Bob,
Any idea when TrainOps might be ready?
Not sure. Its been an on-again off-again project since Bruce and I got into a discussion about single-man operations at the Invasion in 2005. I think this time around (the last 6 weeks or so) we’ve really nailed down the issues, and the rest of what I have to work on are just annoying bugs. If you want to give it a try, with the caveat that it may not work for you 100%, email me and Ill set you up.
Hard to believe it was that long ago. Bob seems inspired lately; I’m glad, because after doing the switch lists by hand for a couple of sessions, I was getting pretty tired of it. Basically, the program has two main areas: configure and run. The configure section is where you define your locations, sidings, and industries. For each industry you can determine which car types it uses and the frequency that they appear. You’ll also enter all of your cars, cabooses, and locomotives. Here’s a sample of the physical layout screen for my layout.
(http://www.jbrr.com/Pics/Operations/TrainOps/PhysicalLayout.jpg)
It’s basically a tree structure; you can expand your locations by hitting the plus key in front of the name. You can rearrange the locations in the order you desire. Here you can see I’ve opened up all the levels for Jackson, my main town. For each of my industries, you see the types of cars in and out, and the quantity and percentage of each.
Pretty kewl…I may have to look into that…when you guys get all the bugs out…
Bob,
My railroad is also a"shortline’ in that one local operates from the southend north to the middle and then returns south while another local starts at the northend works its way south to the middle and then works back north. The plan is the northend local runs first, leaves cars destined for the southend of the railraod at the middle town and returns north. When that job has completed its run then I operate the other local so that only one train operates at a time exchanging each others car at the middletown. Overall, the railroad has bascially 7 towns/stations for the locals to work and there are interchanges on both ends of the railroad. I’ve been useing the color-coded card system but am always open to a better system, sounds like yours just might be right for me - I’d like to try it whenever you can set me up with it. I found most other computer-type systems are better suited for more active/larger railroads.
Thanks, Fred
It’s very easy to create a train. Here I’ve created Train #2, West Way Freight.
(http://www.jbrr.com/Pics/Operations/TrainOps/EditTrain.jpg)
On the far left location is a list of all the locations I have defined earlier. I pick the locations from that window and move them to the center window. Here I put them in the order that the train should run. Basically, I’ve created a route for Train #2. While I’ve put in all my locations, I could have skipped a town by not moving it over. When I click on a location in the middle window, all of the industries that are at that location are shown in the far right window. You just check the industries that you want this train to switch. You can see that this train skips two industries. Both of these are on a facing point switch, so I decided that they would be better served by my East bound train. But, if I want to add some more complexity, I can check them.
Interesting issue, Fred. I’ll have to see if I can implement that. Might be worth while.
Bruce Chandler said:
Hard to believe it was that long ago.
Here’s a picture that got snapped of us discussing it.
(http://ovgrs.editme.com/files/Invasion05/Pic04.jpg)
We were, shall we say, animated.
Hehe. So THAT was the start of the design, right there!
I witnessed that, I feel so proud.
I thought that was a discussion over where we were going for dinner…
Don’t ruin a good story, Ken.
Besides, I had a beer in my hand. No need to think of food.
Guys
Those of you that have asked me for the download should have received an email with instructions to download it. If you have any issues at all, if its not working for you, please let me know immediately, and I’ll see what I can do to help.
UPDATE: Jon Radder reported a pretty serious crash when adding sidings. I’ve fixed it and uploaded an update. If you re-run TrainOps, it’ll download the update for you.
You mean you can add sidings?
Must be recent, I just added a few awhile back.
Looks like it showed up when we added the interchange stuff.
Bob McCown said:Oh, so this is stuff that calls home without you knowing :o
UPDATE: Jon Radder reported a pretty serious crash when adding sidings. I've fixed it and uploaded an update. If you re-run TrainOps, it'll download the update for you.
Good thing I know where it’s calling. Thanks Bob
Just uploaded another fix. Ken Brunt found a bug in the create a train screen.
Jon: All it does is call LSC and checks the version of the software. I track no user information at all on the server end.
Just busting on you Bob 
Pretty amazin…Bob had just emailed with a question and PRESTO! the up date appeared…now, all I have to do is figger out how to get the cars to a specific location on the layout so the “Build Train” thingy can find them…