New York Central line between Kalamazoo MI and Porter IN, with branch to South Haven. Set in late October, 1952.

Saying I'm using ProTrak would be charitable. I've installed it and am working through the manual, and contemplating what measurements and inventories I need to perform to make it workable on my layout.

Alex Schneider

Hi Alex,

i think we toured the kazoo station a few years back when the convention was in upstate Indiana.  We also went to a tower, but didn’t get inside.  Is that close enough to the MC Tower that the society is trying to produce.  I hope you order about 10 of them for your layout, as I need a few for mine set in SW Ontario. 

a lot of progress has happened on the layout since you and your wife visited a few years ago (5? Or so)

glad to see that you are considering joining the PT ranks!

if any questions, i and my long time colleagues will be glad to help!

john

Canada Southern Rwy

Andy, I reply here because I don't immediately see how to reply to your message one on one -- still learning how to work the forum. Apologies to others.

I have lived in Addison IL, in the western Chicago suburbs, since 1973. However I grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan and that is where I got interested in railroads.

Alex Schneider

Modeling NYC -- Kalamazoo MI to Porter IN -- 1952

I'm still an active ProTrak user ... and one of the few(?) sticking with build 360.  I model northern Maine in the early-mid 1990s, a combination of Guilford and my protofreelanced road, the New England Central.

Over the years since development ceased with Jim's passing, I've figured out how to take very careful notes regarding each and every paper session to help guide outcomes in the direction I am hoping to go.  If anyone's struggling with program behavior, let's hear about it, maybe we can help each other out.  If anyone's interested, I can post some samples of how I've been going about monitoring program outcomes.  As of now, I'm pretty happy with how the program behaves, and I'm very careful and deliberate not to change too many things at once. I've got it working well and I try to just tweak or add new traffic lanes/flows one at a time, followed by thorough testing. 

Also, although the old yahoogroup archives are no longer available, I did download them and I've got those old messages all loaded into an email mailbox which is searchable.

JAJ

Lee's Summit, MO

Bob said
"I can post some samples of how I've been going about monitoring program outcomes."

 
It would be interesting to see how you are doing this.

Bob

Sandusky OH  

OK Bob, here goes.  A few things:

1) I use an Excel spreadsheet listing of all waybills, including:

- waybill number, frequency ("1 in X"), Commodity, STCC, Car type, shipper, consignee, staging track (inbound gateway) as applicable, staging track (outbound gateway) as applicable, along with any real life source material supporting a particular move or traffic flow/waybill.

This allows me to quickly sort and filter on particular waybill types, be it by STCC, or car type, or consignee.  I model northern Maine in the mid-1990s, so paper and paper mill traffic along with wood products are primary commodity families.  If a given session feels heavy on kaolin clay loads (for example) or light on paper loadings in boxcars, I use the Excel to target which waybills to modify...in that case, set more kaolin OV waybills to "1 in X" (increasing X) and reducing X for paper waybills "1 in X".  Example:

Waybill Listing

2) I use another Excel spreadsheet listing of loads/waybills that moved per paper session, within some basic groupings:

- CSD's.  For the longest time I've struggled to get CSDs working correctly.  I worked with Jim on this before his passing and the program behaves a lot better, but I still have hit-or-miss behavior on some of my CSD's.

- OV loads moving from each of the 3 eastern staging tracks over the layout (BucKsport, NMj near Bangor, MAttawamkeag).

- OV loads moving from each of the 3 western staging tracks over the layout (POrtland, SElkrik, DH Mohawk Yd in NY).

This allows me to look at carload level trends on each of the major traffic lanes on my layout.  When I consistently get a desired number of loads moving (e.g. 20) I no longer modify waybill loading frequencies.  Prior to achieving some program stability, I would sometimes get "0 for's", no traffic at all moving onto the layout from a given staging.  As can be seen in the below example, I've been getting pretty good results.  

Session Results

3) Finally, something I just started last week.  I ran 10 paper sessions in a row and marked down which waybills were loaded in which sessions, and how many.  This enabled me to find waybills that actually were not / could not be loaded, as I've observed inconsistent behavior with some of the program checks, for example "cars suitable for this waybill" and "waybills suitable for this car" vs. "cars with no waybills".  Through trial and error, and the following record keeping, I was able to figure a few of these out and correct on my own:

Waybills loaded

I hope those images render or link OK.  I used Google Photos for them.  I'll repost differently if these don't work.

JAJ