Howdy
Bruce Chandler and I have had many good discussions about single-man operations, and, if any of the available software out there would work for us. We’ve looked at RailOp, Interchange, ShipIt, and a handful of car-card and waybill programs, and none of them really work well for what we want.

Me, I’d like a software package to shuffle cars in a prototypical manner, loads/empties, etc, all making sense, and not show me any car movement patterns (i.e. Every other train is always delivering a boxcar to Freidmann Furniture!) Id like the ability to build and print switchlists for, say, 3 or 4 trains, and then go outside and run them sequentially.

It seems that all the software packages are driven toward multiple-user, timetable-derived op sessions. Are there any of you out there successfully using software for single-man ops? If not, what would you want a software package to do for you? Inquiring minds want to know.

Bob,

Many years ago I had the pleasure of working with Jack Russell, who wrote the code for “Wagons”. There were three of us tweaking things to the point where it could be used for any railroad anywhere.
Jack used to distribute the software via Compuserve. Lost contact when I moved West.

I’ll fire up the program and see how well it works for one-person op.

Bob,

I’m using RailOps by myself. You can print out all the train switching manifests for the next month, if you wanted to. The schedule of 15 trains that we use for the operating sessions is the same schedule I use for single person operations. I run to a schedule and basically run the trains in order. Ran 4 trains today and enjoyed every bit of the beautiful day. Lots of guys use RailOps for single person ops. The best part I’ve found is there is a tremendous support group, good help file and a programer that is very willing to help with your individual concerns. Until I purchased the program there was nothing directly dealing with rail busses. Now, the newer versions now have it as an option of the program. It is what you have used at Fred’s.