At the beginning of a "day", the cars in trains which are in staging have had waybills/car-orders assigned.  At the time of assignment the destination is known, but the routing is not known - at that time.  Later, the default "next location" (routing) is the first Yd yard the train will report at.  As the greater number of railroads have one Yd yard this works fine.  Also, if a railroad has "many" yards, it is typical to re-work (marshall) a train at the first Yd yard.

However in some cases the desire is to have the train exit staging fully blocked (marshalled).  ProTrak has two options for updating the routing of these cars, within staging.

   - At the beginning of operations, on clicking "Continue" on the 'blue' data-loading window, an optional window appears.  This window asks in the NxtLoc for cars in staging should be 'corrected'.

   - For every train, regardless of location, the "Preview train-consist" window has a button "Verify setouts".

The two methods use different methods, but both update the next location (NxtLoc) for a car (as necessary).

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These methods worked fine except in the case where there were parallel routings (more than two trains between the same two yards).  Originally ProTrak used the routing through the first Yd yard.  For example, if a train worked: "staging -> CED-Yd -> GSM-Yd" and there were two (or more) trains between CED and GSM, ProTrak would always use CED as the NxtLoc.  (At CED the cars would be re-routed and a) may stay on the same train, or b) would be assigned to an earlier train out of CED.)

The Update posted yesterday (344, 17th) changes the logic so that a car stays with its train as far as possible.   That is, a car routed to GSM (through CED) will show GSM as the NxtLoc - on applying either/both of the above options.

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There is a second, related, issue.   The "furthest" yard may be small (or less important) and you want the first Yd to be shown as the NxtLoc (the cars will be moved to another train at the more important yard).   For example, take the routing "staging -> HRW-Yd - StJ -> staging".   As you know, StJ is a small yard and HRW is a larger yard with lots of capacity.  It would be better to have the car re-classified into another train (if necessary) at HRW rather than StJ.

Update 344 applies the logic, when there are parallel train-routings,  that car re-classification will occur at the larger Yd yard, regardless if the larger yard is first or is further on.   "Larger" is based on the number of tracks (at the Yd yard).

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Under the NxtLoc column, on the train-consist you will see one of:

   - the train symbol if the car is passing through the next Yd yard

   - "setoff" if the car is to be setoff at the next Yd yard.

   - "--->>" if the car is to be setoff at a customer (by the local-service train the car is in)

and now:

   - "route@>".

The latter is now (visible) appears when a car may or may not be setoff at the next Yd yard.   This "route@>" necessarily appears, and it appears when there are possible multiple routings through the next Yd yard and the routing is - at the moment - indeterminate.  (It mostly appears when the car is going to a second-staging-track in the same region as a road train serving the primary staging track in that region; it is not known which train to that region is 'first out'.)

OK?

                  Jim