Large Scale Central

Question on Industries

Operations Train Operations Software
#1

I have a large industry (Potlatch Forest Industries) that has 6 stub sidings. In reality, it had many more. I find it odd that I have to add the industry to each siding, rather than the siding to the industry. Is there logic to this?

I suppose that most small industries on one horse roads like mine will only have one siding. PFI just has 6.

I also chose to make these siding a yard, as well as an interchange, as it will be accepting loads of logs from the Milwaukee, and possibly from the GN as well as the NP, and delivering loads of lumber to all three. Does that make sense?

Other industries like the grain elevators and the “Grain Crusher” (flour mill) will only have one, possibly two sidings.

I drove by PFI today. I worked there one summer during college. It is all gone, replaced by baseball diamonds and a shopping mall. Most of the track is still there, as is the restored depot.

#2

I was trying to remember why we did it that way, but just can’t recall.

So, how should you handle this?

I’ve got one industry with two sidings. Each is about 50" long. I could set it up in TrainOps to look like one siding of 100", but this could cause some capacity issues if each siding really can only hold 2 1/2 cars…and TrainOps thinks that it can hold 5, so I really should make it 90" - this will hold 4 of my long boxcars.

This might work unless you require different traffic on each track. If that’s the case, then you will really want to set up an industry for each track and decide which car types are allowed on each track. Hmm. Maybe that’s why we set it up that way?

#3

I have 2 separate tracks in the Delores Yard area. One is marked as Track 1 (departure track) and the other as track 2(Arriving track)…Having them independent like that allows some flexibility, at least that’s the way I see it.

#4

Generally in the model railroad world, particularly LArge scale, there tend to be more sidings with multiple industries than industres with multiple sidings…Why over complicate things? I’d assign one track to the industry and give it a length of something like your maximum capacity. Just shove the cars in there where they fit…sorta like my mines. The program sends X number of cars to each facility, I decide where I can fit them in.

#5

Yea, the design of a town is “Location has sidings, which have industries on them”. Yea, an industry can have several sidings, but that’s more an operator issue than a program problem. Mark one of the sidings having “Industry A”, but for that industry, use the notes to generate a Form 19 and state where those cars should go on what siding.

#6

OK, no prob, just wondering what the thinking was…

Next problem.

PFI and Bennet Lumber both receive empty boxcars, and then ship them full of lumber products. So far, I am unable to tell the program that these two industries receive empty boxcars. Wazup widat? Or, have I missed the all important key?

This is my first foray into this sort of program, and frankly, I’m having a lot of fun. Much more fun than "Move two “full” boxcars over there, pick up two “empty” boxcars, then take the reefers that you picked up at the dairy over to the ice cream factory. And so on…

#7

Steve, you don’t have to tell the program you need empty boxcars. TrainOps will deliver an empty when needed because the industry has to ship a product. It will take a “day” to load the boxcar, then it will be loaded and ready to ship. So, all you need to do is tell TrainOps the “OUT” requirements for boxcars. You might also ship (OUT) the occasional gondola full of scrap, maybe an occasional boxcar IN full of supplies for the mill.

Lots of options. :smiley:

#8

Question #1

I asked the question the wrong way. The program defaults to one day to empty the boxcar, but the boxcar arrives empty. Once I deliver the “empty” boxcar, do I have to wait a day for it to be “emptied” again, and then another day for it to be filled?

Question #2

The 6 track yard at PFI has been designated an interchange as well as a yard. I did this because it will be receiving and transferring traffic from three different Class I railroads, the GN, the NP and the MILW, as well as some local WIRR traffic.
a. Is there an advantage to designating it an interchange?

b.  Is there a disadvantage to so doing?

c.  Should I follow suit for the much smaller yard at Bennet Lumber?

Question #3.

How are sidings named? Take the sidings at Bennet Lumber. Should they be named Princeton #1 and #2, or Bennet Lumber #1 and #2. What is the usual practice? Should each siding have its own individual name having nothing to do with either Princeton or Bennet Lumber?

#9

Steve, all good questions. I probably need to update the manual with this stuff. Comments and criticisms are always welcome.

A boxcar arrives empty. Wait a “day” and it’s now loaded and ready to be moved. So, just the one “day”. The reverse is also true. If a car arrives loaded at your industry, it takes a day to unload and then it’s ready for pickup.

Designating a track as an interchange allows foreign road cars a place to enter and exit your layout. Designating a track as a yard track allows home road cars to enter and exit. The theory is that not all of your rolling stock gets used every session. So, cars can go “off-layout” for a period of time. The yard and the interchange allow for these cars to enter or leave.

If you don’t have foreign road cars, there’s not really a point in designating a track as an interchange. Without an interchange, you probably will not check foreign road, and just have the cars move around your layout. To me, the real advantage of an interchange track is that it’s a “universal industry”. It can supply or demand any type of car. You might want multiple interchanges just to have cars appear in different places.

I don’t know much about prototypical siding practice. I went with names that would mean something to me. Names of sidings are just a personal choice - the program doesn’t really care. In fact, if you’re not happy, you can change the names anytime you like. That’s really a key benefit of TrainOps - nothing is cast in stone - you can change names easily. Other programs require you to delete a siding rather than rename.

I hope this makes sense. If not, ask again. :wink:

#10

There’s a manual?

#11

You should get a manual by pressing F1… or by going to Help. I do need to learn how to create a real Help File. Bob’s been after me to get cracking.

#12

I found it.

Question #4

Is it possible to sort the locomotives by type or number of cars it will pull, or perhaps by road name? Sorting by road number doesn’t make any sense when you have a #2, a #21, a #289, a #2060 all of different types and road names.

#13
Steve Featherkile said:
There's a manual?
Yes, Steve, no kidding! :P

I’m still doing it “intuitively” (Just for test purposes hehehe) and I like it. So far only one crash, auto-report is nifty. The update popped up right after. SWELL!!!

BTW the table colour in the lists looks just like the one in the RhB rolling stock roster book. :smiley:

#14

Coming back to one of Steve’s questions: How does the program know to deliver “empties” and which type? i.e. the team track is used for loading logs, it needs empty flats. It is also used for loading equipment, it needs empty gons. How does that work?

TIA!

#15

HJ,
When you set up an Industry, you tell TrainOps how many cars of each type that you want OUT. TrainOps will deliver an empty car to allow that industry to load it and produce an OUT by the next “day”. So, in this case, you would set up the team track to have x number of flats OUT. You would also set y number of gons OUT. The team track probably gets some loaded cars as well? In that case you would set up some number IN.

#16

Thanks Bruce! I wasn’t clear on the empty condition of the OUT request.

#17

Yea… think of it this way. IN are what cars I need INBOUND with stuff in them. OUT are cars that I’ll deliver full of stuff, so I need them EMPTY when they get here.

#18

Thanks Bob,

went for a walk and sorted it in my mind … :wink:

BUT the follow-up is: if you have one boxcar in/day and one out/day, will the IN box that was emptied the previous day automatically be assigned as the requested OUT the following day?

#19

Generally, no, it wont. The overall design of TrainOps is to move cars around, so it will only keep that car there, and turn it into an outbound car, if it can’t find another car to fill the outbound slot.

So, the answer, I guess, is “probably not”. :slight_smile:

#20

I have three interchange tracks. Should I designate them as industries in order to move traffic on and off?