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Manual - Albion Software

1. I made a few simple changes to your example 1 which I think might be useful to other new users I added a branch north out of Harrison serving one town with one industry which consumes coal I then added a local to serve the branch which departs Harrison after the return of the Thurston Daily Finally I set the Do Not Convert box for the Harrison Yard coal consignee To my surprise not only did my new local take coal up the new branch but it also worked local industries in Harrison both before and after its trip up the branch It is also interesting to watch the other coal users in Harrison using the coal set out in the yard This is a good example of how to develop train to train interchange of cars within a single division See chapter 8 for an explanation of Do Not Convert Thanks Larry 14 2 SAMPLE LAYOUTS The Union Lines B amp LE Union RR Butler Division 7 _ RL Staging Erie Butler McBride Culmerville River Valley offline A B amp LE Interchange B amp LE Storage Track Interchange Union RR East Pittsburgh Division P amp WV A gt Staging PRR Interchange Morgantown Hall East Pittsburgh Staging Duquesne Munhall offline A Hall Junction P amp WV Junction Munhall Yard Interchange Interchange P amp WV Junction Hall Yard Storage track Example 2 The Union Lines F Denotes an Interchange Denotes a Town The Union Lines is my home layout Essentially it is a point to
2. Ship It Version 7 0 c 1995 2007 Albion Software Example 2 Sessin 3 DBR File Rolling Stock Industry Trains Divisions Generate Diagnostics Print Window Help a W k Fr Mh tif e i uo Products Icon Industry Icon Trains Icon Caboose Icon Rolling Stock Icon DET N A IR Icon Bar 5 2 Introduction 6 2 Database Tab ae 6 2 Names and Dates Tab ne 6 2 Options 1 Tab unenenesenannen 6 3 Options 2 Tab Car Cards Tab 6 4 THE FILE MENU 6 1 The File menu E Rolling ste Options Allows you to set many configuration options as detailed in the Options Tabs sections below Options Backup Backup This selection will back up the current database directo Restore ry to the drive of your choice For example if you are in the prima Export ry database and you choose the F Drive the files will be backed up to F shipback primary These can then be restored using the Exit restore option see below The files are not compressed so they can also be copied using Explorer Restore This option restores a database backed up using the Backup menu item above It restores to the current database direc tory from the similarly named backup up area on the backup drive For example if you backed up to the F Drive from the primary directory you can restore it by 1 If using a removable drive make sure it is attached Also verify the drive letter 2
3. Browse Train Schedules Train 100 East Pittsburgh Pickup JO x own Arrival Time Notes 4 6 00AM mi Kir Insert change Delete TRAIN MENU Browse Condensed Switchlist Browse Switchlist for Train 100 East Pittsburgh Pickup E Rpt Miks_ Number AAR Lading From fro a Use this button to view edit the switchlist database San oa E ee PRET 601248 AM 200 Wilsons Gran W records for the highlighted train You must generate your 2 UP 151276 XM Crucible Ser Vi oc ch 3 BLE 32468 XM Crucible Scr PF sessions with the option Export to Condensed Switchlist P BLE 25061 XM Fertilizer PRRintercha He Database During Session Generation turned on to use 5 PRR 60111 XM tractorpa PRRIntercha H p 5 6 WAB 14550 GB crushed st Crucible Ser Hi this see chapter 6 You can add new switching moves 7 B amp O 233507 HD PRR Intercha Ha delete and change any switchlist records from the browse 8 c amp 0 37075 GB Hall Yard C i 9 PLE 34183 XM loose scra Wilsons Gran C that appears see screen shots to the right From this 40 PRR 825037 GB Hall Yard Cr window you can also block your trains See below rls The update form for the switchlist database is also seen Insert _ Change _ Delete Close to the right Car moves that are not possible from auto Block From To Block To From matic generation can be added and or modified here An example of this would b
4. Note The full Deluxe Balancer Users Manual Version 6 by Dr Jean C Piquette can be found in your Ship It soft ware installation See the full user manual for any chapter references in this section A Shiplt database reflects the movement of products that take place on a real railroad Products moving from ship pers to consignees But if your shippers produce products faster than your consignees can accept them or your con signees request deliveries faster than your shippers can pro duce them your database will grind to a halt in fairly short order Your database is out of balance The Deluxe Balancer is a software program that helps Shiplt users correct such imbalances While the primary function of the Deluxe Balancer certainly is the automatic balancing of your database it also does much much more For example i The Deluxe Balancer will determine whether you have the right mix of cars needed for your database See the description of the car mix report in Chapter V Also see Chapter IV for ways you can use the Deluxe Balancer to help change the car mix if you don t like what you see ii The Deluxe Balancer will also tell you if you are running the right number of trains and will break down the needed number of trains for you division by division See Chapter VII iii By studying the industry report and the product report described in Chapter V as well as the divisional net flow report and divisional produ
5. Storage Yard This is the name of the yard where loads are sent after they time out The time out for loads is calculated exactly the same way as for empties except that the shippers duration time is multiplied by the multiplication factor yes the same one used for empties instead of the consignees duration time When setting this up you must make sure that cars can get to the storage yard the cars must be able to get there on a single train and the storage yard must be in the same divi sion The purpose of the storage yard is to open up critical siding space to allow for more car movement so make sure the storage yard you select has lots of space If you do not fill in the storage track the load will sit at the shippers sid ing until requested by a consignee The Build Up of Loads Multiplication Factor For Maximum Number of Loads This factor with a default of two controls the build up of loads at a shipper This factor is multiplied by the number of empties requested to calculate the maximum number of loads which will build up If the number in the empties field in the Shipper Update Window is two and this fac tor is set to two no more than four loads will build up No more empties will be requested till the number of loads there drops to three If your sidings are becoming clogged with loads reduce this factor to 1 5 or 1 Keep in mind this factor is a global value it pertains to all shippers on the la
6. 9 Priority bo 4 E10 5 ____ Car Style Hopper 6s i Notes 5 Car Style This is a display only field which is filled in automatically when the product is selected above each product in the products file already knows which car style it needs If you wish to change this field you must change the product 6 Notes Optional description field 7 Duration This determines how long in hours it takes to empty a car loaded with the product called out above The loaded car will sit for that many hours before the program converts it to an empty then it becomes eligi ble for pickup and delivery as an empty Required 8 Amount This number defines how many cars this industry likes to receive per shipment of the products called out above Required Fields Train Types Pre sets Tab 1 Do Not Convert Use this checkbox to prevent loads from changing to empties and vice versa This is useful when you want to ship loads to an interchange or yard to be picked up by another train Normally loads and emp ties will reverse their state after their duration is exceed ed You can use this to implement intra divisional car interchange train to train interchange of cars within a single division Note This option is not required and should not be used when you are shipping between divi sions It should only be used for transferring cars between trains within a single division To set up the transfer of cars between 2 or more division
7. Special credit should be given here to Dr Jean C Piquette for developing the concept of demand and priority as used in the program along with suggesting the use of a storage yard to alleviate blockage at shipper locations For Ship It to perform to its optimum shippers and con signees should be balanced What each consignee receives must be balanced by what each shipper ships If you expe rience good car movement the first few sessions and then experience steadily declining car movement each session thereafter your shippers and consignees are not balanced This situation is made worse if there is a high percentage of 1 or 2 car sidings on your layout because sidings get filled Ship It will not move cars to a siding that is full Therefore if sidings are blocked by loaded cars waiting to be shipped empty cars waiting to go to their home yard empties waiting to be loaded or loads waiting to be emp tied cars will not be able to move Because of this keep your duration times at or under 24 hours There may be instances when you want longer dura tion times but try to keep these to a minimum If you have the luxury of long sidings you may increase duration times for those industries but keep in mind this will slow your car movement Above all do not have any duration times above 24 hours when you are starting out Frequencies should also be kept low at or under 24 hours for the same reasons If industries are not reques
8. Town Han Siding Han Yard Drop Off At optional Clear Fields Town Han Siding Junity Interchange Record will be Changed the actual number of cars on a train when it leaves a town based on what occurs in the switchlist Cancel Pick Up At optional Cancel Locomotive Browse When selecting a locomotive from the locomotive browse you may notice locomotives displayed in red text This means that these locomotives are already assigned to a train When reassigning locomotives between sessions it is best to use Clear Motive Power Assignments in the Generate menu This will clear all loco assignments and display all locos in blue in the loco browse Then you can reassign locomotives Just because a loco is displayed in red does not mean that you can t use it It is your job to determine if the locomotive can be used more than once in a session based on schedules Introduction uaseseessnsnneseessennnnnenenennnnnennnennnnnennnnnnnnnnnnnnn 10 2 Start Fresh 2 a Bais So Anan 10 2 Generate Session iint kkss kuseni lkeiteitentem 10 4 Add New Cars asked 10 5 Last Pass 4th Pass Random Generation eee 10 6 Measuring Siding and Train Capacity in Feet or other units 10 6 GENERATE MENU 10 1 The Generate menu allows you to set up and gen erate operating sessions Start Fresh is used to set up your first session It can also be used to reset your sessions back to the
