The New Trainz has set as an advanced goal the creation of Prototype Freight Operations. This document takes a look at what prototype operations look like. It then looks at some possible strategies to implement a user friendly system to simulate these movements in the New Trainz software.
Freight Car Movements
Let’s begin with the premises that almost all rail freight traffic is shipper driven and that freight cars have a distinct cycle that defines their movements. This cycle begins and ends with the car being empty. Some or all of the items in this cycle make up the movement of a freight car. Not all of the complete cycle will occur on the railroad being modeled.
In real life, when a railroad customer has products to ship, they contact the railroad and request an empty car for loading. An exception to this would be if the shipper owns or leases its own freight cars and the empties are stored on the industries property.
When an empty car has been identified that is appropriate for the commodity to be hauled, its cycle of movements begins. There may be preliminary stops in this cycle. The first might be the clean-out track. And then there is the ice house if the car is an ice cooled reefer. Preliminary stops are usually less than 4 hours.
The empty car is then delivered to the shipper. Here it is spotted at the correct loading spot and will be left until the loading is complete. The loading time can be a short as several hours or as long as several weeks or even months. Once the loading is complete, the shipper notifies the railroad it is ready for pick-up.
The loaded car is usually picked up and delivered to a rail yard where it will be sorted with all the other arriving cars and put into a freight train that will move it towards its destination. Or, the car can be picked up by a specific freight train that will move it in its direction of delivery
There can be some intermediate stops along the way such as the scale track. Or there can be an unscheduled intermediate stop at the RIP (Repair In Place) track. This event could occur at any yard along its delivery route.
The amount of traffic that makes the complete cycle (originates and delivers) on the home railroad will differ with the era. In the days of smaller railroads, very little traffic stayed on the home road. It would be carried as far as possible on the home road, then it would be transferred to another railroad that would take it further on its way. This is called interchange traffic. For smaller railroads. it usually makes up a substantial part of the overall traffic the railroad hauls. There may be instances where four or more railroads are required to move a car to its destination.
When the car arrives in the yard closest to its destination, it will most likely be put into a way freight or local freight that will be responsible for setting the car out at the appropriate delivery spot at the destination industry.
When the car is delivered, the receiving industry will unload the product. This could take as short as a few hours up to several months. Once it is unloaded, the receiving industry notifies the railroad that delivered it. The railroad then schedules its pickup of the empty car.
Once the railroad has the empty, the era will determine what happens next. In the early days, an empty would be routed back to the original railroad via the same route is followed as a load. Later, the rules were changed to allow the car to be routed back to the originating railroad via the shortest route. And still later, the rules allowed for the empty car to be used to meet a shippers need on the foreign road as long as its destination would take it closer to its home road.
As an empty, a car would still be susceptible to the RIP track whenever a mechanical defect would warrant an immediate repair.
Some cars that are dedicated to a specific shipper are still routed back to their point of origin as an empty.
This cycle of a freight car can be summarized as follows:
Any consecutive combinations of these parts of a freight car’s movement cycle may be found on any section of most railroads.
See next post for the rest of the story . . .
Freight Car Movements
Let’s begin with the premises that almost all rail freight traffic is shipper driven and that freight cars have a distinct cycle that defines their movements. This cycle begins and ends with the car being empty. Some or all of the items in this cycle make up the movement of a freight car. Not all of the complete cycle will occur on the railroad being modeled.
In real life, when a railroad customer has products to ship, they contact the railroad and request an empty car for loading. An exception to this would be if the shipper owns or leases its own freight cars and the empties are stored on the industries property.
When an empty car has been identified that is appropriate for the commodity to be hauled, its cycle of movements begins. There may be preliminary stops in this cycle. The first might be the clean-out track. And then there is the ice house if the car is an ice cooled reefer. Preliminary stops are usually less than 4 hours.
The empty car is then delivered to the shipper. Here it is spotted at the correct loading spot and will be left until the loading is complete. The loading time can be a short as several hours or as long as several weeks or even months. Once the loading is complete, the shipper notifies the railroad it is ready for pick-up.
The loaded car is usually picked up and delivered to a rail yard where it will be sorted with all the other arriving cars and put into a freight train that will move it towards its destination. Or, the car can be picked up by a specific freight train that will move it in its direction of delivery
There can be some intermediate stops along the way such as the scale track. Or there can be an unscheduled intermediate stop at the RIP (Repair In Place) track. This event could occur at any yard along its delivery route.
The amount of traffic that makes the complete cycle (originates and delivers) on the home railroad will differ with the era. In the days of smaller railroads, very little traffic stayed on the home road. It would be carried as far as possible on the home road, then it would be transferred to another railroad that would take it further on its way. This is called interchange traffic. For smaller railroads. it usually makes up a substantial part of the overall traffic the railroad hauls. There may be instances where four or more railroads are required to move a car to its destination.
When the car arrives in the yard closest to its destination, it will most likely be put into a way freight or local freight that will be responsible for setting the car out at the appropriate delivery spot at the destination industry.
When the car is delivered, the receiving industry will unload the product. This could take as short as a few hours up to several months. Once it is unloaded, the receiving industry notifies the railroad that delivered it. The railroad then schedules its pickup of the empty car.
Once the railroad has the empty, the era will determine what happens next. In the early days, an empty would be routed back to the original railroad via the same route is followed as a load. Later, the rules were changed to allow the car to be routed back to the originating railroad via the shortest route. And still later, the rules allowed for the empty car to be used to meet a shippers need on the foreign road as long as its destination would take it closer to its home road.
As an empty, a car would still be susceptible to the RIP track whenever a mechanical defect would warrant an immediate repair.
Some cars that are dedicated to a specific shipper are still routed back to their point of origin as an empty.
This cycle of a freight car can be summarized as follows:
Any consecutive combinations of these parts of a freight car’s movement cycle may be found on any section of most railroads.
See next post for the rest of the story . . .
