Hello everyone,

I'm currently improving the Sarnia and St. Thomas (Talbotville) C&O yards and have a few comments and questions.  Tal-Yd is on the main line thru Ontario between Detroit and Buffalo staging.  It currently serves 6 daily thru fast freights, a local turn out of Sarnia, Transfers to the NYC yard in St. Thomas, and local industries.  

Sar-Yd serves the large local petrochemical industry and the car float across the St. Clair River to Port Huron, Michigan (a virtual yd on my layout).  It services one fast freight to/from Buffalo staging, a local turn to Tal-Yd (east bound) and a local turn to Windsor Yard.  It is a dead end, so the cars are either going to a Sarnia industry or on the car float.

Jim, I like the new feature providing thru put info for yards on the layout and it is providing valuable info for my new yards.  As it is dynamic, did you consider putting it in the ops section of PT, maybe as a separate heading in Yarmaster?  I confess that I looked all over in the Yardmaster Function, before finding it in the Yards and Interchanges section.

Comments/Questions

1.  So far in my op session, although still very early,  Sarnia yard only has 6 cars reported as classified, yet i had one turn arrive with 12 cars that it left there, as well as 13 cars off the car float.  I did not get a cut list printed automatically (or at least the question asked of me).  The yard switcher picked up cars from the local industries, and i think that accounts for the 6 cars were counted by PT.  I currently run the car float twice per day, with up to 12 cars both ways. So far in the session, I have run the float once, with 12 cars arriving in Sarnia.  The car float loading/unloading printout already serves as the cutlist on arrival, so maybe they haven't been counted by PT in this new routine.

2. In setting up the blocking for the two yards, I looked for the ferry PM#10 as a potential block, but it is not available.  I guess that it is looked at by PT as a through train, which are not available in the yard blocking scheme.  So, I chose Port Huron (PRT-Yd) as the block for a track.  (Should I use PRT-Yd or SAR-Yd as the block now??)  Given that the focus is the car float ops (variously called the Ferry Yard or the Boat Yard on the prototype), would you consider treating it like a staging track or a local train in the blocking schemes for other yards?  

3.  When revising Port Huron Yd (which is virtual, along with several virtual industries),  I tried to  identify TAL-Yd as the storage yard and PT would not accept it, as there was no "Connecting Train" between the two yards.  The connection is the car float operation.

4. Two trains serve Sarnia on the same route between TAL-Yd and SAR-Yd, the fast freight from Buffalo arrives about 2 am for the first sailing of PM#10 at about 4 am, and the second is a local turn that also serves an intermediate Yard in Chatham (CHT-Yd).  It it timed to deliver cars to/from the second sailing of the PM#10.  The problem is that cars get assigned to the FF, which can't take all of them, but they don't get re-assigned to the local later in the day which can take them.  How do I deal with this??

5. I'm using the Switchlist Preview in Ops a lot now because I have passenger trains that I want to re-block, change the motive power, etc, before sending them on their way.  PT automatically prints the Passenger Train List when you click on it in Report Trains in Ops. Well, it is printing (and sailing) for PM#10 in both PT locations.  Would you please change this in the "Preview Switchlist".

Thanks

John