9. staging towns A staging town is any town that has it s staging checkbox towns update window checked This tells Ship It that any industries belonging to that town are staging industries Staging Industries You will need to set up industries inside your staging These industries should have shippers and consignees that ship receive products that correspond with the goods shipped received by your on line industries You should set up one industry per staging town that contains many shippers consignees Default Staging Destination Every train visiting a staging town must have a default staging destination or errors will occur during session generation Cars dropped off at staging industries they really stay with the train convert immediately to loads or empties and leave with the train when the train leaves staging The default staging destination is an industry on the train s schedule that any cars go to who do not have requests from on line industries The default staging des tination is almost always an online industry not in stag ing on the current trains schedule This industry is where cars which do not have online requests will go to when the train leaves staging There is only one case when the default staging destination will itself be in staging and this is when you set up paired staging discussed below When paired staging is set up the default staging destination will be at the end of the trains schedule
10. 12 8 12 9 12 9 TABLE OF CONTENTS VII 13 Common Problems Selection Window Not Appearing nee 13 2 File Error in get_divname uuseesenesensesnenneneenn 13 2 File Error in get train type een 13 2 Other Errors eueeeenseesesseeenenneennnnennnnnnsnnnnnennnnnnnene 13 2 Division Problems 28 52 a 13 2 14 Sample Layouts Example 1 The H amp RRR eenene 14 2 Example 2 The Union Lines cneene 14 3 Example 3 2 Kenunae a 14 4 15 Tips Suggestions Debugging Checklist for Lack of Car Movement 15 2 Diagnosties nee 15 5 16 Divisions Tutorial 16 2 17 Setting Up Hidden Staging Introduction rate Ran aan 17 2 Two Types of 17 2 St gInB a nenn 172 Definitions How Loads amp Empties Convert 17 3 How To Set Up 17 4 Sta es e i 17 5 A Paired Set of Staging Trains nee 17 6 Staging Used in a Turn or Out and Back 17 6 Through Staging as Part of a 17 6 Loop 17 6 Through Staging in a Point to Point Layout 17 7 Return Loop Staging iisti Common Staging uneennneneneenseneennennen Disappearing Cars Local amp Thru Pick Ups 18 Local and Through Trains iA TH pcs euere 18 2 Usine One Tralies sae e cess tochh ssi se evs S NEEE t 18 2 Using Two Drain eneren sree ni 18 2 Example 1 c ccccceccsssesssssssseseesssssssecsescssssesscssseceensersssseees 18 3 Sending amp
11. Browse Towns Iof x Division Harrison Al Insert Change Delete Description gt Close Please Select The Town Where The Industry Resides Bypassing The Mouse The following keys will allow you to insert and delete records plus hop from field to field all without the use of the mouse The Insert Key Similar to pressing the insert button The Delete Key Similar to pressing the delete button Tab Advances to the next entry field or control Shift Tab Goes back to the previous field or control Enter Similar to pressing the OK button 3 4 Esc Similar to pressing the cancel button Page Up Scrolls browse list one page up Page Down Scrolls browse list one page down Ctrl Page Up Scrolls browse list to top Ctrl Page Down Scrolls browse list to bottom What About Deletes enen 4 2 Delete Related Records Only When NECESSAy nennen 4 2 Delete Error Message nee 4 2 DELETING amp CHANGING RECORDS 4 1 Introduction Changing and deleting records for unrelated information is straight forward The change button on a browse allows you to change the highlighted record and the delete button allows you to delete it However when the information in the files is related you should be aware of a few things Cascading Changes When you change a record referenced by other files that change will cascade through
12. Change Delete Close Update Consignee mE E General Train Types Pre sets Duration 24 El Industry centraiaDairy 3833 Town Cena Amount 4 Product mik Frequency 24 AAR Type e Priority p 4 Car Style Reefer 00 Notes o O O Cancel Record will be Changed 16 3 Step 7 Enter one consignee for Johnsburg Foundry select Consignee from the Industry pull down menu Fill the update form as shown to the right Most of the fields should be selections from information you have previous ly entered Note fill out the Primary Train Type field as general freight in the Train Type Pre sets Tab the only field from this tab filled in Step 8 Enter one shipper for Nellie Mine 1 select Shipper from the Industry pull down menu This shipper will supply Johnsburg Foundry with coal Fill the update form as shown to the right Most of the fields should be selec tions from information you have previously entered Step 9 Enter one shipper for Farmers Milk Cooperative select Shipper from the Industry pull down menu This shipper will supply Centralia Dairy with milk Fill the update form as shown to the right Most of the fields should be selections from information you have previously entered Step 10 Enter the East Centralia Interchange data select Interchange from the Divisions pull down menu This interchange connects the Eastern Division to the Central Division Fill the update form as shown
13. Hall Munhall From Industry Hall Yard To Industry Munhall Yard From Interchange To Interchange P amp VV Junction Divisional Results Train Number 1000 found between towns Munhall Morgantown From Industry Munhall Yard To Industry Morgantown Freight From Interchange P amp A Junction To Interchange Above is a sample of the report that Print Diagnostic Results gets you Shown are two shippers at the B amp LE interchange on the Example 2 database Note that the database settings for both shippers and consignees are shown The first shipper produce has only one matching consignee found at the McBride Cannery The results of this shipper con signee combination are shown in the third line Results Train 200 This tells you that a car can get from the shipper to the con signee on Train 200 The second shipper general freight from B amp LE also shows two consignees The first consignee has result of Train 200 also The second consignee shows Divisional Success for the Results Pay attention to the lines below Results Div Success These lines detail exactly how a shipment can get between the shipper and consignee Each train that the car must go on its journey is listed along with the industries and interchanges involved In this example it takes three trains for the car to get from B amp LE Interchange to Morgantown Freight Industry B amp LE Town Butler Capacity Shipper produce Empties 1 Duration
14. Make sure you are in the correct database directory primary in this case 3 Select Restore from the File Menu and enter the correct drive letter 4 Press Perform Restore Be wary of backing it up to the same drive as the software is installed on if the drive goes down you ll be out of luck Export This option will export the condensed switchlists to a comma delimited file In conjunction with other software this file can be used to create your own switchlists Note the Export to Condensed Switchlists option Option Tab Car Cards is turned on before you generate a session you wish to export Options O O Database Names and Dates Options e e Select the Pike Database This tells the program which Options Introduction database You ward E work ein Pike Database Primary Your main layout The option window is where you set all your preferences or i p p options in Ship It Secondary For a second layout or one to play with Database Tab Example 1 Prebuilt sample layout C Example 2 Another prebuilt sample layout There are four databases available to you within Ship It Three of these are built in databases for you to learn from and experiment with Example 1 is a simple layout I developed for Cancel testing Example 2 is my home layout Example 2 is more complicated and is a good example of how to use divisions to generate car traffic The primary database is for you to use Database N
15. backups of your database available should you accidentally do something that you regret So if your database is more or less set up let s get started with balancing Completed 3 31 11 1 items found Completed 3 31 11 0 orphans found Completed 3 31 11 2 product overlaps found Completed 3 31 11 0 Consignee Duration Problems Completed 3 31 11 0 Division Problems found Completed 3 31 11 1 NS NC Staging Problems found Completed 3 31 11 Completed 3 31 11 Print Error Report Close not be in balance even after using the Deluxe Balancer if any consignee durations exceed the associated frequencies Check Divisions will check whether you have selected a trunk see Set Divisions below and will also test for and report other divisional setup errors Check Staging checks against some staging rules that must be followed for balancing see Staging and Balancing sec tion below The balancer will also give helpful information in correcting many staging errors The following buttons help set up your database for balanc ing Set Durations to 1 this sets all your durations to 1 hour allows quicker turnover of cars which is helpful but not necessary if you have reasons to not do so Set Divisional Values this allows access to where you select a trunk division and access other divisional setup items regarding balancing You must identify one of your divisions as the trunk division The trunk division is a
16. controlled by the AAR type selection above If you wish to change this field you must change the AAR type of the car 5 Home Yard This designates what yard the car belongs to This is the yard the car returns to or attempts to return to when it is empty and is not immediately needed elsewhere Also for the first session extra cars not placed at industries are automatically assigned to their home yard New cars added to the layout also start out at their home yard Selecting this field causes the Industry Browse Window to appear Select your choice from this window Required 6 Available When this box is checked the car is avail able on the layout Uncheck this box if you want to remove the car from the layout couplers need adjusted etc or if you don t want start fresh put the car on the layout If the car is marked as unavailable box unchecked and you make it available you will need to run Add New Cars see chapter 10 to put the car on the layout unless you are going to run Start Fresh 7 Car Length If you are using the option Measure Siding and Train Capacity by Length from Tab 5 Options Window you must set the length of each car that is available You can use any units you like as long as you are consistent You must round to the nearest unit no fractions or decimal fractions See chapters 6 and 10 for further explanation of this feature 7 3 Update Rolling Stock 8 Fill With Last Car Data
17. side of their home division during start fresh If you use Pre set car routes it is possible a car was placed by start fresh outside its home division where its home yard is located will not be able to find its way home Multiplication Factor For Sending Empties Home Ship It automatically routes empties to their home yard if they have not been requested by a shipper within a cer tain amount of time What this does is give you control over the length of this time This factor is multiplied by the duration time see chapter 8 for the empties con signee record For example if the duration time for a hopper of coal was 24 hours and the multiplication fac tor was 2 then the empty would sit if it was not request ed by a shipper for 48 hours before being sent back to it s home yard To decrease this amount of time decrease the multiplication factor But keep in mind this variable is applied to all the industries on your layout Because it is dependent on the duration time this total number of hours can be different for each product received If your empties are sitting too long when you feel they should be moving try reducing this variable and see what happens If empties are not being picked up locally inside the same town try increasing this number so the empty stays longer rather than returning to the home yard This variable is also used to determine the time out peri od in a similar calculation to the above for loads b
