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Locked Having cars move from Town A to Town B via a yard #operationspro

 

I am trying to figure out how to accomplish the subject task. Currently the two yards on my RR are the origin/destination for all trains. So when an inbound train arrives at the yard, since that is the final destination for the cars, the yard master has no idea where those cars will be going in the next session so he has no way to classify cars based on the next destination for that car.?

I have done some searching (not an exhaustive effort) to see how this can be accomplished in JMRI but have not found the answer yet. I am assuming it has to be doable but cannot figure out how.?

thanks,
Rick
 

On Sat, Sep 21, 2024 at 10:14 AM, Rick Stoneking wrote:
So when an inbound train arrives at the yard, since that is the final destination for the cars, the yard master has no idea where those cars will be going in the next session so he has no way to classify cars based on the next destination for that car.?
Correct.? If you want to classify cars out of your yard, the yard can't be the final destination for your cars.? What you want is the have your yard be an intermediate stop. Eventually a car does arrive at it final destination and can't be classified until its given a new final destination.? The final destination could be a yard, interchange, spur or staging.
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Dan
 

I have found that by using custom?loads and schedules, the cars all have final destinations that are not the yard, even though the train terminates at a yard. Originally, we set the train terminating at the yard to put all cars into the arrival road, and then ran a local switcher turn to classify the cars. But this duplicates your problem.

We modified the location settings for the yard to allow the cars to be pointed to the correct classification track, and now tell the train operator to park their train in the arrival road, and pass the paperwork over to the yardmaster who then gives the paperwork to the switcher crew to move the cars into the appropriate track for the outbound to the final destination.

Trains terminate at the yard, but because all the cars already have a final destination, and the?classification tracks are set so that the outbound trains only leave from a specific track, the system will mark each car as to go to the specific track that will allow the car to reach its final destination, so the yard crew know where to move the car.
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Works a real treat.?

Eric



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The point of a classification yard is to act as a place to transfer cars from one train to another, enroute to the car's final destination, which is NOT the classification yard (final destination could be another yard track though).? Let's say there is train A and train B, with location A and location B.? Train A does not go to location B, but train B does.? I have a car at location A that has a final destination of location B.? Train A would take the car to the classification yard, then train B would pick up the car and transport it to location B.??
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I have my classification tracks set up for specific destinations, and my classification tracks will only accept a car with a final destination.? This works quite well.? Train A does terminate at the yard, but this is not the final destination for the cars.??
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Hopefully this explanation makes sense.
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Tom
 

On Sat, Sep 21, 2024 at 07:14 AM, Rick Stoneking wrote:
I am trying to figure out how to accomplish the subject task.
So Rick,
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Let's have a look at your subject goal...?
Having cars move from Town A to Town B via a yard
This is a basic concept upon which you then placed some immediate modifiers.? Namely...
Currently the two yards on my RR are the origin/destination for all trains...
And also...
...when an inbound train arrives at the yard,...
So if logic is applied, I would assert that these yards are NOT the towns you name (in the subject task) as wanting to move cars.? In other words, you currently have Yard1, from which all trains originate/terminate. And another yard, let's call it Yard2, which also originates/terminates all the trains.? This is not logical, given your stated goal of moving cars from Town A to Town B via a yard.??
If I were to purpose a shift in thinking from a logic standpoint, I would redefine the pieces and their terms...
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Let's call Yard1 by a new name... Town A.? Now, if you have a train that originates from this location, it could then move cars via a yard, on to Town B (or Yard2).? In your example, you are missing the third location, that of the intermediate yard.? So what if you convert Yard2 into that intermediate yard? and then make a new location which can be Town B.
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Structurally, you need a Town A, which perhaps would consist of Spurs to serve as the destinations for your cars.? And also a yard to classify the cars based on their final destinations.? And finally another Town B to which the cars might be going or from which they originate.? This is going to require you to rethink how your current "yards" set up.?
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I get the feeling you have more pieces than you have revealed here and that probably prevents a useful rendering of assistance on our part.? How many locations are there for use?? How many trains? Are you using custom loads or just the default loads/empties?
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Back to the stated basic concept,
Town A - has multiple Spurs serving as destinations for cars.
Midway yard - should serve to classify cars for other towns.
Town B - has multiple Spurs serving as destinations for cars.
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This is simple, straight-forward, and should be the framework for how you approach the solution to your desired stated goal.
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Happy to help, hope it helps,
<Pete Johnson>
 

