but it is currently blocked by another active route. These routes will then activate automatically as soon as they become unblocked. In these lists you can also cancel active routes and remove routes from the queue.

When the graphical switchboard is in operating mode, you can initiate most actions from there:

• You can switch turnouts by clicking on them.
• You can switch signals (to red always, to green only when there is an active route and the current conditions allow that).
• You can activate a route by clicking on the locomotive number display for the start block and then that for the destination block. SharpMrc will attempt to find a suitable chain of routes if no direct route exists for the chosen blocks.