Setting up an development environment

This is fairly easy :)

Download the Arduino software. Install it.

The Anatomy of an Arduino program

The anatomy of an Arduino program, is fairly simple. There are two methods that need to be implemented, they are called setup and loop.

The language looks alot like C, and I cannot tell the difference between Arduino C, and standard C, so for me they are the same.

void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
}

void loop() {
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:
}

The comments are pretty self-explanatory. If I don’t include all of the source code, I will tell which part of my code is located in setup or loop, if applicable.
One issue here is that when coding the main loop, is the fact that the code will run in a loop.
This is a fact that need to be accounted for. This is especially true, if you are working in an object oriented/event driven world in your day job, like me :) There is a way to use the RFID readers with IRQ

My first thought will be to just getting it to read the RFID tag in the loop, then I will try and do the IRQ thing.

If, and when, I add another train to the track, i need to know immediately if another train is arriving at the station, when a train is already at the station. We want to avoid any fatalities.