Pete,
I will attempt to provide a clearer, and more complete, explanation of what I am trying to do.
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My RR has two yards at the South (Baltimore) and North (York) terminus of the railroad.? In between these are 7 towns, I will call these A, B, C, D, E, F, G (from North to South) because location relative to each other is relevant to what I am trying to do and using these letters makes it easy to see where each location is relative to the the others.
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I have JMRI configured for max train size of 450 feet, and since all cars on my RR are 40' or less a typical train consists of 10 cars plus engine and caboose.
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I will discuss only one south bound train here (YB10), and the Route for this train is York, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, Baltimore, and this train only does work in A, C, E, G (there is another train that runs later in the session that uses this same route and only does work in B, D, F).?
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It may be worth noting that I build all trains for a session before the session starts.? I do not build any trains during the session, and all trains will get terminated in JMRI after the session is over.
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Currently, when I build the train (YB10) it will typically leave the yard with the 10 cars and set all 10 of those cars out at the industries in the locations were it works, and it will also pick up cars from those locations, arriving at Baltimore with 10 cars all of which are destined for the Yard (the cars have no destination beyond the yard when they arrive).? Very rarely a car will be picked up in a location and setout in another location before reaching the yard, but this is very rare and I am not sure why.? Also, I do not allow cars to travel from origin to destination, so no cars are picked up in York to be set out in Baltimore'
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What I want to have happen is, as an example, the train picks up a car at C, that is destined for A.? This train has already passed A so it cannot deliver the car to A directly.? I want the car to be picked up from C by YB10, taken to Baltimore and put on a classification track that services A so that it can be sent out on a future train (next session) that does service A.??
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I hope that more clearly explains what I am currently doing and what I am trying to get JMRI to do.
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Rick
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I put a reply to this earlier, but it seems to have not gone out to all in this group, so trying again.
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Rick,
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I have found that by using custom loads and schedules, the cars all have final destinations that are not the yard, even though the train terminates at a yard. In your case, the yards at York and Baltimore need to be defined as C/I tracks for all this to work.
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In my club's layout, we modified the location settings for the yard to allow the cars to be pointed to the correct classification track, with each classification track being defined for one or more trains to pick up from that track. So, again, in your case, one of the tracks in Baltimore would be set to allow BY11 (which services town A) to pick up cars. BY11 would not pick up from any other classification track.
So, in my club's operations, the car picked up by YB10 at C would have a final destination of A, and on arrival at Baltimore, would now have the track for BY11 as its destination (but not final destination).
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We do the same as you as far as building all the trains for a session, running the session and terminating all trains at the end of the session. The key to get the cars correctly assigned to the correct train to complete the run is twofold: 1. use custom loads and schedules to give each car a final destination, and 2. set the classification yards to only allow one train to pickup from each track in the yard, but allow all terminating trains to set-out on all tracks. You can, during a session, have the train crew do the final classification, or, as we do, pass the paperwork to the switching crew on arrival to do the actual classification.
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Works a real treat.?
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Eric
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Eric,?
I use custom loads in a couple of specific places (Ash pit generates a load of ash, and the cement factory receives cars with ash loads, etc.) but creating custom loads for every industry and then modifying every industry for creating/receiving custom loads is a task I was hoping to avoid.??
I think my answer is the assigning of trains that can pick up cars for each classification track as you mentioned.? I had played with this in the past but it did not work but I am guessing I just did not set it up correctly.? Will play with this and see if I can get it to work, because what you described is exactly what I need - arrive at the yard with a classification track as the destination, but not the final destination.
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Thanks and?Regards,
Rick
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On Sun, Sep 22, 2024 at 05:10 PM, Rick Stoneking wrote:
Currently, when I build the train (YB10) it will typically leave the yard with the 10 cars and set all 10 of those cars out at the industries in the locations were it works, and it will also pick up cars from those locations, arriving at Baltimore with 10 cars all of which are destined for the Yard (the cars have no destination beyond the yard when they arrive).? Very rarely a car will be picked up in a location and setout in another location before reaching the yard, but this is very rare and I am not sure why.? Also, I do not allow cars to travel from origin to destination, so no cars are picked up in York to be set out in Baltimore'
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What I want to have happen is, as an example, the train picks up a car at C, that is destined for A.? This train has already passed A so it cannot deliver the car to A directly.? I want the car to be picked up from C by YB10, taken to Baltimore and put on a classification track that services A so that it can be sent out on a future train (next session) that does service A.??
This makes things clearer.? You have a couple of conflicting statements.? First you say "the cars have no destination beyond the yard when they arrive".? Then you say "the train picks up a car at C, that is destined for A".? If this car that is picked up at C is destined for A, then it needs to have a final destination of A.? This can be done in a couple of ways, depending on your needs.? You can create a schedule for the C location telling it that specific types of cars at this location will have a final destination of A.? If you are using custom loads (which I highly recommend), then JMRI will route the car from C to A via the yard.? As well, if you want this specific car to always go to destination A with a specific load, you can set this up just for the car.? What you are wanting to do is very doable in JMRI.??
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I highly recommend accessing Pete Johnson's instructions on JMRI in the Wiki section of this group, specifically .? Of course there are also the excellent help files for JMRI.? You will need to do a bit of reading to get familiar with custom loads and schedules, but it is well worth it.??
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I am sure that Pete will chime in as well and give a more detailed explanation than I have, so stay tuned :)??
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--
Tom
 

