Jim,

I'm hopefully within a month of my first formal ProTrak operating session and things seem to be working well except my car float.  I asked Doug S if he has any PTBM car float text ready and he does not. So maybe your thoughtful replies to my multiple inquiries here can provide an interim text on car float operations in ProTrak.  Here is the critical things I have established wrt my car float operations

1. RVS-04y - car float yard serving as a reporting point for RVS-SW 

2. Car float customer RVS50f  served by RVS-SW

3. Car float bridge RVS50t  (You mentioned this in a 2013 e-mail message but I am not sure what it does.)

4 WB40 shipper siding number FS-07, consignee siding number RVS50t

Inquiry 1.  Sometimes when I click on Customer / car float the right hand panel lists cars waiting for loading on car float, other times NO cars are listed.  Any idea why the on and off nature of this RH panel?

Inquiry 2. On the car float customer screen in the car float bridge pane  the small window shows "no car float at dock". When I click on "Float 1 is empty" and then OK that selection doesn't seem to stay. i.e. when I immediately come back to the car float customer screen the car float bridge pane again shows "no car float at dock". The same thing happens even when after making the above selection I click on "arriving". What am I doing wrong here that causes my selection not to remain?  The same thing happens in Operations / Exceptions / Show cars by zone / Riverside / Report car float.

Inquiry 3. My RVS-Yd presently has 4 XM-s (from 4 recent paper sessions) that show Next and Dest'n to be RVS-50t, but the cars never seem to get assigned to the RVS-SW train. What do I need to do to get these cars on the train down to the RVS-04y reporting point?

Inquiry 4. Under traffic / freight and MOW cars, I have 3 cars listed under the "Contents" column as being "on car float", current SPOT = RVS-Yd.  But these cars never seem to come off of a car float and I cannot find them listed as being on any car float, nor are they shown as being "deactivated" which is the status for cars on a car float which has already sailed, i.e. car float has been removed from the dock. correct?

Inquiry 5. At the end of my paper session and in support of my logging in a matrix what cars are at each customer I do File / Print Listings of RR data / Traffic / Freight and MOW cars/ OK / Location (Active only). On these printouts only 75 of my 78 cars are listed, and the ones which are missing are the three mentioned in Inquiry 4 above. Since the car float has't sailed, to the best of my knowledge, these cars are still active aren't they? If so shouldn't they be listed on the printout?

I'll send you my latest ProTrak folder directly to you in a few minutes.

thanks

Joe Brann