Shedmaster Query

[PortlandBill]

Hi, I have been trying to use the SHEDMASTER command on my own route using the Potteries Link Line 4-track gravity fed loader in a similar fashion to the shedmaster: servicing Wolstanton Colliery session. There appears to be missing information in the documentation. The "Wolstanton Colliery Railway Operations" document notes the following series of actions for an Empties Shunt:
...
Wait for Wolstanton Gravity Load Interupt token
Propel the consist into the unoccupied siding
... etc

At the moment I can propel empty wagons into the empty nest but a derailing takes place because the gravity feeder is trying to use the other empty siding at the same time. It is obvious that I need the equivalent of a "Wait for {NameOfMyLoader} Gravity Load Interupt token. Examination of the PLL session shows a token "#WC_Empty" which (I assume) is understood by Shedmaster and prevents the loader from requesting empty wagons while the Shedmaster identified empty siding is filled with wagons. The missing information is:
how does Shedmaster know the name of this token?
Are there any rules or naming conventions that need to be followed so that Shedmaster/Industry can identify the token?

I have searched through all the documentation and I can find no reference to how this particular token is set up. Any help that anyone can give will be much appreciated thank you.

 

[trev999]

Hi Steve - Apologies for omitting that snippet of information. Here is the answer to your question:

The token is constructed in this format:
# (Hash symbol)
<First word of loader name>
_ (underscore)
<Full or Empty>

In the case of Wolstanton Colliery Screens the first word of the loader name is "WC". This was done to reduce the length of trackmark names needed to define the input and output tracks. Other loaders have similar two-letter prefixes to their names. You are not obliged to follow this practice.

It is not Shedmaster that uses this token. The loader itself takes the Empty token when wanting to release wagons. When the shunter is assigned a schedule for replenishing the empty wagons, an early command requests the Empty token and waits until it has been released by the loader. The same procedure is followed when servicing the output tracks, using the Full token.

Please don't hesitate to ask any further questions, using this thread.

Best Regards

Trevor

 

[PortlandBill]

Trevor, Thanks for the prompt reply. I understand now. I was trying to guess what the format might be but I was nowhere near right. Now I have this information I should be able to complete my session. I will certainly get back if I have any more queries.
Regards

 

[ElStoko]

Steve, you may be interested in a large new Shedmaster session called "Shelton Bar Operations" which is shortly to be released via the PLL website. The session covers the 8 Shedmaster-compatible industries within the Shelton steelworks, and so will provide you with an example of Shedmaster meeting the demands of multiple inter-dependent industry assets. In excess of 40 tasks are defined for allocation in the Shedmaster configuration panel.

 

[PortlandBill]

ElStoko, That is great news. I am looking forward to running that session. I thought I would make a shedmaster session myself to cover the whole steel making process with automated delivery of raw materials and transport of finished product once I had properly got my head around how to best use shedmaster. I love the fully automated sessions where every piece of rolling stock has purpose and function and not just put on the route to look pretty. I love the PLL route although I only passed it a couple of times as a boy. It reminds me of how industrial the Midlands and North used to be. Rail-Sim have captured the atmosphere perfectly. I remember a school geography book that showed a picture of Stoke-on-Trent before the clean air act and after. PLL really captures the "before" picture.
Regards

 

[ElStoko]

We may have upset your plans to develop a "Shelton Bar Operations" of your own, Steve, but there is still plenty of scope for extending Shedmaster into new areas on the Potteries Loop Line. Three ideas come to mind:
1) Expand "Shelton Bar Operations" by adding Shedmaster tasks to enable local collieries to supply coal to the steel works. The SBO session for release shows coal being sourced from off-route collieries to the north.
2) There are quite a few foundry industry assets dotted over the route, a couple served by road using drivable lorries. A Shedmaster session could be developed to serve one or more of these foundries.
3) There is a high-detail brickworks located near Sneyd colliery serviced by narrow-gauge railway with a lot of industry assets nested together. An interesting project would be to develop a Shedmaster session to meet the inter-dependent needs of the brickworks industry assets, including the external supply of sand and coal and the removal of the brick output. Currently only the dispatch shed and the coal and sand staithes are Shedmaster compatible, but if you were interested in this, Shedmaster-compatible versions of the other brickworks industry components could be provided.

