Is there a way to create a consist and save it to CDP?

In Surveyor, I can create and name consists, but I don't know how to archive them.

Here's the deal. After reinstalling Trainz and importing an archived route, I hate having to assemble trains over again car by car and engine by engine from scratch again.

One of the main reasons I have to reinstall Trainz periodically is because engines and other pieces of rolling stock sometimes disappear. Only a reinstall can make certain traincars reappear again or at least make them available to be added to the route again.

When a locomotive that auto-vanishes is coupled to a train, often the consist disappears with the engine it's coupled to. I find myself having to build trains from scratch again traincar by traincar after recovery of the program and content.

I thought about making copies of consists but make them uncoupled to engines and cabooses so they remain intact should an engine or caboose vanish. I then only have to reinsert that engine or caboose that skedaddled on its own prior to the game reinstall. I could bury my consist clones underground in the staging area of a layout as a sort of a train repository. In Surveyor, Consist Mode, one can use the Get tool to touch a train and name it for future regeneration. These consists are lost with game reinstallation.

Consists created and saved in Surveyor, however, are not listed in CM under My Content with a KUID attached to them.

Just find the consist in CM (category = consist), right click and save to CDP.

Thanks Paul. Doing this lists all the consists that are present in the game. Consists do in fact have a KUID number associated with them. :wave:

Your consists will only be in CM if you saved them.


Cheers,
Graham

I have to then make archiving my handmade consists a habit. Each and every one of them. No more of this rebuilding them from scratch crap ever again!

Each time a new instance of the same engine model is generated, an arbitrary number is assigned to it with a dash (-) in front of it. SP SD40T-2-1, SP SD40T-2-2 and so on. I then have to go back into Sessions and make sure drivers are assigned to the correct drivable vehicles by this arbitrary number so the right schedules match up with the right trains. Schedules follow drivers and drivers are assigned to engines. Obviously, we can't have a streetcar schedule paired up with a helicopter. I don't want a freight schedule attached to a driver assigned to a passenger train. I might have SP SD40T-2's pulling a passenger train but also a freight train on a given route. The numerical/dash extension to a content object name positively identifies duplicate traincars of the same model so there is no confusion as to which engine is which. I might have 25 SP SD40T-2's on the same route. The SP SD40T-2 is my flagship loco. I only build routes based upon western American themes. Western road names dominate. Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, Burlington Northern, BNSF, Sante Fe, ATSF. Growing up in coastal California, there are more SP engines and SP cabooses on my layouts than anything else.

Hopefully, when a consist with an engine is saved and archived, the arbitrary instance number of the engine is saved with it too. I might have a consist with SP SD40T2-5 pulling it in the lead. When I place this saved consist back on the track following a recovery of the route, the lead engine should still be named SP SD40T2-5, the 5th instance of this loco model. This might be a cattle train. On the Drivers roster, the driver, Dave, with the cattle train schedule should already have SP SD40T2-5 assigned to him.

As far as I know, saved consists don't save locomotive "names" or numbers/names on plates, or loads on cars. That is, cars of a consist are always empty when you are placing the saved consist on the track.

Regards
Swordfish

You are correct. I just tried to place a saved consist on a test route. Traincar numbers and such aren't preserved. You get trains of the same rolling stock models and makeup with random road numbers (or no numbers, some engines are blank by default) and that's it. There is still the bother of having to renumber the engines (if you don't like the random numbers chosen) and make sure drivers with schedules are matched up to the correct instance (loco name) of an engine on a route. I guess we can't have everything. The only custom loads I have on freight consists are coupled to engines that fortunately never seem to want to "go AWOL" on me. All the freight trains with engines that are prone to drop off the route occasionally are loaded randomly anyway. Trainz software engineers did not make this game that fancy so as to save all those tiny details. There is always some manual patching up of stuff to do following a disaster recovery.