Hi All, it's been a bit of time since I've posted. Bob Butler and I have decided to go back to Update 343 for operations on the Nashville since it appears to be a stable platform.  I had been working with Jim M to work with some of the issues that I was having on the Nashville. As Jim finally started to get full operations going on his railroad, he was seeing some of the issues that I was dealing with.  Update 360 and a few just before that, helped with some of those issues but also introduced a few new ones.  Jim was in the middle of a new update when he passed, so we are where we are now without any further corrections or fixes.

Since the Nashville is such a large layout with 6 railroads represented and over 70 trains on the daily schedule, working out of 3 very busy yards, some of the problems that I am personally still having with the program will never effect other layouts and they can continue to have very successful operating sessions.

After dealing with the problems that I have been hoping would be addressed for a number of years and now with no hope of any further corrections or updates, I have come to the conclusion that the only way that I will ever be able to get my railroad to operate the way that I want it to is to change my operating system.

First, I want to tell you that I still think that Protrak is the premiere operating program of all the computer based programs, and if I was going to stay with a computer based system, I would not leave Protrak.  If Protrak can't do what I need it to be able to do, I know that there is no other that is capable of it.

I am good friends with the Operations Road Show group that attend many NMRA National Conventions around the country.  They have been a wonderful addition to the Conventions and have given many model railroaders a chance to operate and learn operations with the Card Car / Waybill (CC/WB) system.  My longtime good friend John Young, a founding member of the ORS group and a few of their other members have been willing to work with me and have been very helpful in helping me develop a CC/WB program for the Nashville.  It is an ongoing process and will take months.

Now to get back to the subject of this message.  I have talked to some of the regular attendees of the Annual Protrak Weekends and asked if they would be interested in attending a last PT Weekend on the Nashville.  They have all told me that they would like to attend.  So, I am now announcing that Bob Butler, and all my Lansing friends and I will be hosting the 2018 Protrak Weekend May 2nd - 6th.  Although we won't have Jim with us, we have a group with a lot of experience with the program and it will still be very beneficial for anyone that wants to learn more about Protrak to attend the Weekend. 

For the future, I will be developing the CC/WB system over the next few months with my friends and plan to implement it after the Protrak Weekend. I personally still plan to stay active with the Protrak group and will hopefully be able to attend any future Protrak Weekends like the very enjoyable one we had at Jim Brewer's this last Spring. 

Bob Butler has been my right hand man at all our operating sessions and has done a lot of work on the Nashville data over the last few years and works the program during the sessions.  Bob will now be helping me implement the new CC/WB system for the Nashville but will continue to use Protrak on his own layout and his club's layout.  

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me anytime.  I will continue to do whatever I can to help and promote the Protrak program.

Best, Andy Keeney