Default Consolidate - What Is This?

I saved some edits in the NON-ROUTE Session. When I reopened the route I was greeted with a WORKING program and a Session label saying Default Consolidate. This is a new one!! I assume it is what has come to be called a Route Session since the route appears to not have any issues and there is another Session properly labeled with a name I assigned.. It has the meaningless word DEFAULT which is a clue... While harmless (so-far) who knows.

I just got a newer Session. This one has the proper name, date and time in the title but there is no EDIT offered in the menu at the bottom right.
The route is the C&O Hinton.
111951, SP-?. tic-tic....

There is a lot of confusion here.

boleyd said:

I saved some edits in the NON-ROUTE Session.

Click to expand...

What is a "NON-ROUTE Session"? You cannot have a Session without a Route. A Session has a Route as a dependency. If you have used CM to delete the parent Route you will leave left its Session(s) as "Faulty, missing dependencies".

boleyd said:

When I reopened the route I was greeted with a WORKING program and a Session label saying Default Consolidate. This is a new one!!

Click to expand...

The "Default" in front usually means that you have edited a Route in Surveyor without also loading a Session and, when saving, you selected "Save New Route and Session" or "Overwrite Existing Route and Create New Session". In either case a new "Default" Session will be created with the name "Default".

boleyd said:

I just got a newer Session. This one has the proper name, date and time in the title but there is no EDIT offered in the menu at the bottom right.
The route is the C&O Hinton.
111951, SP-?. tic-tic....

Click to expand...

The EDIT only appears on Routes and Sessions. It does not appear on saved Driver Sessions ("Games" saved when in Driver) because they cannot be edited. The date and time in its title is a give-away that it is a Driver Session.

May I recommend the following new Trainz Wiki page - https://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/index.php/Route_and_Session_Basics

Got a newer session? Doesn't compute for me, so where from? As to not being able to edit it, that suggests it's been driven (played) then saved, so you can never edit a session that has been played. As for default consolidate, never seen that one. What next lol.

"newer Session" where from, I don't know. I assumed it was a Route Session not a plain Session.

Now I may be terribly wrong, but the word Session seems to have two meanings. One for the catalog of things used to populate the route. The other meaning is a catalog of operational instructions to operate the route. This latter meaning has become the more accepted meaning. When the word session is used in the forum I always assumed it was instructions. It took awhile to train my calcified brain to the reality of two meanings.

Or, am I missing something?

Dick... let's really simplify things. I'm not trying to "talk down" to you but attempting to illustrate with a simple illustration.

Let's me and you play monopoly. The board is the Route. During play it stays the same. The player pieces, houses, hotels, money, etc is the "session." They change during play.

Let's take our Route and put a consist on it for a freight run. You are now creating a session as you likely want to save that session so you don't have to put a train down every time you want to run it. In addition you can create auto wrecks, train meets, AI trains from portals, and etc that are only for that session of play. And like in Monopoly, when your session is complete you are done with the session (of course you can replay it any time) and your route is just as it was at the beginning. You can now play another round of "Monopoly." Only this time maybe you are the shoe instead of the dog (player pieces). ie' instead of a Freight Run you setup a Passenger Run, or a Mow Run. But because you still have the Freight session you can go back and run it any time. For any Route you could have dozens of sessions. Passenger runs, local yard work, driving a container train, etc etc etc.

I hope this very simple illustration helps. Once you have a Route completed, it's simply the "base" that the sessions (all the action) run on.

boleyd said:

"newer Session" where from, I don't know. I assumed it was a Route Session not a plain Session.

Now I may be terribly wrong, but the word Session seems to have two meanings. One for the catalog of things used to populate the route. The other meaning is a catalog of operational instructions to operate the route. This latter meaning has become the more accepted meaning. When the word session is used in the forum I always assumed it was instructions. It took awhile to train my calcified brain to the reality of two meanings.

Or, am I missing something?

Click to expand...

The discussion of the multiple usage in Trainz of the word "Session" could go on indefinitely. The most straightforward way for a Trainzer to navigate play is to understand what you are trying to do, and access/create new whatevers accordingly. Hanging on the word "Session" is not likely to get you there.

Think 1611mac explained it very well with the Monopoly comparison


I keep things very simple here:
-edit a Route, save a route (i ignore the 2nd save)
-use enough layers (route layers) to keep it handy
-edit a Session, save only a session, never save as Default, but as Routename<sessionname>
-during session edit never change/add anything of/to the base route
-Save games(save during driving) I don't use it
-UDS I don't have or want it.


Keeping the 2 totally separate really helps confusion
What I really miss is separate saving a list of drivercommands(a schedule)
maybe haven't found it yet.
Dick don't give up, just think and find a good workflow for yourself.

What is a session?

Hmmm, I never saw this as a big thing. Even back in the day when TRS2004 was the new kid on the block, they had Routes and Sessions with each Route having one or more Sessions.

Now in TRS19 when I create a new route, I'm asked to also create the first session


Once in the route, the layers tab shows two top levels, a route and a session


When I need them, I can add new layers in either level. If any changes will apply to the route in general, I add it in the route area. If it will only apply to a single session I add it in the session area.


Once everything is saved, I now have two new entrees in Trainz. If I plan on creating a new session, I would open the route and save a new session. If I plan on adding to the existing session, I would open it for editing instead.


This appears to be a stumbling block that is tripping up many people. Even if you get this correct, it doesn't help that there is no on-screen indication to remind one on which layer you are working, often resulting in changes made in the wrong layer.

In Content Manager, there are also two new rows, one for the route and one for the session

Posted this some time ago Martin , check the toprow, it would help always seeing the layer info

Neato, S2.0?