Nice little switchlist generator

[steinjr]

I tried this idea on my layout, to see how it worked.

First page for my little switching shelf layout:


Only modification I did was that for a couple of spots that could handle several car types, instead of just adding a specific car type in column D, I added a formula like this example:



The formula basically says that it is a 75% chance of (Box or Tank), a 25% change of (Flat or Gondola)
Then I split each of those in half again. So in the end there is a:
37.5% chance of Box
37.5% chance of Tank
12.5% chance of Flat and
12.5% chance of Gondola

One could of course mix and match percentages and car types to whatever seems appropriate for one's own layout

I then made a page 2, 3 and 4 with the three jobs I defined:

The Freight House job:


The Barge Terminal job (which also switch Anderson Chemical and the Team track):


The Dairy and Gern job


Basically, these sheets just get values from different rows on page 1.

And then I took one of the jobs for a spin. I printed out the switchlist for the freight house job, picked out suitable cars for the spots to be made, and noted car reporting marks and numbers in the notes column by pen. Then I let my train "arrive" with inbound cars, organized the inbound cars, pulled outbound cars and spotted inbound cars.

Worked like a charm.

To generate a new switchlist, I just adjust column H (Occupied) on the first sheet. If I don't like what I get, I just hit F9 to have excel recalculate formulas (and thus pull new random numbers).

Of course - it is in principle not very different from me just deciding for myself what to pull and what to spot, but it is somehow a little more fun to have it determined by "outside forces" :-)

Smile,
Stein