Earlier (WAY earlier), Craig had posted a link from MRH on getting started with JMRI.
I notice that there have been a couple of other posts and thought I’d put them all here to make it easier to find them all.
I’ve been using the operations part of JMRI for several years now and it has worked out rather well.
Also found this presentation on using JMRI. Not bad, but I don’t know why people insist on putting backgrounds in that make the text so hard to read.
I’ve been wondering if a Small Layout Ops manual (for the way we’ve been using JMRI) isnt something we should whip up.
Bruce,
I haven’t really played around with JMRI other than entering all of my rolling stock. Thanks for putting all those links together, maybe I’ll get motivated to play around with it a bit more.
I found something even easier to read… All the threads combined into a single PDF.
http://rcairgallery.com/stuff/Using-JMRI-Operations-A-Worked-Example.pdf
Bob McCown said:
I’ve been wondering if a Small Layout Ops manual (for the way we’ve been using JMRI) isnt something we should whip up.
Hehe. I wonder how many of us use it the same way? Still, it might be a good idea. Or maybe it’s just a matter of putting those 5 parts into one document?
Hmmm…
I was just trying to get a train built and kept getting “Build Failed” messages. It’s nice that the report gives enough information to change some cars around - I just didn’t have enough room for cars leaving from my staging area. Once I built that train first, there weren’t any problems.
Ive found using “Agressive Mode” in building trains moves more cars around. I think what it does is, when its building your train, it empties sidings first, THEN puts in new cars (instead of the other way around).
http://jmri.sourceforge.net/help/en/package/jmri/jmrit/operations/Operations.shtml
“Build Options”, a bit down on the page.
Yes, I always use aggressive mode.
They do have the warning:
Aggressive builds makes the car’s track space available as soon as a car is scheduled for a pick up. Therefore there can be instances where a train was to pick up a car to vacate the track, but a “later” train arrives early with a set out to that track and the car hasn’t been picked up. However, more often than not the same train will perform the pick up and set out thus minimizing the number of conflicts. Aggressive also performs a multiple pass determination of car movements. The net effect is that more cars are moved within a given train, and complete car swaps can occur. Aggressive also tends to deliver cars to all of the available spurs. The smaller the spur, yard, or interchange the more likely that the program will assign cars to that track.
But, for my ops session, I would prefer a few challenges!
Being a “RailOPs” fan from back in the day, I had not embraced JMRI. Just no reason to. However, embarking on a new adventure involving a smaller switching layout and having operated on Ken’s and Bob’s, the idea of using an up to date program seems right. Of course a manual of how to get started, from download, to setup, to first train out and how test would be very helpful.
Bob, would you put a manual in the “Articles” part of the forum?
I began some work on a “Getting Started Manual” awhile back, but never got it complete.
If there’s enough interest, I could add some more steps, but after what I have, it gets pretty railroad specific.
Link Here.
This could be quite a chore. Ric’s needs are completely different from someone just starting out. He already understands car movements and just needs to understand how to translate what he wants his RR to do into JMRI. Some of the available resources with a little advice in the forums would probably be enough for him. On the other hand, when I was starting out I struggled (and still am to some degree) with determining what cars should move where. I’ve got the basics down (finally) but I still need to tweak things so every train serves every industry. Figuring out the software wasn’t too difficult once I understood the terminology JMRI uses.
Perhaps a good starting point would be a glossary and how each term in JMRI relates to RailOps and the old TrainOps.
Jon, the last sentence is a good idea, but that would require someone who is familiar with Trainops, Railops and JMRI in order to compare…
I think the starting point would be as Bruce described, and started out with…
I have my railroad in Railops now, but have only used it to run operations strictly on the computer, it’s not used during Ops Sessions…
JMRi interests me, as it is a program that is still being maintained/corrected… Whereas, Railops seems to be without any support anymore, cept for the yahoo Groups site… They can give advice, but noone can make any corrections/changes to the programing…
I’d be very interested in the JMRI program, even if I know little of how a computer operates…
Andy - I agree. Since TrainOps is probably not being used any longer by many people including the TrainOps terminology is probably of limited value. I don’t know RailOps, but you, Ric, Fred and Doug are pretty familiar and might be able to read a JMRI glossary and determine equivalent terms in RailOps.
