"Running a Railroad" - Creating a working railroad - How? Advice please.

OP here.. I need to learn much more about sorting, transfers, division points, interchange, etc. so until I understand all that better I'm going to pick a (not too big) well done (signaling, etc) freeware route and just start setting up a "mythical" railroad with some sort of schedule. Very simple to begin with and I'll just keep adding and learning and see just how well I can "tame" AI. We'll see where that takes me.

On the Route creation side I have baseboards and terrain for a 50 mi Local (in the U.S. Midwest) but I doubt I'll develop that at all. Not enough activity. It was really just for learning how to use TransDEM. I also have a one board route taken from an HO track plan. It's about 50% finalized but again, it's too simple. It was for learning how to use surveyor and the surveyor tools.

yard work:

you have a ten track yard, track one is for west bounds, two is east bounds, three is locals, four is coal, five is westbounds again, six is east bounds again, seven and eight are extra tracks, and then nine and ten are ready tracks.

usually you have a yard crew on each side.
If you are set in the caboose era, make a caboose track
you will need one or more locomotive tracks.

A train comes in on track 9, the cars on it as follows and is in order, 10 cars are going east, 7 are for locals, 3 are for going back eastward, and then there are 25 coal cars. Now that you have a train, sort it by the rules above and that is basically how a yard works.

One recommendation if you can find it is a book "How to Operate a Model Railroad". I'm not recommending you pick a model railroad, but before I virtual railroading became popular 20 years ago we started on very small layouts or had to join clubs. In fact some simulations on the PC do a better job than others to allow the full experience a model railroad can come close to achieving due to no limits of software.

The reason why I suggest this book is because it goes into the various roles of prototypical operations. This may not be for you or everyone but for me the realistic the goals the more immersion you will feel.

I haven't operated in Trainz much but for the last decade was into Run8. I had a brief stint with Trainz prior to it but was disappointed. I'm happy with TRS2019 now. I have the North American edition so I can't speak for other routes. But Kickstarter is a real good route for operations. I was playing around it while waiting for TransDem to come in because I stopped working on my original route. The Canadian Rockies is beautiful and more prototypical looking as it's spaced out correctly and not overlapping like Kickstarter. But it has limited industries and mostly just through traffic and a few runs from the mines and back.

I am developing the line in my home area and have avoided downloading any other routes. I don't have any first class tickets so downloads are slow or impossible (which is fine by me because you get what you pay for). This allows me to develop my own area my own way.

When you finally get to operating (and I did for a little while) I recommend quick drive mode. The reason why this is essential is because you are no longer at the mercy of any script. Not to say there aren't good scripts and sessions. But having the freedom allows you to be more creative and continue progress. For example in Niagara I build trains on staging yards and bring in traffic just like the prototype. I stick to an area and don't expand beyond it (so I'm looking at working on about 50 miles of mainline with other short lines and interchanges).

The thing that I liked about run8 was continuing where you left off. Loading up the save because it makes all that work continue and never end. For example I have inbound trains I build from scratch with help from RTS spreadsheets I develop (eventually I'll build the software). They have destinations and then I bring it in to Port Robinson. I can have that train totally AI since there are few trains in my system by simply getting on board and giving it a drive to command. Then I can go back in the yard and continue work on the outbound with the inbound arriving as I work. Once these are switched and built out for new trains to the interchanges, industries I can run them. AI them a bit if I need to multi-task.

Now I didn't actually get that far but it's pretty easy to see that I can get a 24 hour cycle in for Niagara. There are only scheduled passengers on 20 miles of mainline to the north. A freight in the north in both directions. 2 freights and locals on the southern section. Another railroad with operating rights joins the mix further south. Short line on the west side. In total I have about 2 dozen industries give or take a few.

But there are many fine routes out there to have a similar set-up. For me personally unless an author describes the operation or has plenty of scenarios built in it's difficult for me to enjoy it. This is why I now enjoy building my own route. Though I miss operations, I enjoy the creative process that is building towards it.

Thanks

Sean

@Sean

When you finally get to operating (and I did for a little while) I recommend quick drive mode. The reason why this is essential is because you are no longer at the mercy of any script.


Trainz executes on scripts and native code. You certainly do not avoid them in Quick Drive mode. Also, idiosyncrasies have been reported in QD. It is safer to save and go back to driver mode.

Seane2c said:

One recommendation if you can find it is a book "How to Operate a Model Railroad". -snip-
Sean

Click to expand...

I have Model Railroader's "Realistic Model Railroad Operation" by Tony Koester. I went through it some time ago. Need to dig it out again.

I misspoke. I use all kinds of scripts. I'm talking about canned sessions. You can create a session but limiting your movement to the limitations of any scripts inside a session. That is why I mention quick drive, and I usually use the quick drive rule with my own custom session of various rules such as switch lists, etc.

Thanks

Sean

Yes, I've created many sessions and understand the implications of the scripts used (especially within beta releases.) That is a good point.

OP here. I've read some great articles about how railcars move, division points, sorting, etc and I've subscribed to Model Railroaders Archive so I now can find and read articles back to 1934! I'm learning more about detailed (and proper) operations, now I've got to apply that knowledge to how I operate on Trainz. I knew most of this casually but never really sat down and thought about the details that really make the difference in "real world" operation.

(Running a session yesterday and delivering cars to industries, largely on spurs, I thought, "Why were these cars not sorted for this run in the yard?")

1611mac said:

OP here. I've read some great articles about how railcars move, division points, sorting, etc and I've subscribed to Model Railroaders Archive so I now can find and read articles back to 1934! I'm learning more about detailed (and proper) operations, now I've got to apply that knowledge to how I operate on Trainz. I knew most of this casually but never really sat down and thought about the details that really make the difference in "real world" operation.

(Running a session yesterday and delivering cars to industries, largely on spurs, I thought, "Why were these cars not sorted for this run in the yard?")

Click to expand...

That sounds like a great subscription. There are some great articles in the older magazines. I remember reading them when I got older, but they weren't mine to keep because they belonged to a friend's father.

What does that cost?
Is this online?

Kind of pricey, yes. But when you consider what you get it's worth it I think, even just for historic reasons. The photo's are priceless. The information invaluable. You must subscribe to the paper magazine. Then you can get a subscription to the "archive" which provides digital editions of Model Railroader since 1934.

$77 a year for the Magazine subscription (paper mag) AND one year access of Archive. It is working fine on my desktop/web browser. They say there is an app for tablets/phones but I can only find a "Model Railroader" app which appears to be for current digital editions only, not the archive. I have a request in to them asking about an iPad/iPhone app (the ad says there is one, I don't find it in App store). But I'm not convinced a phone/tablet will be fast enough for me. It has a search feature so you can search through all mags since 1934.

https://mrr.trains.com/archiveaccess

Edit: See update below in next post. There is no longer a mobile app.

UPDATE TO ABOVE POST:
The "mobile app" mentioned in the Kalmbach advertising is no longer available. Access is via web browser only. I replied to Kalmbach letting them know that I was not bothered by the app being "pulled" but I told them that not correcting their website "ad" amounted to false advertising. Here is Kalmbach support's reply to my original question about my not being able to find the app on Apple App Store.