Compatible Products . . .

Have a quandary re using a particular product, then finding the appropriate train car to load/unload the chosen freight into.
In M.I.N. products tab, the vehicle/s will sometimes be selected, if not already done so manually.
However while attempting to find a compatible product for the Barlow Box Company asset, and
an appropriate piece of rolling stock to load either boxes,crates,punnets, into, have come to a dead end.

While there's crates, and box, products on the DLS, they tend to be specific for a given country/region.
for North American purposes I tried using bn1970's 'wooden crate - alco traction motor product',
hoping that one of the same authors boxcar builds would accept the payload, after installing 3 or 4 of
those cars, there was still no sign of a loadup (I listed the product as an item!?).

Perhaps there's someone who's struck the same problem, and is able to clue me in on
if there's (a) a product for the BBC asset, and a train car to carry the product or (b), advise
if there's a way to ascertain a particular products preferred vehicle,, especially when there's
not an over abundance of product ( as in the case of empty boxes/crates) to start with, rather
than the hit and miss approach when there's nothing showing in M.I.N. products.

Neither of the Barlow Box Factory assets by Dave Snow on the DLS are interactive, just static scenery, so I'm not surprised you can't load/unload anything from them.

As for finding suitable railcars for a given commodity, I think this only works if you happen to have both the commodity and the railcar already installed. In CM, select the commodity, then right-click and choose List Dependants. You typically get a list of active railcars and various Sessions that use that commodity. I don't think this will work if the railcars are only on the DLS, but not installed.

Maybe other, wiser heads will have a better answer.


.

Fireman --

Do you drive your locomotives manually or are you one of these "I prefer to sit back and watch the AI do all the work" drivers.

If the first there is an easy answer. If the second it becomes more complex.

Phil

Firemanflyn said:

..if there's (a) a product for the BBC asset, and a train car to carry the product or (b), advise
if there's a way to ascertain a particular products preferred vehicle, especially when there's
not an over abundance of product ( as in the case of empty boxes/crates) to start with, rather
than the hit and miss approach when there's nothing showing in M.I.N. products.

Click to expand...

Since the box factories by DES are not industry-active, I guess you would need to use something like a M.I.N. track to make it work like it's active. The type of commodity you want would probably depend on whether it needs to be visible 3D (for use on open railcars) or just an icon for an otherwise invisible commodity (for enclosed boxcars etc).

By searching the DLS for commodities named "box" or "goods", I found an example of each type that might suit.

<kuid2:276266:1112:2> CHN General Goods …… [a mixture of different visible 3D boxes]

<kuid2:198776:100334:2> JTG Cargo Box (Product) …… [just an icon representing a wooden box]

Unfortunately, you usually can't tell what type a commodity is until you download it, open it and check whether it has meshes or just textures.



.

In trying both the CHN General Goods, & the JTG assets, the former may hold some promise, if I can crack the M.I.N. loading prereq's.
As for the JTG product - the M.I.N. products/vehicle list contained hopper cars from a previous 'wheat load' setup(!?), as well as '3' 52ft gondolas
which when loaded, filled with old bricks rather than boxes!. Hmm, do I detect smoke coming from the direction of the box factory . . .

I'm of the school that usually drive their trains over a loading/drop off zone, with the exception of 60 -70 car coal consists.

If you do drive, this is one alternative, even for your long rake of coal cars:


Phil