Rick,
Thank you for the expanded explanation of your intended goal. ?It certainly makes things clearer for any attempt to provide guidance!
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I believe there is much here to unpack and sort out, so let's begin with the mixed use of custom loads and defaults.
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You state you make use of limited custom loads (ash from ash pit for the cement factory, etc) but you also wrote, "but creating custom loads for every industry and then modifying every industry for creating/receiving custom loads is a task I was hoping to avoid." ?
How are you finding the cars with custom loads moving? ?Do they meet your expectations?
Normally, the cars would switch from E to L and vise versa, and then the program would look to send the car a different track with the next train build. ?Since most of the cars would be moving with no routing (unless certain tracks restrict the car type), the program will usually find low-movement tracks to attempt assignment.
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If cars move oddly (not what you expect), consider having a read of my PetePost concerning mixed load-type usage... /g/jmriusers/wiki/37095 (in particular, the second half of the article).
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If possible, can you provide us with the specific setup of your two end yards, i.e. how are the tracks identified (and what types are they)...
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When you build the YB10, does it pull all its cars from one track (meaning it is allowed to only "pick up" from that track) or does the switchlist indicate cars are pulled from multiple tracks? ?This idea of class tracks being only for certain trains can help to guide the cars to the appropriate locations (those served by the certain trains). This will allow you to avoid all the work of custom loads for everything.
In one of your posts, you wrote...
Also, I do not allow cars to travel from origin to destination, so no cars are picked up in York to be set out in Baltimore'
This means the cars from York that go out on the YB10 would not be able to get to Towns B, D, or F, since they cannot just travel to Baltimore and then back to those towns on the northbound train out of Baltimore. ?So, cars in York only go to Towns A, C, E and G and you would have to assign destinations at those locations if you want the cars to backhaul from Baltimore, once they arrive there.
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I have other questions about your setup...
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What train build mode do you employ... normal or aggressive?
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How many trains do you attempt to build for a session? You mention they are pre-built beforehand so this means the cars they handle are already in place, wherever that may be.
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If your end-point locations (York/Baltimore) are made up of C/I-type tracks, then those tracks can be filtered to allow them to service the car-types that ultimately go to the correct towns, and allow only certain trains to "pick up" from the tracks when a train is built.
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Example:
In Baltimore Yard, there is a track which should service Town A. ?You can use the "Track Destinations" tool for this track and select only Town A, but this could prevent cars without a destination (as you said you might have) from going into this track. ?A better approach is to limit the track to the car-types needed at Town A. ?That way, when you build a train that can service town A, it would be able to pull cars from this track and move them. If you further limit the track to allow only trains that work Town A, the cars will move only when that train(s) is the one built.
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To expand this out for clarity...
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Baltimore Yard = made up of 7 C/I tracks, one each for Towns A-G.
Track A = allows only car-types that can be used at the spurs in Town A. ?Allows "pick-ups" only by trains that serve Town A.
Track B = allows only car-types that can be used at the spurs in Town B. ?Allows "pick-ups" only by trains that serve Town B.
Track C = allows only car-types that can be used at the spurs in Town C. ?Allows "pick-ups" only by trains that serve Town C.
Etc, etc, etc...
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Each track should allow all trains to "set out" and can share car-types if the types are used by different spurs in the different towns. ?So, for example, boxcars may be allowed into tracks A, B, D, F & G.

When the northbound trains are built, the program will assign the lowest-move count cars first from each track. ?But only if the locations themselves have room for the inbound cars when the train is built.
In this way, your stated goal of the car from Town C going to Baltimore, then being switched into track A, where it would then only be allowed to go back to Town A, can be accomplished. ?
The yard master would just put the cars into the tracks named on the train's manifest, and when the next session's trains are built, the new yard switchlist for Baltimore names the cars which go onto which trains, and from which tracks.
This would, of course, be decided by the program, since you employ limited custom loads (which can be more finitely directed). ?The program would look at what town's tracks had room and only assign those cars that would fit at the moment of train-build.
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You can set up the yard at York in a similar fashion, to allow the southbound trains to have paperwork that names the target tracks, in the towns each specific train serves on it's way from York to Baltimore, as well as the tracks in Baltimore to which each town's cars ?receive assignment.
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So, YB10 would have 10 cars for Towns A, C, E and G. ?It would pick up along the way, cars for Baltimore, and when it arrives, the tracks to which those cars are assigned, are on the manifest. ?The YM would place those cars into those named tracks and the train terminates. ?Next session, the trains are built and the YM has a list of which cars go on which trains, and from which tracks those cars are to be pulled.
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This can be further refined through additional filtering of tracks, but should give you something to get started with for testing. ?
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As always, when questions arise, return here to the forum and we''ll try and "help" some more!
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Happy to help, hope it helps,
<Pete Johnson>

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