Is This A Reasonable Example

I have a "customer" activity (no others active) that picks up a string of boxcars. Delivers them to a customer and returns to a trackmark in the yard. 33 miles in 1 hour and 38 minutes. Just as a general observation of this versus real-life, would the time taken seem unusually high? Or, in real-life, would the cost to the customer be prohibitive and they would consider trucking?


Reality is my objective, not maximum concurrent activity. PC is Windows 11 with i7 cpu, 3070 video and 16gb RAM. I can watch TV, in another window, and run this with no stutters. The route uses the MGSSAPPER Main Coastal as a base. Fully "landscaped"....

Maybe depends on how many boxcars in the "string"? The equivalent in trucks may be cost prohibitive as well, if it takes two or more semis to match one boxcar load. If you have six boxcars, that might equal maybe a dozen trucks, and then it depends on how many loading docks you have for trucks. Just a thought.

Yep, as you illustrate there are several components. The prudent thing is to assign "best guess: values to each and do a cost study. Might show that I need to find a truck simulator In that 1 1/2 hour period I need to establish several other activities. My ideal route would be one of the Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. A few hundred miles but not all trains traverse the entire route. My old i5 cpu struggled to even load that route. I have lived near Pittsburgh all my life. My Grandparents lived only a few hundred yards from the Pennsy railroad. Anyhow, thanks for your comments. They focus me on the detail of individual customers and their needs.

I had an IBM class in Pittsburgh about twenty years ago. Beautiful city! They were just building the new football stadium, and I stayed in the hotel there near the point where the rivers join. I went and saw the model railroad downstairs in the - was it the Carnegie Science Center? Took up the whole basement and had a very realistic looking steel mill operating. Took a ride up the Duquesne Incline. I really enjoyed my stay there!
EDIT: When I lived in Pasco, Washington, I worked for a little while in a Lamb Weston french fry factory there. I worked in shipping, and they shipped both ways. We loaded refrigerated boxcars on one side, and the semis backed up to the loading docks on the other side, with the freezers in the middle. I guess it is really up to the customer and how much they want, and which way they want it shipped.