18. that do not have any matches on your layout this is useful for debugging The Industry Status Report gives the status of all cars on the layout by industry The Empty Request Report and the Load Request Report let you know what your various industries are requesting Other reports are described further on in this chapter Preview The Preview menu option allows you to control whether you wish to preview your reports on screen before you send them to your printer Simply click on the Preview menu item to toggle this option on or off When you click on this option the Print menu will close but if you click on Print to open it again you will see the check mark has either been added or removed You can then click on the report you would like printed Note Some reports always enter preview mode no matter what the setting The Print Preview Window This window shown below allows you to view your reports before you send them to the printer On the title bar you will see various options such as zoom The spy glass allows you to zoom also The page spin box lets you advance through the pages of the report The across and down box allows you to display more than one page on the screen Starting Car Locations Starting Car Locations prints out a report detailing all car locations at the start of the current operating session Included is information such as Town where the car is 11 2 Window Help Print Setup v Preview Da
19. where the train converts to the next train It is very important that you understand the concept of the default staging destination before you set up hidden staging Simply put the default staging destination is where all cars in staging go to that do not have on line requests If none of the cars are being requested by on line industries then all of the cars will go to the default staging destination The default staging destination pro vides a destination for any cars on a staging train that do not have on line requests How Empties and Loads Convert Inside Staging When loads arrive in staging they are converted to emp ties If there are no on line requests for these cars they will be sent to the default staging destination for the train they are on When empties arrive in staging they are converted to loads What loads they are converted to depends on the AAR type of the car and the shippers associated with the staging industry If there are multiple shipper records set up for this industry the default stag ing destination industry the program cycles through the shipper records assigning cars the loads specified there This is not randomly done the AAR types of each car must match the AAR type specified for the product being shipped before the assignment takes place If you are shipping mixed freight your staging industries should have multiple shipper records If an empty entering staging does not match any of the ship
20. x Add new cars did NOT complete successfully Either there A were no new cars in the rolling stock file meaning all cars in H this file were on the layout or there was no room in the home yard for the new cars Delete Activity Report Data Trim Session Database Use these only if you need to make your database smaller for backup purposes or other reasons Last Pass 4th Pass Random Generation This option located in Options Tab 5 causes the program to generate a last pass of car movement using a different algorithm than the rest of the program The program attempts to move any car that has not moved in the current session Car properties such as product loading unloading next destination and final destination are ignored Only the car type whether the car is a load or an empty and optional ly see the option below train type are considered when attempting to move the car If the car is an empty the pro gram tries to find a shipper that uses the same car type first in the town that the car is currently sitting at and then in the towns ahead on all of the train schedules that impact the car If the program finds a shipper with the same car type as the car and there is room for the car at the location of the shipper and train length has not been violated the car is moved If the car is a load the program tries to find a con signee where the car type matches Random Generation is a misnomer here I only
21. 3 Update Rolling Stock Window 7 3 Revise Location Tab ee 7 4 ROLLING STOCK MENU The Rolling Stock menu allows you to view and update the data files pertaining to rolling stock on your lay out The AAR Types window allows you to define all the AAR types that pertain to your era The Road Names win dow allows you to input all your road names this saves you typing later on Last of all the Rolling Stock window is where you input all of your car information The Rolling Stock file uses data from the other files in this menu Update AAR Type Window This window provides AAR Type selection in the prod uct and rolling stock files AAR Types are used by the products file to determine what type of car is required to ship a product and are also used by the rolling stock file Affects During operating session generation affects car selection and delivery to industries If a product such as coal calls out an AAR type of HD hopper then only hoppers will be used to ship the product and only empty hoppers will be shipped to the industry producing that product for the purpose of loading with coal Fields 1 AAR Type AAR Mechanical Designation Ship It comes with some basic AAR Types already entered into the database If you need more see The Official Railway Equipment Register for your era These can be found at flea markets etc Private codes can also be used Required Ro I in
22. It is very important that you scrutinize each movement of the car from shipper to the first interchange from the first interchange to the second etc from the last inter change to the consignee It is possible that the inter change or sequence of interchanges involved are not what you had in mind The test may look successful but you could still end up with stranded cars This is why you need to examine the sequence of interchanges listed and compare them to the train schedules you have estab lished Division diagnostics is really just a way of testing out your divisions interchanges without running any sessions But you need to apply your own logical thinking to it Only you know the path of car movement you want your cars to take The Messages If the shipper and the consignee are in the same division a message will appear telling you this This means that car traffic between the shipper and the consignee will not go through an interchange If the shipper and the consignee are in adjacent divisions divisions connected directly through one interchange a message will print out stating Shipper and consignee are in adjacent divisions Car Route not required for this shipment Interchange software fills in the interchange name Interchange Storage Track software fills in interchange storage track name This lets you know that a car route is not required for this shipment and that a car can get from the shipper
23. Name Foley s Coal Yard A oo gas lt Interchange ity lt Yard Notes Car Capacity 3 lt Siding Cancel Record will be Changed Cancel Record will be Changed 3 3 Which Files Should I Enter Data In First Data can be entered in the database on the fly that is at the point it is required However for the beginning user it is better to have the data already entered Then when you are comfortable with the software you can try entering data on the fly The rightmost column in the file on page 3 3 shows which data files you should fill in first so that data is available when you need it First fill in all the columns labeled 1 then all the columns labeled 2 and so forth Unless of course you re brave and want to try data entry on the fly Entering Data On The Fly Entering data on the fly is used when you need to select an item from a browse window but the item has not been entered yet Let s say you are entering the record for a new industry and you have entered the town field The towns browse window appears allowing you to select the town the industry is located in The following picture shows the town browse window asking for the user to select the town where the industry resides At this point if you do not see the town you need it can be entered via the insert button The insert delete and change buttons here perform the identical functions as in a normal browse window
24. One Train Type 18 2 Using Two Train Types e 18 2 Example 1 erkenne 18 3 Sending and Rec As A Thru Train Type 18 3 LOCAL AND THROUGH TRAINS This Chapter explains how to set up local and through trains on your layout Before you attempt to set up local and through train types make sure that you are able to ship car loads across your divisions using a single train type The most popular reason for using local and through train types is to allow you to pick cars up on a local way freight take these cars to an interchange and then have the cars picked up on a through train Depending on the destination of the cars they will be dropped off at interchanges along the mainline From there other local freights will take the cars to their destinations Using One Train Type Simpler Local Through Train Set Up By careful train scheduling you can set up local and through trains without using two train types Use general freight or anything for all your trains just so they all match Next make sure the trains you call Through Freights even though they are of the general freight train type do not visit any towns that have industries in them or they will switch them From interchanges these need to be set up with divisions see chapter 12 run trains to the towns with industries You may need to use the tech nique described at the end of the chapter to make this work This technique involves splitting
25. Receiving as a Thru Train 18 3 19 Balancing 19 1 20 Feature List for Versions 5 8 20 1 VII TABLE OF CONTENTS Minimum System Requirements e Any version of Microsoft Windows inc WIN 7 VISTA XP WIN 2000 WIN 98 WIN ME WIN NT WIN 95 e CD ROM Drive e Mouse e Printer supported by Windows Installation Place the CD into your CD ROM drive close the drive and the install program will load after a short peri od of time Please note I strongly advise using the default setting for the installation directory If you must install to another location make sure the installation directory does not contain more than 8 characters It should also have no spaces and the characters should be alpha numeric Backups There are backup and restore options in the File pull down menu Read chapter 6 for more information Tech Support Chapter 13 Common Problems and Chapter 15 Tips Suggestions Diagnostics are very helpful If you are setting up divisions and interchanges study chapter 12 carefully See the Quick Checklist for Lack of Car Movement in Chapter 1 There are also numerous reports in that can help you in debugging your operations in Chapter 1 Please pay attention to the introduction letter and START SLOW Gain success using the basics before you tackle more complicated features For example do not try to set up local and through train switching before you have mastered divisions and do not set up divisions until you
