Trains

[Scentgrass Lake Railway]

The SwitchList program requires that any train 'route' must begin and end with those stops that have a bold name.

Does that mean to create a train route, one must start with a yard then head to the industry, then loop back (in my case) to the yard from where the route started?  Can the cars be left behind in that scenario or must they make the return trip?

Or do I need to make that industry into a yard so that the train can leave cars at that industry and then set up another train to get the cars from that industry and return to the yard of the trip origin?

Thanks,

Don

[Robert Bowdidge]

Hi, Don,

Sorry for the slow response, I was traveling.

SwitchList requires that trains start and end in a town with a yard. That's needed so that there's a place to pick up and leave cars going to other places. On my own layout, I treat staging yards as yards, and start and end trains there. Some go from town A with a yard, visit a bunch of places, then return to town A. Trains that go out and back on a real railroad are very common - they're often called "turns". Others start in town A with a yard, visit a bunch of places, and end up in town B also with a yard. Yards don't need to be a full "division point yard" with a ton of tracks - just add a yard to a town if you've got a train originating and departing there, and if there's a spare track to let cars sit until the next train.

Note that SwitchList explicitly asks for all the towns the train visits, out and back, in the order they're visited. That's important because some times a train might start at A, go to B and C, then return to A without visiting B. Switchlist needs to know whether a car picked up at C may ever be dropped off at B.

For out-and-back trains, SwitchList will leave cars at an intermediate station with a yard if there's reasons to do so. Specifically, if one train goes A to B and returns to A, and another goes B to C and returns to B, then SwitchList will haul cars destined for C over to town B with a yard, then leave the cars there for the B->C train.

If you've got any more questions, feel free to give more details about your layout and what behavior you'd like to see from the trains.

Robert

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[Ben Sevier]

Works nicely, in fact. Now if we just had a way to set length limits to a "yard" track, We'd have the perfect small interchange.

Ben

[Robert Bowdidge]

Remember you've got two knobs to control the number of cars going to a particular place - you can adjust the car rate in the cargo, or you can set the siding lengths to limit how many cars can go to a particular industry per session. If you're getting too many cars to an industry, train, or an interchange yard, it's often better to adjust the cargo rate to turn down the number of cars per session going to that place.

SwitchList's "Cargo Report" is a great way to check whether you're trying to send too many cars to a specific industry. It'll give you a summary of cars per week sent and received by each industry, grouped both by type of car (to help you figure out if you've got enough cars of a given type) as well as total for the industry to check capacity. Just divide by 7 to note how many cars per day are expected to show up at the industry or interchange. You can then use the Cargos tab to find all the cargos going into and out of that siding or interchange yard, and cut the number of cars per week sent there. The Cargo Report also notes each industry as "Moderate", "Busy", or "Overloaded" to help you spot cases where you've got too many cargos going to a too-short siding.

Adjusting the siding length is less useful because SwitchList will still assign cargos to the overloaded industry. As a result, SwitchList might assign cars that can't move, overloading the yard as cars wait for space at the industry and reducing the number of cars to move per session. I also prefer to adjust the average rate rather than set an explicit limit for a siding because I like the occasional car not fitting in a siding and needing an off-spot in order to reproduce what might happen on a real railroad.

Robert

[Scentgrass Lake Railway]

Robert:

I have tried to get Switchlist to start making waybills.  Two things always show up.

Precursor:  the layout is point-to-point, with three divisions: Battleford, St. Walburg, and Hatherleigh.  Big yards are in the Battleford and Hatherlieh divisions).

I have a tourist destination and flour mill on one division (Walburg) and grain elevators, a small town with a station, on the other division (Hatherleigh) with the branches meeting at Prinham;  Prinham acts as a junction (nothing else) among the St. Walburg, Hatherleigh, and Battleford divisions.  Visualize the Mercedes logo to help understand Prinham within the layout. All divisions and towns are on the layout.

First, likely because as I am starting the layout with every car in the main yard, I've got a laundry list of "Cannot fit car CNWX 1000001" onto any train going from Battleford..."  Is this because I am starting with a flood of cars leaving the main yard?  As part of that (my guess) I receive a flurry of "cannot find route to get car..."

Second, likely as a consequence of what I tried 'First' I have no trains/origins/destinations listed on any waybill that I "make switchlist"

Towns, yards, industries, cargos are all inputted. Let me know where I have gone wrong, please?  For example, do I need a cargo returning from an industry (town) to one of the big yards?

Thanks, sorry about this...

Don Charabin

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[Robert Bowdidge]

Hi, Don,

Can you send me a copy of your switchlist layout file? It'll help me understand what's causing the problems.

And are you trying to generate switchlists using one of the provided switchlist styles, or are you using the experimental "Waybill" switchlist style? Remember the Waybill switchlist style is a bit experimental - it shows off how SwitchList can generate paperwork that isn't like normal switchlists. I don't think it's been used widely, and I suspect it's got some sharp edges and unexpected behavior. I hadn't intended it to generate waybills each time, but intended that you'd run the layout several times and print out

The "Cannot fit car CNWX 1000001" error isn't surprising if you're starting a new session from all cars in the yard. If you've put limits on train length, then this error is just saying that not all the cars that have cargos can be moved in the current session. The "can't find route to get car" generally means you don't have a train taking the appropriate cars between towns on the layout, and the error message is just indicating it doesn't know what to do with the car.

Robert