Large Scale Central

RailOp Symposium

With no disrespect to Bob and his TrainOPs, we had a RailOp Symposium in Carlyle, Illinois, this weekend. 3 days of talking and running trains, plus many discussions about operations using the RailOps software. 14 people attended with Doug Matheson and myself chairing the meeting. The current owner of the software, Eric Doolittle was here from the Baton Rouge, Louisiana area, plus users of the product from Silver Springs, Maryland to Salt Lake City, Utah. All scales and all sizes of layouts. Great stuff! Always good to talk trains and Operations.

So how did the Cat Dump Job work out?

The “Cat Dump Interchange” was recreated at Consolidated because making “Cat Dump” a regular stop for all trains created a mess getting through the switchback because of trains over 4 cars.

That’s pretty cool Ric. I was wondering how it went. Nice attendance, too.

I worked out real well. We had a number of people from the Yahoo Group that had never met each other, but talked for years. It was a pleasant surprize for Eric to show up and he offered a lot, but also listened a lot. We operated here on Friday, not even a full session and then down to Andy and Jane’s for the evening. Saturday back in a clinic for the morning and then to St. Louis to operate on two HO layouts in the afternnon and evening. This morning was an hour of the users talking about what we would like to see in the furture, which isn’t a whole lot, and then the owner talking about what plans he has for the future, which included a more user friendly set of data bases. I learned a lot. It was a lot of fun to hear and talk about how other people used the program.

Two weekends of hard playing with trains and I’m shot.

Neat. It would have been fun to be there, but I don’t think I could have gotten away with it.

It was a great weekend… I learned enough, so I have been working with my Railop program, tweaking it as to loads/emptys, specific destinations for cars, etc, etc… re-aliging my trains, and setting their precedence and order, along with their timetable… Creating yards at Memphis and Evansville, along with some industry sidings… I’ve added a couple of more passenger stops out on the mainline… Hilltop Overlook Park, up on the hilltop division, and ""Hadley’s Forest Park, down on the sparta subdivision, that will be serviced by both, the mainline of Sparta sub and the EVWR Branchline…

Was a great bunch of wonderful people…

No disrespect taken. RailOp is a great program in its own right, TrainOps is targeting a different type of operations, so it only overlaps RailOp slightly.

Bob McCown said:
No disrespect taken. RailOp is a great program in its own right, TrainOps is targeting a different type of operations, so it only overlaps RailOp slightly.
I didn't really think it was a problem, I wa just trying to be respectful ( I know, not easy for me) and there are many operating software programs. I am understanding TrainOPs target market and probably would go with somehting like that if I hadn't already learned the RailOps routine.
Ric Golding said:
plus users of the product from Silver Springs, Maryland
That's [b]Silver Spring[/b], Maryland!
  • Brian :stuck_out_tongue:
Brian Donovan said:
Ric Golding said:
plus users of the product from Silver Springs, Maryland
That's [b]Silver Spring[/b], Maryland!
  • Brian :stuck_out_tongue:

Oh! okay. So they only have one? Pitty.

Thanks Brian.

Ric Golding said:
Brian Donovan said:
Ric Golding said:
plus users of the product from Silver Springs, Maryland
That's [b]Silver Spring[/b], Maryland!
  • Brian :stuck_out_tongue:

Oh! okay. So they only have one? Pitty.

Thanks Brian.


They don’t even have one anymore. It was channeled underground long ago. What was the fellow’s name from my town? Is he a small scale modeler?

What was the fellow’s name from my town? Is he a small scale modeler?

Marshall Abrams

Just a note about RailOp…

There has been word out, that the RailOp owner may be coming out of his tent, and doing a complete update…There was a report on the RailOp List…