Welcome to the ProTrak User Community Support Forum . The forum is designed around the chapters in The Manual. Please post your questions in the appropriate subforums. You may "Subscribe" to topics and reply by email.
Log In
Register
Home
Topic RSS
7:11 am
May 8, 2015
Offline
Hi Jim,
I'm still setting up for an op session this fall with my group, so I have run the FP in preparation for the session. I'm now checking things over to see what I missed in the initial set-up. I have not run any trains, but I have used the "exceptions/query car status" to fix individual cars for either location and/or WBs.
So, I have a few issues:
1. After running the FP, I went back into "File/PT program options/demurrage" and found that I had set it for "release cars on second day". I would like to revert to "release midnight the same day as placed", but cannot as I have run the FP and that option is grayed out. I doubt that I can change it without completing the full 24 hour day. But its not a big problem at the present time, because I don't see any cars that are being held for 48 hours, with the exception of a few cars with WBs that I set at 48 hours myself. In fact, I don't see any freight cars being held for 24 hours at customers. Which leads to a second issue, which is a problem!
2. The only cars that are showing '24' hrs are all the passenger cars and the many cars that are "empty for load". (I have modified many WBs to use the reset feature), so it appears that something is amiss here.
3. Its a particular issue with the cars in passenger trains that terminate at my major station in Detroit. (remember that I use Det01/stg/Det01 for these trains and the cars either go to customers such as the coach yd or the diner commissary when they complete their run). It means that the cars are not available for the return train the next day. So, I had to go in to "exceptions" and "complete loading" for two entire trains. This set-up previously worked well, as a new 24 hour period started and the WBs rolled over to the new in-transit WB. (It could be that the WB flips over with zero loading time when placed at the customer in Detroit, and then changes to 24 hours when the FP is run at midnight. The correct outgoing WB is present in the car for the next day, it is only the 24 hours that is a problem).
4. Not only that, but all the thru trains and the trains that turn in Detroit (some 25 or so trains daily) typically drop at least a few cars for pickup later in the day by the return train, so they may be affected by this 24 hr problem. I haven't run the session yet, so I don't know yet. Overall, about 100 cars daily could be affected.
Jim, I know that you have worked at this issue recently, but it took a while to complete the existing day and I am just now getting back into operations with a new 24 hour period.
Thanks
John
7:17 pm
December 23, 2014
Offline
John,
(This took awhile to follow .... I am assuming that: )
- you have selected the Operations mode "Run 24 hours and then Update (run Daily Summary)" .... ( a new, just recent option )
- there are two options attached to selecting that Operations mode
a) re-load cars at next midnight
b) wait at least until the second midnight.
The issue being that a car setoff at 11pm will not (normally) be unloaded/loaded and released just an hour later. However the option to do so exists.
~~~
This option does >not< use the cars "hours" data in the usual way.
What happens is as the day progresses and cars are released from customers, a car so released is added to the "AvailableCars" array (memory) with a release time inserted. If option "b" (above) is used 23 hours and 59 minutes is added to the release time. At the next midnight cars with less than 24 hours release time are unloaded/re-loaded. Cars with +23:59 (in AvailableCars) are left loaded (or empty) until the next midnight.
The AvailableCar (array) data is stored in the CarModel on-disk file.
So, you will not see availablecars with hours showing under the usual car "hours".
Jim
7:20 pm
December 23, 2014
Offline
John,
Also, passenger cars assigned to a train manually actually have their hours set as "-24 hours" (so do intermodal cars). The hours listing shows this as just plain "24 hours" (without the negative sign).
You can tell that a car has been manually (and pernanently) assigned by the * before the car number, at "Transportation/Re-block trains" options.
Jim
5:29 pm
May 8, 2015
Offline
Hi Jim,
Thanks for the replies, but I think we need to investigate a bit further and talk about it at your weekend.
I choose "complete all trains, then do update" in the admin/program options. I saw the new one "complete 24 hours/then do update", but did not choose it. My 24 hours with 70 odd trains takes 4 or 5 op sessions of 3 hours to complete. I usually do the last few trains myself once the guys have left.
That does give me the two options
1. customers release cars meeting demurrage time (second day). This is the one that I choose in an effort to have cars held at customers for a longer period and to eliminate the problem you mentioned where cars are released at midnight when they were placed there at 11pm. However, I believe that it is too general for the entire large layout and went to longer periods for individual customers, primarily at the end of the car float in Port Huron, Mi, where the intention is that the cars disappear into storage for 2 to 3 PT days. This means for 2 to 3 years of real time. (The old problem of too many cars, too few tracks).
2. So, if I could easily switch back to option 2, which is the cars are released at midnight (PT update) on the same day they are placed at the customer. However, it appears that I'm into an op session, and those options are grayed out, so I'll have to remember to change it at the end of 24 hours in 6 months or so.
However, I'm not so worried about freight cars, its the passenger cars that are affected the most, even though I have set the WBs at "immediate unload/load". An example is a CPR train that terminated in Detroit station at about 9pm. It goes back to Toronto stg the next morning at 5am. Now we know that the same cars that arrived are going out again early the next day, and they have been cleaned, revictualized and washed in the interim, even if it was in the dark. So the option One above is a non-starter, they must be ready at midnight during the update. So, I have "completed the loading", moved them from the "coach yd" or commissary customer to the station 01. Now they show up and are ready to build a train for the departure at 5am.
More to come in another email
John
6:03 pm
May 8, 2015
Offline
Hi Jim,
There's another case where this won't work for passenger cars.
All the NYC trains are overhead trains and have the schedule "stgA/Det01/stgB/Det01/stgA".
On one trip thru from NYC overnight to Detroit, they PU the obs and a parlour car in Detroit, as it is primarily business travel back to Chicago from there. On the return trip in early evening, they drop the obs (now dark) and the parlour car, again as it is primarily business travel back to Detroit. So, those cars have to be available early the next day, therefore option 1 is out.
Another train arrives from Chicago and drops cars in Detroit, then goes on to NYC stg. When it returns to Detroit later the same day, it picks up those cars. I thought these were the situations that you fixed earlier in the year with the instantaneous load/unload at the customer in Detroit??
This also happens to several CPR trains that turn in Detroit, are transferred to a customer and leave some 4 to 6 hours later as the return train.
I don't think these last two situations will be remedied by going to option 2.
Thanks
John
Most Users Ever Online: 189
Currently Online:
5 Guest(s)
Currently Browsing this Page:
1 Guest(s)
Top Posters:
Nashville: 248
Joe-SVL: 243
casowest: 95
Jim Brewer: 92
Mark Stafflrd: 58
Bob: 53
Fred: 43
John V: 43
jjoyce1: 32
Peter Jackson: 27
Member Stats:
Guest Posters: 0
Members: 259
Moderators: 0
Admins: 5
Forum Stats:
Groups: 3
Forums: 13
Topics: 432
Posts: 1815
Newest Members:
Fred52, ferretjack, Frank, bcole_-8@rogers.com, frich1230, waffle2@mac.com, innovativerc@gmail.com, KRFARRINGTON, George Giles, NandWSRY55Administrators: earlyrail: 71, friscomike: 130, webmaster: 1, hunter48820: 23, Jim Moir: 489
