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Needing some kind of a "Wait track" option, for Locations as in the example below:
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? An Industry is allowed one car length for loading, with an adjacent undesignated track (we will call this a Wait track for a moment). Two scheduled cars are delivered to this Industry/Spur, but only one can go to the Spur, the other to the Wait track for forwarding later to that Spur. The next train to service the Spur brings a new car. It pulls the load from the Spur, forwards the car on the Wait track to the Spur, and sets out the most recent car on the Wait track for forwarding next cycle.?
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So, we would like to use the Alternate Track designed for an "off spot", as a track used to take cars that do not fit in the Spur, but still need to go there.
Currently the program considers the Alternate Track as the destination and the car travels back to the yard and not the spur.
We would like to have the function of the Alternate Track to work as it does, except the car is forwarded to the intended Spur when there is room for it.
Currently we use schedules to route the car from the alternate track to the industry, but that does not always work because the program will send a car directly to the Spur from the Yard, so there is no room for the car from the alternate track (the waiting car gets bypassed).?
If the program could first check for cars at the alternate track, and assign them first, then the cars from the Yard / C/I track, it would work.?
Not being a programmer, we could be overly optimistic, but hopefully there is a way to do this... ? ?:)
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Jeff
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Jeff,
?My alternate tracks work exactly the way you want - The next train servicing that location will pull the load(s) from the spur, move car(s) from the alternate to the spur, and drop new car(s) to the alternate.?
I set this up quite some time ago, and I'm not near the layout computer, so unfortunately I can't provide details on how it's done. I'd suggest rechecking your setup against the tutorial, because it certainly can be made to work.
Hopefully Dan will jump in with more specifics.
HTH,
Steve
"Breezlys"
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Hi Jeff,
The car on the alternate track should go to the spur, not the yard.? Are you sure that's what happening?
To use the alternate track feature, you would only send cars to the spur, and the program when finding the spur full, should send the next car to the alternate track.? When the spur car gets pulled, the program should send any cars on the alternate to the spur.? You shouldn't use a schedule in any way with regards to the alternate track.
The correct way to use the alternate track feature, is to tell the program which track is the alternate for the spur track.? Then you're done.
Dan
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Jeff,
FYI, when you use a schedule to ship a car to a location / track that's the final destination for that car, so if you pick the "alternate" track the program will ship the car there, and that's the end for that car. Just because its an alternate track doesn't tell the program which spur to use since many spurs can use the same alternate track.? Only when you send a car to a spur that is full and also has an alternate, will the program send the car to the alternate.? Cars on the alternate that were sent there because the spur or spurs where full, will have a final destination associated with them which is the spur that was full.? Also, the alternate track should be a "yard" type track, you don't want the load the change until the car gets to the spur.? And you don't want a schedule associated with the alternate track.
Here's the help link:
Dan
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Ok thanks guys
Dan, you noted in your first response, Not to use schedules, but I am interpreting your follow up to say schedules are ok here?
I am definately using schedules at and to the spur. Schedules are set coming from another spur location that has a Destination with Spur Track filled in (and also tried Spur track left blank). ?A Yard track is set as Alternate for the Spur desired (and tried as a solo yard track less Alternate also). Cars are showing final spur location as they sit in Alternate track but get bypassed by like cars ?/ schedules. ?
Cars were moving in and out on a Sequential schedule... but eratic and unreliable, so I went to a Match schedule and it got worse (cars get turned back and or bypased). ?
Another fellow user that is working on this also noted,?that "with all the schedules and custom loads removed, just operating as an alternate track and only L and E, that when a L car went to the alternate track the L changed to E, meaning the program thinks the car has unloaded at the alternate location.", ?
* ?BUT, I dont currently know the other variables there...
Side note: I also have another location with same results that has two seperate schedules that share both end locations for woodchip car loadings.?
Jeff
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FWIW
The build report is showing the Spur is too short to move cars from the Alternate to the Spur. The reason the Spur appears to be too short for the Alternate relocation, is because cars are being routed from the yard and directly to the desired Spur, before forwarding cars on the Alternate track (ie program is simply bypassing the Alternate track).?
Jeff
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I would like to chime in here by stating that I have the same issue with the Alternate track. The car will go to the alternate track if the spur is full. The car on the alternate track will show its final destination as the spur, but with subsequent builds is bypassed by cars from the yard to the spur. I've tried with / without schedules. The interesting thing is that sometimes it works right, then other times the cars sit in the alternate track. If there isn't another car for the spur from the yard then the car will move from the alternate track to the spur. Build report shows car from alternate track cannot move to spur because of length.
