Generating Mid-Session Trains

[Michael Anteau]

I'm experimenting with using SwitchList to operate my railroad, the Nicholas & Ashley Creek Ry.

My layout represents a branch terminal, with a coal branch line.  I have staging East and West connected by the branch, with my main yard, Nicholas, modeled in between.  Then there is a branch from Nicholas yard which goes to several mines and terminates at the town and yard at Angela's Landing.  So the schematic is basically a "T" with staging at the top two points, Nicholas at the intersection, and Angela's Landing at the bottom.

At the beginning of my operating session, an Eastbound will come through Nicholas and drop off cars destined for Nicholas or Angela's Landing.  A Westbound will do the same at the end of the session.  In the middle of the session, a local will switch the industries in Nicholas, and another will switch industries on the branch.  This will generate more cars destined either eastbound or westbound that end up in Nicholas Yard.

My question is that I can generate the Eastbound and Westbound switchlists at the beginning of the session, but these won't include any cars arriving from the locals DURING the session.  I could re-print the Eastbound or Westbound switchlists during the session, but the only way I can see to add these new cars is to either start a New Session or Add 2 Loads.  Is one of these the correct way to do this?  It seems to me that New Session will generate a whole new day, and all trains, and increment the frequency of industries, which is NOT what I want.

The two options I see are:

• Add 2 loads.  Will this just add loads to the REMAINING trains of the session, those not marked completed?  If so, that may be exactly what I want.
• Add the cars to the switch list by hand, and then use reports to adjust their locations later (may mess up routing frequencies?)

Are there other options?  Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and thanks Robert and volunteers for creating such a great program!!

Michael

[Robert Bowdidge]

Hi, Michael,

> My question is that I can generate the Eastbound and Westbound switchlists at the beginning of the session, but these won't include any cars arriving from the locals DURING the session. I could re-print the Eastbound or Westbound switchlists during the session, but the only way I can see to add these new cars is to either start a New Session or Add 2 Loads. Is one of these the correct way to do this? It seems to me that New Session will generate a whole new day, and all trains, and increment the frequency of industries, which is NOT what I want.

There's two ways you could do this:

* Treat the first and second halves of your operating session as separate days, and press "start new session" at the start of the second half. You will want to lengthen car unloading times so unloaded cars aren't immediately available. This only works if the first half and second half trains are the same.

* SwitchList reassigns all cars to trains whenever you switch to the Overview tab. (It's assuming you changed car positions, or changed cargo settings.) This behavior gives you exactly what you want; if you mark some of the first half trains as complete, then switch tabs from Overview to Freight Cars and back to Overview, Switchlist re-assigns all cars to trains (including the ones that arrived at a yard at the end of the first half.) You can now print out the switch lists for the second half trains. There ought to be a button that explicitly does this.

Robert

>
> The two options I see are:
> • Add 2 loads. Will this just add loads to the REMAINING trains of the session, those not marked completed? If so, that may be exactly what I want.
> • Add the cars to the switch list by hand, and then use reports to adjust their locations later (may mess up routing frequencies?)
> Are there other options? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and thanks Robert and volunteers for creating such a great program!!
>
> Michael
>

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SwitchList" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to switchlist+...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Michael Anteau]

Thanks Robert!  I think option #2 is perfect for me, and I'm going to try it out ASAP.  You are right that a button that does this would be cool, but it amazes me that the program will work this way anyway just by switching screens.  You seem to have thought of just about everything in Switchlist, and each time I use it I'm more impressed by that.  I've done some programming in the past and I know how difficult it can be to anticipate all the ways the program will be used.  Switchlist is very well designed..

> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to switchlist+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SwitchList" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to switchlist+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.