Hi Jim,

Just a few items from the general discussion on passenger ops in PT:

1. For passenger trains using the format StgA/01/StgB/01/StgA, the program updates when it reaches stgB (intermediate stg update), but is not updating at the 24 hour update in the final stgA.  A similar format works for freight trains.

2. All the passenger cars at customers have 24 hour loading/unloading even though the relevant WBs have immediate loading/unloading at the passenger customer.

3. You indicated that the "Yardmaster/Route cars at Yards and Customers" routine does not affect cars in 01 passenger stations.  Is there a need to do this??  Does this routine already affect passenger cars at passenger station customers such as REA, Coach Yard, Diner Commissary, Post Office, etc.???  Should it??  I think it would help when setting up for an op session and trying to position passenger cars so that the appropriate trains can pick them up.

4. There is a linkage between cars at passenger customers and the 01 station (a station switcher), but no time-related linkage to the passenger trains using the station.  ie I have about 100 cars using the 01 customers during a 24 hour period, so would like to move the cars from the customer to the 01 station, where they can be assigned by PT to the one of the 26 daily thru passenger trains.  But, I don't want the cars slated for the 11:30pm train to show up in the 01 station at 6:00 AM.  You mentioned the possibility of using a manual system to determine the order of arrival at the 01 station, whereby I would identify and mark the cars  to be assigned to the switcher for transport to the 01 station in a timely fashion.  (or would they be assigned to the relevant passenger train, then transferred to the 01 station by the switcher)?  The first seems workable to me as part of my pre-op session preparation, but it would need some sort of routine to subsequently assign the cars to the relevant thru passenger trains (see #3 above).  It would also be helpful if the switch list for the passenger train for the train leaving staging would also identify the cars as PUs in the 01 station, so that both the engineer and the station master would know what was going out at the 01 station when they arrive.  I see doing this for the next 4 to 6 hours, since I run a 24 hour day in 4 to 6 op sessions.

Jim, I had a great weekend at your layout and appreciate the time spent with the other guys to talk about passenger ops.

John