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One Industry, Seven Tracks #operationspro

 

Greetings. Can JMRI be set up to work on just one industry? I have an ADM plant. It contains seven tracks. Track one to load DDG into Covered Hoppers. Tracks 2 and 3 for incoming corn loads to be dumped. Tracks 4, 5 and 6 for storage. Could me loads waiting for an open spot. Could be empties that need to be picked up by the local to be sent to the midwest for more corn. Track 7 to load ethanol for shipment. Tracks 1, 2 and 3 can hold 3 cars each.? Tracks 4, 5 and 6 can hold 4 cars each. Track 7 can hold 3 tank cars.
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What I envision is a local train delivers loads and empties on a regular basis. Then a dedicated plant switcher does the grunt work. Pulling empty cars from 2 and 3 and bringing loaded cars in from storage. The switcher would move loads under the shed and over the pits. I was thinking having an alarm set up on my phone to ring every few minutes to indicate a car is empty, push the next one in. Something like that.
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So looking for some guidance.
Thanks
 

John,
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At first look - this is a relatively simple solution in Ops Pro.
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However, a couple of questions to clarify how you want to operate....
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1. Do you have a track from which the local brings in the cars from the rest of the world, and takes them back out, or are the cars in tracks 4,5 and 6 deemed at the start to be the deliveries, then, on the next round, deemed to be the next set of deliveries (that is, the cars actually do not move out of the yard, it is just their status that is changing)?
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2. Can the empty cars delivering the corn be used to load the DDG?
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3. Are the tank cars only assigned to track 7, or could the local deliver more tank cars and need to put them in tracks 4, 5 or 6 for the switcher to switch when those cars on track 7 are loaded?
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Regards,
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Eric
 

Eric thanks for the great questions.
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1. I have a 10 drawer storage cart that serves as my offsite yard. Normally I would have JMRI tell me what cars to pull from what drawers. I would hand deliver them to one of 2 interchange tracks and from there is where the local would pick up its consist or drop off whatever it picked up along the route. I would then hand deliver those cars back to the designated storage drawer.
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2. Yes a car that has been emptied of corn and sitting on a storage track could be sent to track 1 for DDG loading. But that would only be done by the ADM switcher.
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3. Only tank cars are assigned to track 7. Track 7 is long enough that if needed I could store 2 or 3 extra tank cars.
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One more thing I should have mentioned. When an empty car is picked up by the local and delivered to the interchange and then to the storage drawers, it should automatically become a load for the next time its selected.. I'm not sure how to tell JMRI to do that. EXCEPT the tank cars. Those will always be picked up from ADM as loads and then automatically changed to empties once back in storage.
 

I would guess you would just define 2 tracks. JMRI does not really need to
know about the 7 tracks, but just 2 tracks: a drop off track and a pick up
track. Basicly, it is just like a "foreign" interchange yard.

At Wed, 26 Feb 2025 19:09:00 -0800 "John Buckley via groups.io" <buckleyjohnj@...> wrote:


Greetings. Can JMRI be set up to work on just one industry? I have an ADM plant. It contains seven tracks. Track one to load DDG into Covered Hoppers. Tracks 2 and 3 for incoming corn loads to be dumped. Tracks 4, 5 and 6 for storage. Could me loads waiting for an open spot. Could be empties that need to be picked up by the local to be sent to the midwest for more corn. Track 7 to load ethanol for shipment. Tracks 1, 2 and 3 can hold 3 cars each.? Tracks 4, 5 and 6 can hold 4 cars each. Track 7 can hold 3 tank cars.

What I envision is a local train delivers loads and empties on a regular basis. Then a dedicated plant switcher does the grunt work. Pulling empty cars from 2 and 3 and bringing loaded cars in from storage. The switcher would move loads under the shed and over the pits. I was thinking having an alarm set up on my phone to ring every few minutes to indicate a car is empty, push the next one in. Something like that.

So looking for some guidance.
Thanks






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?No. Since DDG grains are very light, you would only use the largest available hoppers for loading, not the ones delivering corn.

Roger Thomas
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On Wednesday 26/02/2025 at 10:54 pm, Eric Coughlan via groups.io wrote:

John,
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At first look - this is a relatively simple solution in Ops Pro.
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2. Can the empty cars delivering the corn be used to load the DDG?
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Regards,
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Eric
_
 

I set up something like this on the club layout:
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One (or more) setout/pickup track is identified, and it is the only track serviced by the local. The switcher also serves this track.
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The rest of the spurs are flagged for service only by the switcher.
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At first I did this by flaging trains; later I realized both improvement and simplification by flagging routes.
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Cheers,
/ Bruce /
 

In terms of the industry, I see a minimum of 4 tracks to define in JMRI.?

1- Track 1, DDG loading [spur type], length set to available spots]
2- Tracks 2/3, corn unloading [spur type], length set to combined available spots
Although you could split these, I don’t see the need. “Local instructions” be it a spotting diagram, Spur Notes, or just plain old crew knowledge could indicate to split available loads between the tracks or fill up a track and set the balance over, etc.?
3- Tracks 4, 5, 6 Yard [yard type] similar to above I would just combine all the available space and define it as YARD.?
4- Track 7 tank cars [spur type] length set to available spots. If there’s extra room as you state, optionally create another [yard type] track called Trk7 Off Spot and define available length, with only the tank car type allowed.?

So far as getting the loads, entities to swap.. you will probably have to create either staging or spur type virtual tracks to represent your staging/storage drawers. Possibly even creating custom loads and schedules for spurs.?

As another poster stated, DDG is typically loaded in larger covered hoppers than the corn would arrive by, so reloading the empty corn cars is not all that prototypical.. but it’s your railroad!
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Mark Z

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