01-05-2011, 10:36 PM
Glad to hear things are going well with your experiments. Sounds like you'll be running your layout with the shipit program soon.
I didn't understand everything that you wrote up above, but am certainly gaining insight into the software and process. Hopefully I will have a bit of time tomorrow to play with the program.
I figured the frequency thing would be valuable. Glad that added some more randomness to the operations. I also like all your experimenting, making each industry a town and such, to get it to work like you want it to.
Today I was thinking about my layout and the shipping patterns and possibilities. At its most simple, a loaded car will come from off the layout to the interchange, then will travel on the layout to an industry, there it will be unloaded, and then the empty will travel back to the interchange, then be removed from the layout by hand between sessions. To represent this graphically, I used a system from Paul Mallery's book "Operation Handbook".
(plus in the arrows means loaded, minus means empty)
(interchange is the staging yard)
(Off layout means stored in drawers under the layout shelves and represents the cars traveling all over the country)
Off Layout ++++++++> Interchange ++++++++> Industry ---------> Interchange ---------> Off Layout
Okay, that one seems pretty simple to set that up for the ShipIt program to work.
Another simple one is when a shipper on our layout needs an empty:
Off Layout ----------> Interchange ----------> Industry ++++++++> Interchange ++++++++> Off Layout
Now, with me having interchange at either end of the layout, still shouldn't be that difficult. I have a 1970s rail map that indicates where each road went, and I'll set up the cars so each one's home yard is at the appropriate interchange.
All that sound reasonable so far?
But then we have the scenario where a load comes in, gets emptied, then the empty is sent to another industry and loaded, then sent back to the interchange:
Off Layout +++++> Interchange +++++> Industry ---------> Industry +++++++> Interchange ++++++> Off Layout
Does the ShipIt program do this automatically? Take an empty which is headed off the layout, and use it for a load which is headed in the direction that the empty car was going anyway?
I didn't understand everything that you wrote up above, but am certainly gaining insight into the software and process. Hopefully I will have a bit of time tomorrow to play with the program.
I figured the frequency thing would be valuable. Glad that added some more randomness to the operations. I also like all your experimenting, making each industry a town and such, to get it to work like you want it to.
Today I was thinking about my layout and the shipping patterns and possibilities. At its most simple, a loaded car will come from off the layout to the interchange, then will travel on the layout to an industry, there it will be unloaded, and then the empty will travel back to the interchange, then be removed from the layout by hand between sessions. To represent this graphically, I used a system from Paul Mallery's book "Operation Handbook".
(plus in the arrows means loaded, minus means empty)
(interchange is the staging yard)
(Off layout means stored in drawers under the layout shelves and represents the cars traveling all over the country)
Off Layout ++++++++> Interchange ++++++++> Industry ---------> Interchange ---------> Off Layout
Okay, that one seems pretty simple to set that up for the ShipIt program to work.
Another simple one is when a shipper on our layout needs an empty:
Off Layout ----------> Interchange ----------> Industry ++++++++> Interchange ++++++++> Off Layout
Now, with me having interchange at either end of the layout, still shouldn't be that difficult. I have a 1970s rail map that indicates where each road went, and I'll set up the cars so each one's home yard is at the appropriate interchange.
All that sound reasonable so far?
But then we have the scenario where a load comes in, gets emptied, then the empty is sent to another industry and loaded, then sent back to the interchange:
Off Layout +++++> Interchange +++++> Industry ---------> Industry +++++++> Interchange ++++++> Off Layout
Does the ShipIt program do this automatically? Take an empty which is headed off the layout, and use it for a load which is headed in the direction that the empty car was going anyway?