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
7:54 am
April 27, 2015
Offline
Hello,
I'm beginning to plug in additional online customers and I have a question on how to serve one that originates dimensional lumber and log loads at East Newport, ME. To simplify, my railroad looks like this:
Several west end stagings ---- Waterville Yard (Yd) --- East Newport --- Mattawamkeag Staging (MA1s)
The siding at East Newport is a facing point siding for the WAMA job working from Waterville to Mattawamkeag (MA1s)...so this means that to set off empty car supply for this shipper per car orders, empty FB's need to go from Waterville past ENW to MA1s and come back out on the opposing symbol (MAWA) in order to be set off. Right now ENW is not a y yard. No empty FBs are getting routed into ENW or even to MA1s even though ProTrak sees the car orders. WAMA is marked as "comes out of staging as MAWA".
Am I right in thinking that I need to set up a CSD of home road empties into MA1s so that the empty car supply is there in staging for placement at ENW by the MAWA job when the FP runs? Otherwise how can I get empties to route through staging and back onto the modeled portion for placement? Would a y yard help?
JAJ
8:54 am
December 23, 2014
Offline
JAJ,
>No empty FBs are getting routed into ENW
I was waiting for Joe Brann to enter into this conversation. What you are attempting to do is "route a car through staging", and ProTrak does not allow that (for a very good reason).
However, working with Joe, we came up with a technique for doing that (without causing all the other issues). The method is described in a support document we prepared which is available for download from the "Support" portion of this website. Click on "The Manual" menu item and scroll down below The Manual links. The first other document describes "how to route through staging".
>Right now ENW is not a y yard
That is what I would do, if you have a runaround at ENW. Create a "y" setoff track to store the cars for the return movement.
~~~~~~~
>Am I right in thinking that I need to set up a CSD of home road empties into MA1s so that the empty car supply is there in staging for placement at ENW by the MAWA job when the FP runs?
If the customer (in staging) is to be served by homeroad cars, then "Yes". The only way empty homeroad cars get into staging is via a CSD. But the customer must be in that staging.
But in this case, using a "y" setoff track should solve your issue.
OK?
Jim
The following users say thank you to Jim Moir for this useful post:
jjoyce16:23 pm
April 27, 2015
Offline
I was waiting for Joe Brann to enter into this conversation. What you are attempting to do is "route a car through staging", and ProTrak does not allow that (for a very good reason).
However, working with Joe, we came up with a technique for doing that (without causing all the other issues). The method is described in a support document we prepared which is available for download from the "Support" portion of this website. Click on "The Manual" menu item and scroll down below The Manual links. The first other document describes "how to route through staging".
Thanks, as always, Jim. You're exactly right, I was attempting to "route through staging" and the document was helpful. It did take many attempts / setups to work as described. As I said earlier, to simplify, my mainline schematic is:
West end stagings [including Portland PO1s] ---- Waterville Yard (Yd) --- East Newport [spur in question] --- Mattawamkeag Staging (MA1s)
I had symbol POMA running from Portland west end staging, stopping at Waterville (Yd), going into Mattawamkeag Staging (MA1s) and coming back out as MAPO (Mattawamkeag staging to Portland staging). When I added either a virtual Yd or y yard at the station on the railroad where Mattawamkeag staging is, the cars would not be "set off" there. Rather, they wanted to route onto the MAPO job at Waterville Yd for whatever reason...wrong place, wrong direction. I tried many combinations (setting up the POMA/MAPO job as single job with the slash...POMA/MAPO...reversing it to MAPO/POMA...) but the closest I could get would be the POMA job working the ENW siding in question (which is impossible since it's facing point heading that way).
Finally I trimmed back the job in question to work Waterville Yd - MA1s - Waterville Yd and then we started getting the desired behavior, namely empty car supply heading towards MA1s setting off at the virtual Yd, being picked up by "enemy" westbound out of said staging and making the correct setoffs and pickups at ENW. So although "the real thing" in 1992 used a POMA-MAPO job I will adapt and use WAMA-MAWA....other trains can pick up the slack to get traffic to/from Rigby!
So traffic is now moving and our lumber and log customers are happy....time to plug in more sidings, waybills, car orders, and cars.
JAJ
8:57 am
April 26, 2015
Offline
>I was waiting for Joe Brann to enter into this conversation. What you are attempting to do is "route a car through staging", and ProTrak does not allow that (for a very good reason).
Sorry Jim, I missed that one completely. But glad that JAJ found our write up on Routing the Staging helpful, and I hope he will join us at Jim Brewer's ProTrak weekend.
Joe
Most Users Ever Online: 189
Currently Online:
6 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