Clark
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Is it possible that the reason for bypassed cars is due to number of moves on the car? As an example, if the car on the alternate has 200 moves, and the yard car has 10 moves, JMRI will tend to move the car with fewer moves first.?
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Clark,
You are correctly describing how the alternate track works.? ?The program will only pull a car from the alternate when the train servicing that location doesn't have a car for the spur.
The program normally doesn't deliver a new car to the alternate, and then pull an old one from the alternate to deliver to the spur, instead it simply delivers the car in the train to the spur.? The car in the train and the cars on the alternate have the same "load", so the program doesn't create the "extra" work of rotating the stock from the alternate.
And yes, cars can sit on the alternate for a long time if there's an ample supply of cars with the appropriate load that the spur is requesting.
If you want the sequence of cars sent to the alternate first, then the spur, you could create a simple schedule that did that.? In this case, you wouldn't use the program's alternate track feature.
Dan
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Jeff,
As you have noted, if the supply of cars with wood chips is available to the train at an earlier location, the program will deliver new cars directly to the spur and bypass the ones sitting on the alternate track. Cars on the alternate have wood chips, and the car in the train also has wood chips, the efficient move is the deliver the car in the train directly to the spur.
Since you have lots of cars with wood chips, and you want to rotate your stock from the "off spot", I would recommend that you not use the alternate track feature but instead create a sequence where new cars are delivered to the "off spot" first, and then to the spur for unloading.? The unloading spur should only accept a load called "wood chips-offspot". The off spot spur track would have a schedule demanding cars with "wood chips" and would change the load to "wood chips-offspot".? Now the program will always deliver new cars to the off spot track, and then move an old one to the spur for unloading.? Since you have a many wood chip cars, the alternate track is never going to get empty, and the delivery directly to the unloading spur is never needed.
Dan
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Dan,
The way you describe the off-spot track would work poorly for any form of
perishable cars. You only 'sometimes' you have extra cars and sometimes not,
the schedule sequence sounds like it would place the newer car at the
off-spot then expect the next train (providing it didn't have that type/load
of car) to move it to the real spot.
The issue I'd see is that it should consider which car is older in terms of
when it got loaded. Then the alternate would get picked at least when it was
older than the car in the train. Most industries tend to use a first-in
first-out flow. Also consider what the normal demurrage rules would be.
Leaving that car on the alternate is going to rack up charges. Quick
rotating them in and out will limit that and if the usual allowance is a
couple of days, it might mean no demurrage charges.
I would expect this behavior might be a bit of a challenge to program. But
from what I've seen, that's more likely what happens in industry.
-Ken Cameron, Member JMRI Dev Team
www.jmri.org
www.fingerlakeslivesteamers.org
www.cnymod.org
www.syracusemodelrr.org
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Ken,
You are correct, for perishable loads, you shouldn't use the alternate track feature.? Instead you could have a yard track for the cars with perishable loads, and operate that yard in the FIFO flow, one of the options for a yard track.? The program when delivering a car with a custom load to a spur, and finds the spur full, will send the car to the nearest yard.? If the driver for cars is staging, the program will limit the number of cars with perishable loads to be created out of staging, thus preventing the overloading of the spur and the yard tracks.
The "Alternate track" feature works for any type of load including the defaults, where the "use a ;yard track when spur full" feature only works for custom loads.
The alternate track feature works best when there's a reasonable number of cars that could be used for the spur and alternate track.? So if you had room for say 3 cars on the alternate, and 1 for the spur, having 6 or possibly less cars servicing that industry could give the program to opportunity to pull cars off the alternate track instead of delivering new ones.
Dan
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One more note about alternate tracks, when the program pulls cars from a location in aggressive mode, it will do an extra pass and attempt to move cars from the alternate track to the spur in question.? If cars were pulled from the spur, you should see cars scheduled to be moved by the train from the alternate to the spur.
Dan
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Jeff
I use the alternate track feature a lot on my creation. However I identify them as classification/interchange tracks. I set them up to accept certain car types as well as custom loads. I also place destination on them as well as what train can drop or pull. My off-spotted cars will move before others are placed at the spur. I do not use "yard" as a track type.
Later
Dave
Trempealeau WI
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Ken Cameron