 

[PortlandBill]

Thank you for the suggestions. Once I have fully understood what can be done with Shedmaster I will have a go. I also have some ideas for using it on the S&C. At the moment I have a simple no-scenery route with a few sidings for common carrier/coal interchange and the wonderful PLL 4 track gravity feed loader. Just getting this to work is stretching my mental capacity
Regards

 

[ElStoko]

The gravity-fed coal loaders are the most complex of the Shedmaster-compatible industry assets on the PLL route. The complexity arises because rakes of wagons under industry script control are repositioning over the session without the intervention of a driven locomotive. Shedmaster tasks performed by locos under AI control to service the loader must interwork with the rakes moving under industry script control.
If you can master the servicing of the gravity-fed loaders, Steve, then you will make relatively light work of servicing other industries.

 

[PortlandBill]

Thank you for the encouragement. I think I have found another problem that is not explained in the documentation. The shedmaster:Servicing Wolstanton Colliery Session contains the following driver commands (extracted from the Schedule Library>WC Deliver Empty)
...
Stop Train, wait 1 sec (SI)
Measure Train at Trackmark%Measure WC residual empties (SI)
Skip to label2 if consist_count<1
Message to WC Wolstanton Colliery Screens #1CM (Driver Communication)
Skip to label1 if swr_wc<1
...

Looking in the InputTable I see definitions for
svname,consist_count
svname,swr_wc

I understand the logic here, that is not a problem. From the documentation it is clear that the Special Instruction Measure... actually measures the number of wagons in the consist and places this in consist_count. This information can be found in the config.txt file for Special Instruction however it is not clear to me how swr_wc is defined there are no clues in the config.txt file for Driver Communication or anywhere else that I can find. I think know what it does (returns the number of empty sidings) but how does the Driver Communication Command know to put the information in this specific svar? For my own colliery screens do I need to set up an svar of the form swr_{my colliery name} or is it more complicated than that? Sorry to be a pain but I feel I am close to being confident to use shedmaster in my sessions.

Regards

 

[ElStoko]

"how does the Driver Communication Command know to put the information in this specific svar?"
The DC command causes the loader script to calculate the length of the remaining empty wagons that could not fit in the first Empty siding. It then measures the unoccupied space available in other Empty sidings to see if a rake of the calculated length can be accommodated. If such a siding is found, then the name of its leading track mark is returned to the DC command script. If no siding can accommodate the rake then "none" is returned. The DC command assumes that the Input Table has been set up so that there is one session variable for each colliery under active Shedmaster control in a session. The format for the names of the session variables is "swr_"+<location code>, where the location code is the leading alphanumeric in the name of each colliery (in the case of Wolstanton Colliery this is "wc"). The DC command script uses the TM name returned by the loader script to evaluate the svar for the colliery. If "none" has been returned the value is set to zero.
So yes, Steve, you will have to set up a session variable in the Input Table for your colliery with the format "swr_"+<location code>. The location code is separated from the remainder of the in-game colliery name by an underscore ("_").

 

[PortlandBill]

A clear explanation of what is happening. I am glad my understanding was not far from what actually happens. In my case I had hazarded a guess (correctly) about the location code but I could not convince myself that it was correct. Thank you once again for your patience and your time to help. If I can get control back of TS12 from the missing dependency errors which have recently appeared I will continue to code my session then have a stab at a real route like the PLL.

Regards

 

[trev999]

Incidentally, Steve, the word "swr" means "siding for wagon remainders". It took a bit of digging into documents to find that. There is a typo in the DC schedulecommand script (line 145) explaining the meaning of the word.

Glad you are progressing.

Trevor

 

[ElStoko]

So yes, Steve, you will have to set up a session variable in the Input Table for your colliery with the format "swr_"+<location code>. The location code is separated from the remainder of the in-game colliery name by an underscore ("_").