26. also must be the first stop on the next trains schedule On a train that does not convert to a next train the default staging destination cannot be the last town in the trains schedule if that town is in staging See the chapter on staging for more infor mation 4 Default Staging Destination Industry This field is simply the industry inside the town selected above where you want the cars dropped off at Typically this would be a yard or interchange See the chapter on staging for ideas on how to utilize the staging features built into Ship It Fields Session Generation 1 Do Not Schedule Train Check this box if you do not want to schedule this particular train This will cause the program to skip this train when operating sessions are generated No cars will be assigned to this train nor will any schedule be printed when switchlists are printed This allows you to pick and choose which trains you want to operate at any given session 2 Do Not Generate Moves Check this box if you do not want any car movements generated for a particular train This differs from Do Not Schedule Train in that the train schedule will be printed but no cars will be automatically assigned to it This is handy if you want to run passenger trains or if you want to run some trains whose consist you set up yourself 3 Session Generation This field lets you specify when you want sessions generated for the current train You can choose to generate a schedul
27. any paired staging try leaving both checkboxes blank There is one situation which may arise where you should also leave early staging unchecked If you notice in your switchlists symptoms of duplicate cars or if the same car moves twice when it should only move once particularly in association with staging you should leave early staging unchecked Do Not Convert Loads Out Of Staging If this box is not checked when loads out of staging are dropped off at the default staging destination see chapter on staging they will convert to empties Checking this box will prevent this conversion from taking place these 6 4 loads will then be available for request from other indus tries It is recommended that you check this box unless you are using paired staging when staging trains run back and forth between staging yards on opposite ends of the layout converting to each other see chapter 17 Do not use this option with paired staging Send Empties Home From Staging Sometimes empties can get trapped in staging particularly if you are using paired staging trains If you notice a large amount of empties building up in staging you can check this box This will cause empties to be sent to their home yards from staging Allow Build Up Of Load Requests If this box is unchecked load requests for an individual industry will not build up In other words if there are unful filled requests for a product an industry is req
28. as Through and Receive as Through in the Consignee Update window are for previous version compatibility only I do not recommend using these at all They are there only for people who used them in pre vious versions If you wish to send and receive directly from a through train use the Allow both thru and local pickups explained above If Your Through Train Does Work That A Local Should If you are using the Allow both thru and local pickups option there are times when your Through Train may do work destined for the Local If this happens you need to isolate those industries which you do not want worked by the Through Train The way to do this is to create another town For example if your town is Reading you may want to create a town called Reading 2 or Reading notice the period or Reading Make it so the name differs only slightly from the real town Then place your industries the ones which should not be worked by the Through Train in the new town Then create a local train to run between the two towns This will enable your shipments to get to the town served by the Through Train Note The town served by the through train must be an interchange its yard must be an interchange storage track Example 3 explained in Chapter 14 uses this technique Look at the town of Harrison and the town Harrison notice the peri od 18 3 BALANCING 19 Overview What the Deluxe Balancer is What it does
29. between Morgantown amp Munhall and eventually onto the layout These towns exist only in staging so the cars never really need to go anywhere But it gives the on line industries more industries to interact with instead of just an interchange which enhances the realism and expands the size of the layout 14 3 Train 300 Morgantown Erie Through is a good example of a through freight running solely between two off line towns Note that the train is scheduled across divisions I set up a unique train type Through Freight to ensure that the coal loads and empty hoppers would only travel back and not be intercepted by other industries This is a good example of how Train Type is used Note on the diagram there are several interchange storage tracks called out These are interchanges whose storage tracks are not directly adjacent to the interchange actually they are very close on the layout Also note the inter changes are shown in the diagram as being inside one division or another this merely indicates ownership of an interchange by a division There are three interchanges B amp LE Interchange Hall Junction and P amp WV Junction Study the Divisions Interchanges and the Car Routes records to see how these were set up All of these are under the divisions menu on the main screen Examine these carefully along with the Divisions Chapter in the manual These are good examples of how to set up divisions on a layout Main Division Ea
30. by multiple trains until it reaches an inter change in the division of its destination From this last interchange it will again travel on its local train type Note Cars can change train types only at inter changes Example 1 In this example we will use the database from Chapter 16 The Divisions Tutorial If you would like to build this database follow the instructions there and modify it per the information below This example has three divisions Western Central and Eastern Each of these divisions has one train that runs the length of the division First create a Through Train type Next change the train for Centralia the Centralia Local to this through train type and rename it the Centralia Through If you wish you may also add Wilsonville to the beginning of its schedule and Johnsburg at the end In the Consignee update form for Johnsburg Foundry add the same through train type from the preceding para graph to the Secondary Train Type field the screen shot shows the old terminology Through Train Type What we are after is a shipment of coal that will go on the East Centralia Turn a local type general freight from Wilsonville to East Centralia At the East Centralia Interchange the train type of the car will change from the local type general freight to the through type through freight This hopper will then travel on the Centralia Through to West Centralia Lastly the hopper will change its train
31. capacity for the train from the Maximum Capacity field in the Train Update window The Calculate Max Cars pushbutton calculates the maximum actual number of cars leaving any town on the trains schedule Note for a town by town breakdown of the number of cars on the train print out the Train Length Report The Total for Locos Below field dis plays the total hauling capacity of all the locomotives in the browse window The Needed field tells you how much hauling capacity you still need the Total for Locos Below field is subtracted from the Total Req d field Update Motive Power This is the window where you select your locomotive or caboose If you enter a caboose the locomotive fields are disabled Likewise if you enter a locomotive the caboose fields are disabled To the right are screen shots depicting a locomotive and a caboose being entered The Locomotive Order field is only required for loco motives and determines the order on the train Using the Pick Up At and Drop Off At fields you can specify where the locomotive or caboose is picked up or dropped off This information appears in the Yard Arrival Report Yard Departure Report Locomotive Caboose Location Report and the Switchlist The switchlist only displays the sidings if there is enough room Use the Clear Fields buttons to clear the pick up and drop off fields Note You must fill out the pick up and drop off locations for the motive power to appear in the switchl
32. choose to print out Process Complete Start Fresh completed successfully Previous session history if any existed has been cleared Rolling stock for the first y session has been placed on the layout Select Starting Car ji Locations from the Print menu to print out the starting locations To generate a session select Generate Session from the Generate menu Process Complete Ed Start Fresh did NOT complete successfully Either no room at their sidings Also make sure there are the right type M consignee or no shipper records were found or there was no of cars available in the rolling stock file for the products that are shipped 10 3 Set Number Of Generations This is only used for testing purposes It allows you to generate more than one session at once Generate Session Generate Session is where the action begins Ship It keeps track of car locations lading car arrival times etc so all you need to do to generate an operating ses sion is to click on a menu item Note Before generating any sessions close all windows inside Ship It Session Numbering The first session is session number 1 Each subsequent time you select Generate Session the number is incre mented Once you have your sessions running the way you want them you will never use Start Fresh You will use Generate Session and the session number will keep incrementing A Layout Alive Your layout will come to life and ge
33. delete records within your data base Tip To quickly locate the record you wish to view press the letter of the first word in the leftmost column For exam ple in the screen below you would press the letter H if you wanted the highlight bar to jump directly to the record for Harrison Bakery This us useful if the data you want to view has scrolled off the screen What Is An Update Window The next picture shows a typical update window An update window contains entry fields and or other window controls such as spin boxes or radio buttons The purpose of the update window is to allow you to enter or change information in your database records When you press the insert button on the browse window a blank update win dow will appear and wait for you to enter information If there is a record highlighted in the browse window and you press the change button on the browse window the update window will also appear but this time it will be filled in with the current information for that record This allows you to change that information Browse Industries Bl Indust Town Siding Type Foley s Coal Yard Harrison Bakery Harrison Yard Miller s Granary Newman Mine 1 Ku Thurston Industry 3 Harrison Industry Harrison Yard Thurston Industry Thurston Industry Insert change Delete Name Miner s Granary Town Thurston Car Capacity 3 Browse Window Cancel Recor