The reason I’m suggesting this is that when Bob, Bruce, Ken and I moved from TrainOps to JMRI our biggest obstacle was the terminology. Once we understood what a term we used in TrainOps was called in JMRI it became much simpler to move on.
I think rather than expanding on some sort of manual that only the author actually understood, I would rather just have some sort of group help for anyone wanting to get started.
Some folks want trains to do explicit things, but a lot of us just want traffic that isn’t always the same. For me, this is the main appeal of JMRI. I enjoy the sessions created.
Come on here and state your problem, I’m sure one of us can straighten ya out Heaven knows I’ve done that myself a few times…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Ken Brunt said:
Come on here and state your problem, I’m sure one of us can straighten ya out Heaven knows I’ve done that myself a few times…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Exactly. Though I’m not sure I can straighten anybody out…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)
Ken Brunt said:
Come on here and state your problem, I’m sure one of us can straighten ya out Heaven knows I’ve done that myself a few times…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Ask my Mom, they have been trying to straighten me out for centuries… It didn’t work… (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-sealed.gif)
Its too late for me to go straight, I can only continue on. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-innocent.gif)
As the victim said to the con man: “You’re so crooked you can’t see straight.”
…
Hi there, serious operators. I came to this thread because I have finished building my main freight yard at Littleton.
So I think I’m now ready to consider using JMRI. Of all the software choices, from reading here it appears to be the one I should concentrate on.
I have very little experience, garnered on Fred’s pike and on Barry Birkett’s. I’ve noticed that both of these systems require print outs and clipboards.
Up to now I have always used manual car forwarding systems, pretty much paperless. In fact I’ve been quite happy with them - Card Orders, Thumbtacks, Blindingly Obvious Car Routing, Dice, Inglenooks, Timesavers, and etc etc.
To tell the truth, as a newbie, I’m not yet convinced that I want/need to go the route of computer-generated car forwarding/train operations.
I gotta tell you I’m no fan of paperwork, if that’s what these systems generate… I don’t want to find myself trying to find my place on a switching list and closely checking car numbers while I’m really only trying to shuffle a few freight cars from one place to another. Most of the time I hae to operate solo, not my preference, but my reality.
I’ll be very happy to get input from you fellas who know more about all this … Thanks for all feedback. Cheers!
As the victim said to the con man: “You’re so crooked you can’t see straight.”
…
Hi there, serious operators. I came to this thread because I have finished building my main freight yard at Littleton.
So I think I’m now ready to consider using JMRI. Of all the software choices, from reading here it appears to be the one I should concentrate on.
I have very little experience, garnered on Fred’s pike and on Barry Birkett’s. I’ve noticed that both of these systems require print outs and clipboards.
Up to now I have always used manual car forwarding systems, pretty much paperless. In fact I’ve been quite happy with them - Card Orders, Thumbtacks, Blindingly Obvious Car Routing, Dice, Inglenooks, Timesavers, and etc etc.
To tell the truth, as a newbie, I’m not yet convinced that I want/need to go the route of computer-generated car forwarding/train operations.
I gotta tell you I’m no fan of paperwork, if that’s what these systems generate… I don’t want to find myself trying to find my place on a switching list and closely checking car numbers while I’m really only trying to shuffle a few freight cars from one place to another. Most of the time I hae to operate solo, not my preference, but my reality.
I’ll be very happy to get input from you fellas who know more about all this … Thanks for all feedback. Cheers!
I like the randomness of it, John. Your not shuffling the same cars in and out of the same places all the time. An industry may get a flat car one time, then it gets exchanged for a boxcar or it may get picked up and nothing placed there. Or an industry may get 2 different cars spotted there and 3 picked up. I’m solo most of the time too, and neither do I like paperwork, but this program takes all the guesswork out of it. Like the on IPP&W, the next time you run, you have the same cars sitting at the industries that you left there the last time. Just like the real railroads.