My sentence suggests the provision of the "swr" session variables mandatory for each gravity-fed coal loader under active Shedmaster supervision. On reflection, this is not so. An "swr" svar is only required for an SM-supervised loader if the session creator wants to provide for a second shunt (within the one Shedmaster-allocated task) into another Empty siding if the first shunt cannot accommodate all the spare empty wagons. If the creator is satisfied with returning surplus excess empty wagons to temporary storage, then the task routine quoted by PortlandBill is unnecessary and an "swr" svar is not required.
In developing Shedmaster with Trevor, we initially returned all excess empty wagons to storage. The provision for a second shunt to place the excess wagons in another Empty siding was a late addition to enhance realism.

 

[PortlandBill]

Trev and ElStoko, thank you for your replies. I understand what you mean about the relevance of the "swr_" svar but looking at track plans of several collieries in West Yorkshire they mainly had multiple input sidings. Now I understand how this works the session is stating to look more realistic. If TS12 is not playing up today I hope to make a start of collecting the full loads

Regards

 

[ElStoko]

I understand what you mean about the relevance of the "swr_" svar but looking at track plans of several collieries in West Yorkshire they mainly had multiple input sidings.

I'll attempt to make your comment understandable to a wider audience, Steve. You correct me if I have this wrong.
The Shedmaster demo session released with the PLL route is based around Wolstanton Colliery gravity-fed coal loader. The track layout servicing this loader included (a) one storage road, to which empty wagons were brought when returned from LMS delivery runs to colliery customers, and from which wagons were propelled into (b) two 'Empty' sidings from which empty wagons were gravitated under the loader. I infer by "input sidings" Steve means sidings of type (a), empty-wagon storage roads, because he employs "but" to suggest these sidings differ in number to the case at Wolstanton. Assuming I'm correct so far, having multiple storage roads doesn't necessarily remove the relevance of "swr_" svars, although I agree it could do. The crucial determinate of relevance is whether or not the shunt of empty wagons from a storage road to an Empty siding must include all the wagons in the storage road, or can the number of wagons be limited to those that will fit in the Empty siding. At Wolstanton, the storage road is in series with the Empty sidings, so all the wagons in the storage road must be propelled into the Empty siding and any excess wagons dealt with. If the storage siding was in parallel with the Empty sidings, then the exact number of wagons that will fit in the exhausted Empty siding can be drawn out of the storage siding before propelling into the Empty siding. If there are multiple storage roads in series with the Empty sidings, then one storage road might be designated as a 'bypass' road so that wagons drawn out of a storage road can be propelled past the storage roads via the bypass road in order to reach the Empty siding.

Leigh

 

[steviez]

I dont know if I am in the right section but I am having trouble with error messages when running Loop line lite and the Loop line local session right from the start before the session has loaded the error message box starts flashing, and when the session loads I explore the error message box and it says as follows
4P cab view is out of cabin
Skip animation should start in xxxxxxx seconds (twice)
Error: the slag ladle wagon for blast furnace is missing or incorrectly named. the industry process cannot proceed
same for the hot metal wagon also
Error the slag ladle wagon for blast furnace Shelton bar_bf4 is missing or incorrectly named
MC warning loader path best-2 is disabled invalid TMon one or both of the loader
And the list goes on ?
I have checked and have no missing assets on the route nor the session nor any faulty assets have I missed something when installing the route or sessions any help appreciated.
these all appear even though I am running a passenger session on the lite layout in ts2012 vers 61388 any help appreciated thanks

 

[trev999]

@ steviez - Those messages are warnings and can be ignored. They are generated by industries that have not been provided with wagons to fulfill their needs.

The main reason for the messages is to help the session planner when setting up a particular industry, and to give some indication of what could be wrong when an industry isn't operating correctly. Industries that are not required to operate during a session do complain about missing resources but the messages tail off after a while. You could simply hide the message window and only turn it on if something seems to be wrong with the session.

Best Regards

Trevor

 

[steviez]

Thanks Trev it just got me worried when the message box thing was flashing as I opened the session