34. generated and compared for matching items If a match is found between an available empty and an empty request certain criteria are examined before generating the car move ment Available loads and load requests are also generat ed and compared as above See the above mentioned 10 4 chapter for more detailed information concerning the cri teria When car movements are generated an internal database is updated that keeps track of all cars through time along with lading duration and arrival times Backups Every time you generate a session maindata tps is copied to a file called maindata bak This allows you to revert to the previous session if something goes wrong during the session generation If you want to revert to the previous session simply delete the old maindata tps and rename maindata bak to maindata tps Remember that maindata tps also contains all of your database informa tion except for car amp loco files so use this feature care fully Divisions There is a lot going on inside Generate Session concern ing divisions if you are utilizing car movement between divisions See Chapter 12 Division Menu for a full explanation What Happens When You Select Generate Session The first screen on this page appears when you select Generate Session This screen allows you to pick Cancel if you got into Generate Session by mistake If you select OK your session number is incremented by one and a new ses si
35. have mastered basic car movement within a single division Use the Diagnostic Features described in Chapter 15 If not enough cars are moving or cars are becoming stuck make sure the option Last Pass Random Generation is turned on See Options Tab 5 File Options in the pulldown menu system There is an email list for Ship It users at groups yahoo com This is the best place to obtain support You can communicate with all types of users here from experts to new users Most everyone there is will ing to share their knowledge to help the new user It s also a good place to talk to folks interested in opera tion in general This has been set up independently from Albion Software You can do a search for shipit at groups yahoo com and register or register directly at http groups yahoo com group shipit There is also a tech support page on our web site that carries some additional information beyond the man ual IX Getting Started Note amp Tips For Installation see page IX Start Small If you have a medium to large layout with lots of towns amp industries consider starting off by entering just a sec tion of your layout to start with Data entry can get tire some after a while by starting off small you can gener ate some action to test the program and keep your inter est high sort of like finishing your layout in sections I bet most of you have both raw benchwork and highly detailed scenes on your
36. hidden staging This is the reason for the default staging destination required for any train visiting a staging town the cars need to have a destination because they are not allowed to remain in hidden staging The default staging destination gives them a place to go These checkboxes determine when cars are processed to be sent to their default staging destinations It is usually best to process staging at the end of session generation to do this leave the early staging and mid staging checkboxes blank However there are many cases when staging needs to be processed earlier For example when you have paired staging trains trains that convert to each other and run back and forth between hidden stag ing yards at opposite ends of the layout you often need to have staging processed earlier on The advantage to leaving staging to process at the end is that it gives more of a chance for cars to be requested by on line industries It is almost always preferable for them to be moved by actual requests rather than being forced by the staging routines to go to the default staging desti nation The bottom line is that it may require some trial and error to determine the best settings for these checkboxes If you have paired staging check the mid staging checkbox and see if it accomplishes your goals when you generate sessions If it does leave it alone If it does not try checking both early and mid staging If you do not have
37. of the locomotive s and caboose are excluded When using the option Measure Siding and Train Capacity by Length you must be consistent in your units and you cannot use fractions or decimal fractions you must round to a whole number See chapter 10 and chapter 6 for further information on the option Measure Siding and Train Capacity by Length 6 Notes This is an optional description field 7 Direction This indicates the direction that the train is heading This is used for the Conductor and Engineer instructions in the switchlist Required Fields Staging Tab 1 Convert To Next Train In Staging Check this box if 9 4 this is a train you want to convert to another train number inside staging 2 Next Train If you check the Convert To Next Train In Staging box you must enter this field to select the train the current train turns into inside staging Note if you change the next train you must also reselect the default staging destination below even if it looks like its pointing to the correct town 3 Default Staging Destination Town Any train that stops at atown designated as staging in the towns update window must have this field filled out The rea son for this is cars do not get dropped off inside staging and any cars on the train must have a destination to go to On a train that converts to a next train the default staging destination is the last stop on the trains schedule This must be a staging town and
38. pike at this moment Starting small also allows you to experiment on a smaller scale while learning the program If You Have Divisions Stay away from more than one division until you have success on a smaller scale The interaction and schedul ing between industries in different divisions adds a high er level of complication It s best to learn the program while staying with one division Required Reading Chapter 1 How Ship It Works is absolutely essen tial reading The introduction chapter 2 A Database Explained chapter 3 Browse amp Update Windows chapter 4 Deleting amp Changing Records chapter 5 The Main Window and chapter 6 The File Menu all rate high in importance Luckily most of these chapters are short Do not forget Chapter 14 Sample Layouts This chapter includes schematics and explana tions of the two sample layouts Two other important chapters are Chapter 15 Tips Suggestions Debugging and Chapter 16 Divisions Tutorial Both of these chapters are very helpful and provide con crete examples of applying Ship It to model railroad operations I Create A Schematic Ship It requires you to enter a lot of highly detailed information about your layout into your computer It is easier if you first create a schematic diagram of your lay out A schematic is nothing more than a point to point diagram of your layout On this schematic you should label all divisions towns i
39. point layout with staging yards at both ends There are four divisions on this layout two of them are off line and exist only in staging From the busy schematic above it would appear that this is a large layout but this is not the case Except for the staging it occupies an area no larger than 10 ft x 22 ft in my basement Off line divisions are an easy way to expand the size of your layout There is a lot of interchange traffic on this layout Many industries ship and receive goods to and from other divisions or off line staging If you want to implement divisions on your layout examine the data base for this example Briefly here are some industries that ship goods across divisions Morgantown Junkyard P amp WV ships to Crucible Steel Union RR East Pgh Div Tanner s Distributorship Morgantown P amp WV ships to McBride Cannery Union RR Butler Div the industries in East Pittsburgh receive coal from Keystone Mine 2 in Butler There are more examples of this print out some switchlists and you will see how cars travel from one end of the layout to another via interchanges Examine train 1000 Morgantown Run To do this click on Trains in the pull down menu section Next click on trains again Then double click on Train 1000 in the browse box that appears This train is inter esting because it never physically runs on the layout It exists solely in staging and runs in the comput er only Its purpose is to ship cars
40. select using the Passes scrollbar You can also edit in a number instead of scrolling if you prefer The default setting of 0 causes the Assistant not to be used at all It is a good idea to balance at least one time with the number of passes set to zero in case the Balancer identifies any database setup errors that may have managed to escape your notice during database preparation These will be listed in the Balancing Summary Report placed inside the balancer output files folder under the Ship It segment you are working on Primary Secondary Example 1 or Example 2 These folders are created the first time you balance After the first balancing run it is a good idea to select a rela tively large number of Assistant passes From 10 to 25 pass es works well in the early stages of balancing For more details on the use of the Assistant see Chapter X The Assistant will adjust the NS NC values the numbers of empties at shippers and the amounts at consignees if you BALANCING select the Allow All radio button If you prefer you can select the NS NC Only except for staging radio button or the Empties Amounts Only if you prefer to restrict the changes the Assistant will make The except for staging qualifier on the middle radio button means two things First NS NC values are never modified at staging areas by the Assistant since these must have specific fixed values as dis
41. sequence must be physically possible on the layout or cars will be sched uled but will never reach their ultimate destination The cars will end up sitting at the last possible destination and will never move from there because the next step of their journey is not possible 2 Interchange Selecting this field causes the Browse Interchanges window to appear allowing you to select an interchange Interchange pgWY Junction Cancel Record will be Changed 12 10 Selection Window Not Appearing 13 2 File Error in get_divname cesses 13 2 File Error in get tram type eee 13 2 Other ErrO0ssy csciden cers esse eases 13 2 COMMON PROBLEMS 13 1 Selection Window Not Appearing If in the process of entering data into fields on an update window a selection window does not appear when one should sim ply click on another field then click back in the field giving you a problem The selection browse should now appear Normally a selection window will appear every time you enter a field that is supposed to trigger one But when you return to the field after your selection you cannot get the selection browse to appear by clicking in this field because you are already there By clicking in another field and then clicking on the original field again the selection browse is triggered File Error in get_divname If you get this error message check to see if all of your rolling stock records have the Home Yard fie
