Large Scale Central

Basic Operation Questions

Operations Train Operations Software
#1

If a layout is designed with all captive cars, does there have to be both a source and a destination for loads?

In other words, If an industry takes loads IN and produces empties that go back to the yard. Will those empties become loads again once time passes (day advance)?

I understand the concept of using an exchange track to get foreign road cars on and off the layout. I think I may have been mistaken in my belief that exchange was the only way to get loads for a given car type if I had no on-line industries that sent loads OUT for that car type.

#2

Short answer, no.

Cars that come in from off-layout come back on as either a load or empty, depending on what is needed at the time. Its assumed that the cars going off-layout are going someplace that magically needs/has whatever our online industries need/supply.

The interchange track is for foreign road cars only, to create the illusion of “that track goes beyond my layout”.

#3

Next basic question: I have three interchanges to the outside world, NP, GN and MILW. Is it going to be by luck of the draw which interchange a car is sent to or is there a way to tell TrainOps where to send the car?

#4

Right now its luck of the draw. Lets say you have a train going from A-B-C-D-E. You have interchanges at B and D. It’ll generally set the cars to arrive from B. Its sort of a first-found thing.

Bruce and I have been talking about the interchange code a lot lately, and were thinking that an “Interchange” shouldn’t be a siding, per say, but a kind of industry. That way we can route certain cars to certain places, both inbound and outbound. Might be worth looking at.

#5

Steve,

After getting a few interesting results I decided that having separate designations for things like should work. It does. Getting the right cars there … hit and miss.

And a general observation: when there are several industries with the same name on the layout i.e. Freightshed or in my case also Cement Silo, I add the town name in front of the industry name, makes it easier to check the “Build train” list and the “Terminate train” list. So far I always needed to correct one thing or the other - that is after I found out one can actually do that. :wink:

#6
Bob McCown said:
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Bruce and I have been talking about the interchange code a lot lately, and were thinking that an “Interchange” shouldn’t be a siding, per say, but a kind of industry. That way we can route certain cars to certain places, both inbound and outbound. Might be worth looking at.


Bob, that’s what I did on my scheme. The one branch line p/u at an industry called “transfer”, the other two pick up at a yard that has industries for transfer. Seems to work.

#7

I’m confused :o I’m not sure which of my two questions you answered. Isn’t Off-Layout a “location” that is accessed via the Interchange track ? Sounds like it’s not.

So, just to confirm your short answer. Captive cars that go IN to an industry will magically go off-layout to be loaded once they arrive at the empties yard.

So how do I know to pull the car off layout from the yard ?

OR - If my interpretation of your answer is wrong, and all that applies only to the Interchange track, then let’s go back to talking about captive cars. Captive cars must have both a source and a destination for their loads?

Sorry I’m being a PITA - Just trying to grasp all the concepts to determine if some of what I am seeing is my mistakes in design, or bugs/features of the program.

#8

OK, a few clarifications.

ANY car, not just captive cars, go off layout after they’ve been used. (to an industry as either a load, or empty to be filled). They get taken off-layout for a while.

Off-layout really has nothing to do with the interchange track. Its the time that ANY car, once its fulfilled its duty, to ‘relax’ and not get shipped around. Its a way to make your layout larger than it is, by having some cars go away for a time.

You dont need to match industries, no. Since every car will leave your layout for “off-layout” number of days, we assume that loads and empties are fulfilled somewhere “out there”. If industry X needs full boxcars, and ships out full flatcars, here’s how the cars will flow:

Boxcar comes in from off-layout, marked as full, and dropped at Industry X. Flatcar comes from either off-layout, or on-layout, and dropped at Industry X. After the ‘load/empty’ of the car passes, Boxcar gets picked up (its now empty), and delivered to a yard (eventually the “drop empties here” yard), and taken off-layout. Flatcar (now full), same thing, delivered to a yard, and taken off-layout.

The “interchange/Foreign Road” flag is just a tweak to this. If the car is not a car of your own RR, then where it is picked up and dropped off after, is the interchange track, not just the yards.

#9

Good clarification, thanks Bob.

Now I need to go back and look at some of my initial settings. That will probably explain why my cars just sit in the yard.