Sequential (interchanged) trains

[Dale Oswald]

I’ve been reading the documentation and I don’t see an answer to this question.

My railroad and operating scheme has three trains that operate in series, or sequentially. The class one interchanges with the short line, then the short line’s road freight trades cars (like an interchange) with a local freight.  Both of these exchanges of cars are done at yards.

My question is: is there a mechanism in SwitchList to generate all three switch lists, for each of the three trains, at once? Or do I have to generate the switch list for train A, tell the software that it’s completed, then generate the switch list for train B? Same question with the handoff to train C.

I had a basic system running under SwitchList about a year ago, then decided to go back to car cards and waybills until I could get this question answered. So now I’m asking!

Thanks,

Dale

[Robert Bowdidge]

Hi, Dale,

Generally, SwitchList only moves cars once per session, which works well for smaller layouts with staging where there's no classification yard or cars being traded between trains.

Figuring out how to move cars between trains is troublesome - without some way of knowing the order of trains, there's no way to know which train arrives at the yard first, and whether there will be time to get the car on the second train. Even if you've got a schedule, there's still the hassle of what happens if a train gets delayed, if a car is accidentally not picked up, or if the yard doesn't have time to put it on the next train. In your case where you know the trains are running sequentially or only have one operator, that's less of a problem. However, most of us have multiple operators and multiple trains running so we've got to worry about who's going to be done when. For what it's worth, the real railroads probably had the same problem, which is why there were often delays at places with yards if the cars need to sit for a day until the next train runs.

For these reasons, I'm a big fan of car cards for larger layouts and significant yards because it's easier to make up the trains with the cars that are available rather than the cars that the computer thinks have arrived.

One workaround with SwitchList is exactly what you suggest: have your operating session run as two or three "sessions" in SwitchList:
* At the start of the session, press "Start New Session" and print switchlists for some (or all) of the trains you want to run.
* When the trains that run in the first half are done, press "Train complete" for each. If any cars were placed in the wrong spot or forgotten, update their position in SwitchList.
* At the start of the second half of your operating session, press "Start new session" in SwitchList at the halfway point to assign cars to trains again.
* Print out switchlists for the trains you want to run, do their switching, and press "Train Complete" when they're done.
* Repeat as needed.

Note that SwitchList is fine if you don't run all trains each session - it'll just remember the cars that didn't move and reassign them to trains in the next session.

Hope this helps,

Robert

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