42. stock within Ship It Eastern Division Wilsonville East Centralia Nellie Mine West Centralia West Centralia Yard Interchange L Johnsburg Foundry Step 1 Enter the three divisions select Divisions from the Divisions pull down menu to gain access to the scrolling browse The picture to the right shows how the Divisions scrolling browse should look after you have entered the divisions Step 2 Enter the five towns select Towns from the Divisions pull down menu to gain access to the scrolling browse The picture to the right shows how the Towns scrolling browse should look after you have entered the towns please make sure you select the correct division for each town 16 2 Centralia East Cental Farmers Milk Co op Dairy Yard East Centralia Interchange 4 Browse Divisions Jol x Insert Change Delete Close Browse Towns BEE p Centralia Central East Centralia Eastern Wilsonville estern Johnsburg estern West Centralia l Insert Change Delete Close Step 3 Enter the six industries select Industries from the Industries pull down menu to gain access to the scrolling browse The picture to the right shows how the Industries scrolling browse should look after you have entered the industries please make sure you select the correct town for each industry The siding capacity is also important Step 4 Enter the two products select Products from the Indu
43. the hoppers to either Coalpile interchange where the staging train takes them into staging and back or Harrison Yard Boxcars of flour travel from Millers Granary via the Thurston Daily local to Harrison Interchange From there the Harrison Crossville Through takes the cars to Coalpile From Coalpile the Staging Train takes the cars into staging where they convert to empties and return to Coalpile Empties entering staging requested there by the shippers in the staging industry are converted into loads supplies and grain and sent back to Harrison and Thurston The town of Harrison has been broken into two towns Harrison and Harrison notice the period at the end of the word Harrison Any small change like this in a name will cause the name to be different yet look similar Because we have checked the options Allow local and through pickups from the options window our through train can pick up and set out cars at sidings This is fine except for those industries where we don t want this to happen such as Harrison Bakery I wanted Harrison Bakery to be switched by the local not the through Because the through train Harrison Crossville Through does not visit Harrison it only visits Harrison again notice the period the Bakery is not switched by the through train It is switched by the local which takes its cars to Harrison Yard the interchange From there the cars travel on the Harrison Crossville Through to Coalpile Not
44. the interchange you set up between your divisions is where the cars will pass through to get from one division to another If you have multiple interchanges the car route will consist of a list of these interchanges in con secutive order With more than one interchange a car route is necessary to tell Ship It how to get from one interchange to another If you have more than one inter change and do not have a car route your divisional traf fic will fail Automatic vs Pre set Car Routing There are two types of car routing in Ship It automatic and pre set Automatic car routing is the default and is used by most people If you are using only one inter change you cannot use pre set car routing you must use automatic car routing Layouts with only one inter change are easy to set up because there is no need for car routes Ship It knows which interchange to use Pre set car routes are used where direct control is needed over which car route to use With pre set car routes Ship It does not determine which car route to use The car route is called out in the Consignee update form Automatic and pre set car routes can both be used on your layout One approach is to set up for automatic car routing then add pre set routing to those consignees whose cars are getting stranded When you mix automatic and pre set car routing you can tell Ship It to use a car route for pre sets only by marking the checkbox Use For Pre sets O
45. the last interchange to the request ing industry final destination How Pre set Car Routing Works Pre set car routing is set up per consignee You specify the car route and the first and last interchanges the car passes through on its way to the consignee Look up Chapter 8 and find the screen shots of the Consignee DIVISION MENU update form Train Types Pre sets tab to see what these entry fields look like When a car is requested by a consignee with a pre set car route Ship It gets the car route and the first and last interchanges that were specified on the Consignee update form The car is then routed to the first interchange Ship It then determines by looking at the first and last inter changes which order should be followed on the car route list top to bottom or bottom to top The car route is then followed until the last interchange is reached From there the car is routed to the consignee First and Last Interchanges The examples below should help clarify the role of the first and last interchanges If a consignee was set up according to example 1 the sequence of interchanges that a car would pass through would be Monon Ill Central Decatur and Springfield Car Route 1 Roachdale 2 Monon First Interchange 3 Ill Central 4 Decatur 5 Springfield Last Interchange Example 1 If a consignee was set up according to example 2 the sequence of interchanges that a car would pass throug
46. the shipping industries cars in the industry status report Perhaps there are no loads because no empties were available to be delivered to the shipping industry Perhaps there are cars there you can see them on the layout which you think should be moving A look at the industry status report will tell you how long the cars have been there and if they are available If they are not available the hours given in parentheses tell you how many hours are left till they are loaded or unloaded In this case you see that they still have 20 hours to unload With this information you can go back to the consignee or shipper screen and lower the duration time so that the cars don t sit for so long Helping Cars To Move More Than Once In A Session The way to develop the most car action with double and triple moves in a session is to use a lot of interchange traffic When cars are routed through interchanges there is no duration time A car dropped off at 10 AM can be picked up again at 10 05 by another train If you do not want to set up interchange traffic interchange setup is more complicated you can simply cut your duration times for the shippers and consignees to the minimum one hour This will make your cars available in a shorter amount of time Passenger Trains amp Through Trains That You Wish To Assign Cars To Yourself To schedule passenger trains check the Do Not Generate Moves box in the Trains Update WIndow When this box is checke
47. there Unchecking the Populate checkbox for Erie prevents Name Erie Division B amp LE North Staging V Populate Add cars during Start Fresh Notes o O O ok Cancel Record will be Changed 17 3 Example 1 A Paired Set of Staging Trains M t M Mi a a Train 300 Erie Lake Erie Steel De gt 2 AM 9 AM Train 301 A mmm 4PM 10 AM Note that the default staging destination for Train 300 is Lake Erie Steel and the default staging destination for Train 301 is Morgan Mines Train 300 becomes Train 301 inside Erie Staging The default staging destination for a paired train is the last stop on the trains schedule This is where the train converts into the other train and where the new train departs from and is also inside staging Train 301 becomes Train 300 inside Morgantown Staging Setting Up Your Trains When setting up two staging yards which feed each other you need two trains In our example we have Train 300 The Morgantown Erie Through and Train 301 The Erie Morgantown Through guess what their sched ules are Each train converts into the next train In other words inside staging Train 300 becomes Train 301 and vice versa The Update Trains Window has a staging tab where you set this up You must check the Convert to Next Train checkbox and select the next train to convert to when setting up trains which run back to back from staging yard to stag ing yard like th
48. to Lake Erie Steel in Erie PA Empty hoppers will then return to Morgan Mines on another train Both towns and their respective industries exist solely in staging What you experience as an operator are a loaded coal drag which emerges from staging crosses the layout and ducks back into hidden staging at the other end Some hours later scale time another train emerges same loco same consist except empties instead of loads at least in the database and travels back to Morgantown To set this type of staging up requires 2 towns which exist in staging and two trains which travel between the towns Each town requires an industry where the cars will be shipped to Setting Up Your Towns In the towns update window there are two checkboxes which are important here Staging and Populate The Staging checkbox should be checked for both Erie and Morgantown because this tells Ship It that the towns and any industries in them are staging The Populate checkbox should only be checked for Morgantown This tells the computer to populate the town with cars during Start Fresh In this case the Populate checkbox for Erie is not checked because we don t want any cars there at the start of a session This is because the first train to depart of the two we are setting up is the one which originates in Morgantown If we allowed Erie to be popu lated on Start Fresh the train arriving in Erie staging would have to couple onto the cars already
49. town Required 2 Initials Enter initials of town used for condensed switchlist only 3 Division When you select this field the Division Browse Window pops up allowing you to select the name ofa division Required 4 Staging Check this box if this is a town that exists in a staging yard Trains that enter staging towns will not UpdateT owns Staging T Cancel drop off any cars the same consist will leave the town that entered it Industry in staging towns will never have cars dropped off at their sidings The lading will automat ically convert loads to empties amp vice versa and the train will leave the town intact This allows you to set up hidden staging This box should not be checked if the town does not belong in staging When this box is checked any trains that stop at the town must have their Default Staging Destination filled out This tells the train where to drop off any cars left over after its run cars that would have been sitting in the staging industry See the Train Update window chapter 9 for further explanation 5 Populate Make sure you have this checked if you want the industries in this town populated during start fresh Uncheck this if the town is a staging town and you don t have a train that departs from here initially other wise the cars would just sit until a train enters the stag ing where it would have to couple to them 6 Notes This is an optional description field Name f
50. units There are three places where you must fill in units 1 The Rolling Stock Update Form where you must fill in the car length rounded to the nearest unit of measure ment used 2 The Industry Update Form where you must fill in the length of each siding again rounded to the nearest unit of measurement used 3 The Train Update Form where you must fill in the length allotted to cars on the train again rounded to the near est unit of measurement Note that the length specified here does not include the locomotive or caboose these are not added in to calculate train length Calculate your train length accordingly Note If your industry update window does not have the words Round Length to to Nearest Unit beside the text entry box for Car Capacity you have not set the option Measure siding capacity and train length in feet or other units as mentioned above GENERATION MENU Update Rolling Stock Required Revise Location Not Required Number 37075 Reporting Marks c amp 0 Fill With Last Car Data AAR Type se Car Style sonaota Home Yard Han Yard IV Available Car Length 44 Round to the nearest unit Cancel Record will be Changed Update Trains General staging Session Generation Train Number 100 Train Name East Pittsburgh Pickup Train Type aeneral freight Train Class Max Cars or Train Length in Units 10 Notes l Train Direction C N
51. up of cars Diagnostics Browse Windows In both the Browse Shippers Window and Browse Consignees Window there is now a Diagnostics button Once an analysis has been run pressing these buttons displays a window similar to the one below Shipper Diagnostics E E3 Shipper Information Industry B amp LE Town Butler Div Butler Division Product general freight Empties 1 Duration 24 Consignees D i Train 200 Div Success Divisional Results ID Train From industry To Industry _ Frominterchand To Interchange Notes _ O 27 200 B amp LE Hall Yard Hall Junction Train Number 200 found between towns Butler H 27 400 Hall Yard Munhall Yard P amp WV Junction Train Number 400 found between towns Hall Mur 27 1000 Munhall Yard Morgantown Fr P amp WV Junction Train Number 1000 found between towns Munhal K Note Diagnostics were last run on 8 19 07 4 59PM To run Diagnostics click on Shipper Consignee Diagnostics from the pull down menu From the next window press the Analyze Shippers Consignees button Close For the above window the row for the general freight shipper at the B amp LE interchange was highlighted when I pressed the Diagnostic button This is the same example that was used in the preceeding reports for this example Train 200 had car move generation turned on There are several items to note Shipper information is displayed in the raised panel at the top of the scre
52. up one town into two towns and is explained also in chapter 14 see Example 3 and chapter 15 see the example involving the steel mill and the interchange Using Two Train Types Primary and Secondary Train Types If you are setting up local and through freights each car should have two train types associated with it the primary type and the secondary type The primary is for your local train type and the secondary is for your through train type Cars and Train Types In Ship It each car on your layout has a train type associ ated with it From the moment the car is placed the on the layout it has a train type When you are setting up to use local and through train types you must set up both primary and secondary train types The primary is usually the local train type and the secondary is the through train type There are four areas where you will be setting up these train types The first is the default primary and secondary train types For every AAR type used you must specify both a primary and a secondary train type This is used during Start Fresh and Add New Cars During Start Fresh if a car is placed at an industry it acquires the train type of the shipper or con signee that requested it If the car is not placed at an indus try but placed in its home yard then it uses the primary and secondary train types filled out in the AAR update window the default train types Add New Cars uses the primary and secondar
53. will appear with only those industries listed that ship the same product that the consignee receives If nothing appears it means you do not have any shippers for that particular product 7 Car Route Pre Set This field is used when you want to control the sequence of interchanges a car passes through on its way to the consignee This is often used in conjunction with a pre set shipper Simply click on the car route field in the train type pre set tab then select the correct car route If there is more than one inter change in the car route then you must fill in the next two fields first interchange and last interchange 8 First Interchange This interchange is the one that the car must go to first on its way to its destination Update Consignee General Train Types Pre sets optional First Interchange B Last Interchange _ Cancel Record will be Changed INDUSTRY MENU 9 Last Interchange This interchange is the one that the car must go to last on its way to its destination Explanation of First and Last Interchange Fields The first and last interchange fields are important because they tell the computer exactly how to utilize the car route selected This allows you to have only one car route to serve both directions East and West for exam ple You can also have a pre set car route specified for a consignee which uses only a portion of a car route For example if you had a car route which consi
54. will be sent to the storage yard icing plant first 8 Notes This is an optional description field 9 Duration This determines how long in hours it takes to load an empty car at this industry with the product called out above The empty car will sit for that many hours before the program converts it to a load then it becomes eligible for pickup and delivery to an industry requesting it Required 10 Empties This number defines how many empty cars this industry likes to have on hand for loading with this particular product As existing empties are converted to loads it will request more empties until it has the number specified Required 11 Priority This field lets you prioritize shippers in order to indicate they should receive empties before other shippers As long as the number here is higher than at another shipper it will receive priority Note Priority has been enabled only in certain circumstances See the section at the end of of this chapter on balancing your shippers and consignees for a more detailed explanation INDUSTRY MENU Update Shipper 12 x 4 9 Empties fa 4 10 Priority 2 E 1 1 Industry spruce ie Durationhours 24 2 Town Spruce S 3 Product feon 4 oe AAR Type HD Car Style Hopper poa Primary Train Type ceneralfreight Secondary Train Type trutrin Storage Yard Harrison Yard Clear Storage Yard u Noten ooo s m Balancing Shippers and Consignees
55. will appear Your task is then to create the interchanges and car routes necessary for division diagnostics and Ship It to succeed Even if you get the message Shipper and consignee are NOT in adjacent divisions Car Route IS required for this shipment you may not be out of the woods be absolutely sure that all the interchanges necessary are list ed out in subsequent message windows If not you have a problem This is what I call a soft error In other words the software has not determined that something is wrong yet it is listing an incomplete sequence of interchanges How can you tell this is happening This is where your schematic comes in You must understand completely what interchanges the car must pass through from shipper to consignee If you don t you may miss this type of error You must be able to trace the cars movement across your schematic diagram and list the interchanges it must pass through If the software does not display a message for each of those interchanges you can be sure something is wrong The simplest thing that can go wrong is for you to have an incomplete car route A very strong possibility is for you to have the interchange storage track in the wrong location 12 5 Enhancements to Division Diagnostics Division Diagnostics f Select Industries to Test Version 5 added the ability to output the diagnostic messages to a text file select the checkbox Output to divdiag t
56. you will have you guessed it stranded cars To put it all together you must have trains going from every town in a division to every interchange in a division In order to do this the trains must go to the correct town the town that the interchange storage track belongs to Do Not Convert The Do Not Convert box in the consignee update win dow should not be used to set up consignees when ship ping between two divisions it is for use within one divi sion only 12 4 Another Rule Unless cars are routed through an interchange they can not get to their destination on more than one train The exception is when you are using Do Not Convert see above and Chapter 8 If you expect cars to travel on more than one train you must create divisions that force the program to route the cars through an interchange Contrary to popular opinion or maybe not computer programs are rather stupid Ship It cannot see all of the train schedules like you and I can It has tunnel vision and can only see a train schedule one step at a time If a car has its next and final destination filled out and can not get there on a single train Ship It will not look for several trains that will take it to its destination no matter how obvious it is to us that it could do so Ship It cannot think for itself You must do the thinking for it and pro vide the necessary divisions trains interchanges etc Draw A Schematic In order to de
57. 24 Consignee produce Industry McBride Cannery Town McBride Amount 1 Frequency 48 Duration 48 Division Butler Division Results Train Not Found Shipper general freight Empties 1 Duration 24 Consignee general freight Industry McBride General Freight Town McBride Amount 1 Frequency 24 Duration 24 Division Butler Division Results Train Not Found Consignee general freight Industry Morgantown Freight Town Morgantown Amount 2 Frequency 24 Duration 24 Division P amp V Results Div Failure Divisional Results There is no train between the towns Butler Hall Check Traintype also From Industry B amp LE To Industry Hall Yard From Interchange To Interchange Hall Junction 15 6 TIPS SUGGESTIONS DIAGNOSTICS In order to demonstrate failures I turned off the generation of moves for Train 200 in Example 2 and re ran the Shipper Consignee Analysis The above printout is the result The same shippers were printed out using the Diagnostic Results Report The results are Train Not Found and Div Failure Train 200 was not able to move any cars because gen erate moves was turned off for that train In addition if you look at the divisional results you Il see that There is no train between the towns of Butler Hall This feature will tell you when you do not have your trains set up correctly for divi sional movement There us also a warning Check train type also because train type can stop the pick
58. 995 Edition 10 for Version 8 0 04 03 2011 IV License Agreement If you do not accept or agree to the terms of this agreement do not use this product Return the package within 30 days for a refund This software is protected under federal copyright law Albion Software retains ownership of this Software Product This program is licensed to you under the following terms 1 You may make copies of this software solely for backup purposes Duplication of this Software for any other reason including for sale loan rental or gift is a federal crime 2 You may use the Software on only one computer at a time The software may be transferred for use on a differ ent machine however it must first be removed from the computer on which it was originally installed with the following exception If the software is installed on a computer that is used by one individual more than 80 of the time it is in use that one individual may also use the software on a portable or home computer 3 You may permanently transfer the Software and related documentation to another user provided you retain no copies and the recipient agrees to the terms of this Agreement Unauthorized copying of this software or the documentation or failure to comply with any of the above restric tions will result in automatic termination of the license Limitation of Liability In no event will Albion Software be liable for any damages including loss of data lost profits co
59. C O O Initials For use in condensed switchlist not req d otherwise Division Populate Add cars during Start Fresh Ntes 0 s s S S H S S S S H H HSHSH SSH 12 7 Update Interchanges This window allows you to define the interchanges on your layout Note Refer to Chapter 16 for an exam ple of how to set up interchanges Affects Directly affects the cross divisional routing of cars To cross divisions that are not connected by trains cars must pass through interchanges Fields 1 Interchange Name This is used to identify the inter change Required 2 Thru 7 Connecting Divisions An interchange can connect as few as two divisions and as many as 6 divi sions Fill out the connecting divisions in these fields starting with connecting division 1 Warning Because of a bug in the development soft ware used when division names are changed this change will not be reflected in the interchange update window If you change any division names you must also change those division names in the interchange update win dow if they are used there 5 Storage Track This is a very important field Bach interchange must have an area where it can store cars between transfer to trains Selecting this field will bring 3 Update Interchanges up the Industry browse window allowing you to select trackage where the interchange stores cars This will be an industry interchange or yard you have previously esta
60. Consignees This may take several minutes or even longer depending on the size of your database and the speed of your computer The program is actually doing a dry run of a session generation except it is not moving any cars But it is checking out each shipper and each consignee and exam ining if cars can get between each matching shipper and con signee To do this it is also analyzing divisions and trains When it finishes you have a detailed record of the successes and failures of these attempted routings You will know whether you have the necessary trains to get cars from your shippers to your consignees You will know if your divisions car routes and interchanges if you are using them are working to allow trains to carry cars across divisional lines to get from shipper to consignee There are a number of reports to help you digest all this information Print Diagnostic Results this lists all your shippers and all your consignees For each shipper it has a sub list below that lists the related consignees and the results of the diag nostics For each consignee there is also a sub list detailing the related shippers and their results Print Diagnostic Failures Only the same as item 1 above except that only failures are listed Print Train and Routing Orphans Only this lists failures where you have a shipper or a consignee that has no success es at all the shipper or consignee has become an orphan because no cars
61. Division Fill the update form as shown to the right Cars being dropped off will be stored at West Centralia Yard while awaiting pickup note the storage track field Step 12 Enter the Car Route name select Car Routes from the Divisions pull down menu The purpose ofa car route is to tell the program what route s cars take through inter changes Because we have more than one interchange in this example the car route is necessary to explain to the program how a car would travel from the Eastern Division to the Western Division via interchanges With only two adjacent divisions there is no need for a car route After you have entered the route name press the View Route List button to enter in the sequence of inter changes that make up a car route Step 13 Enter the sequence of interchanges that will make up the car route There is no need to have two car routes each going in different directions one West East the other East West All you need to have is one car route the program will read it from either direction For this exam ple make sure the scrolling browse for your car route looks like this Step 14 Start entering the train information There will be three trains one train for each division The update form for Train 100 is shown to the right Enter the information exactly as you see it except for the locomotive number When you get to the locomotive field a blank select screen will appear unless you hav
62. ECK AMOUNT AND EMPTY REPORT can appear in the Balancing Summary Report when ns nc values are allowed to become greater than 1 see Maximum NS NC setting in the Assistant area on the Parameters tab How to get rid of this error is explained in Chapter X See Chapter V for more information on the Balancing Summary report and other balancing reports Balancing Grade This is listed in the Balancing Summary Report and is listed as the Overall Quality of Balance A perfect grade is exactly zero A good grade is anything less than one One of your jobs in balancing your database will be to get this grade below 1 Discrepancies There are four different kinds of discrepancies that you will find in the balancing information report look in the balancer 19 6 Parameters See chap VIII output files folder These are 1 Too many products going into siding for industry 2 Too few products going into siding for industry 3 Production exceeds demand for product 4 Demand exceeds production for product As you work through each of the four kinds of discrepancies and fix them you want to re run the Deluxe Balancer fre quently to check your work Hopefully each time you run the Balancer your grade will get better and better and the dis crepancies listed will get fewer and fewer Or at least the individual grade for the discrepancy you ve been working on listed in brackets at the left end of the discrepancy line in the balancing
63. Neither the Balancer nor the Assistant will ever add or remove products to from any industry since only the user knows best what makes sense in the database Still understanding the best way to add or remove products to improve balance involves understanding a bit about the tug of war that goes on within each siding If you have discrep ancies listed in the balancing information report you can gain an understanding of what to do by reading Chapter III Deluxe Balancer Manual 19 5 Quick Summary of Balancing Steps to be done after database prep is complete and you have edited NS NC values as needed and set any Balancer or Assistant parameters on the Parameters tab 1 Press Export and Balance with 0 passes set to check for errors Press Import from Balancer Check Balancing Summary Report txt see below for a description of this report Fix any errors listed 2 Set number of passes to anywhere between 10 and 25 depending on the size of your database lesser passes for a larger database especially if it is taking a long time to process Export and Balance then Import from Balancer If errors show up in the Balancing Summary Report fix then export and balance and Import from Balancer Repeat this cycle until Balancing Summary Report is error free and your balancing grade is at least less than 1 Note that a smaller number of passes such as 5 can be used when fixing errors See below for an explanation of the ba
64. Press this button to fill in most of the fields in this record with data from the last car that was entered or edited To set this data to a par ticular car simply call up the form for the car whose data you want to save and press the OK button Pressing the OK button saves this data for recall via the Fill With Last Car Data button Use this feature to speed up your data entry The only field that is not filled in is the Number field to prevent you from entering duplicate car numbers by mistake Revise Location Tab This tab is used to update the Ship It layout database This can be used if you find at the end of an operating session that cars did not get delivered to the correct desti nation It can also be used to pre set car locations before generating an operating session for the first session or otherwise The car must be available see the Required tab for this to work The new position will appear in the ending car location report for the current session and in the starting car location and the industry status report for the next session Required Revise Location Not Required 1 Number 32468 2 te Reporting Marks BLE See 8 Fill With Last Car Data 1 3 AAR Type m 4 Car Style Boxcar 5 gt Home Yard Han Yard 6 H V Available o Car Length a4 Round to the nearest unit 7 Cancel Record will be Changed 1 Industry Use this to revise th
65. SHIP IT by rail of course m A Prototypical Switch List Generator For Windows hip It c 1995 Albion Software Primary Session 1 Bolling Stock Indust Trains Divisions Generate Print Window Help Indust Reefer B amp LE general freight Boxcar B amp LE paper XM Boxcar B amp LE truck amp auto parts XM Boxcar B amp LE supplies XM Boxcar Keystone 2 Coal HD Hopper Babcock Mine 1 Coal HD Hopper Wilsons Granary grain XM Boxcar Crucible Scrap Yard crushed steel loads GB Gondola Yulcan Forge Forged Metals XM Boxcar Westinghouse Airbrake air brakes XM Boxcar PRR Interchange tractor parts XM Boxcar PRR Interchange Fertilizer XM Boxcar PRR Interchange powdered metals XM Boxcar Unity Interchange loose scrap XM Boxcar McBride Cannery canned goods XM Boxcar Change Delete Created by ALBION SOFTWARE 39 Stanley Dr Glastonbury Ct 06033 Email email albionsoftware com Web www albionsoftware com Welcome Welcome to Ship It by rail of course the prototypical operations generator for model railroads Ship It automates the process of generating operating sessions No longer will you have to spend hours planning out your operating sessions or track mountains of paperwork Once your pike s database has been built a simple click of a button will gen erate a new operating session for you Ship It is not a random car movement generator every car movement is based on the re
66. Shipper Window Balancing Shippers amp Consignees nne 9 Train Menu Introduction Update Train Types Window Update Locomotives Window Update Trains Window Staging Tab Session Generation Tab Viewing Train Schedules Copy Train Update Train Schedule Window Condensed Switchlist Blocking Trains Update Motive Power Helper Service 10 Generate Menu Introduction Start Fresh Generate Session Add New Cars Stuck Car Processing Measuring Siding and Train Cap in feet or other units 11 Print Menu Introduction Preview Starting Car Locations Ending Car Locations Switchlist Orphan Industry Report Industry Status Report 12 Division Menu Introduction Definitions How Divisions Work How Automatic Car Routing Works e How Pre Set Car Routing Works ee Division Diagnostics U U U U Browse Car Route List U pdate Divisions Window pdate Towns Window pdate Interchanges Window pdate amp Viewing Car Routes nenenen pdate Car Route Details 8 2 8 2 8 3 8 6 8 7 9 2 9 2 9 3 9 4 9 4 9 4 9 6 9 6 9 6 9 7 9 8 10 2 10 2 10 4 10 5 10 7 10 9 11 2 11 2 11 2 11 3 11 3 11 3 11 3 12 2 12 2 12 3 12 3 12 4 12 6 12 6 12 7
67. aging destination for this train would be Town A The set up is very similar to a turn or out and back 17 6 Common Staging When sharing a common staging area with more than one train if you want to keep the consist pure bananas on the banana train and meat on the meat train you will need to use different train types or create a different town you could have a different town on each staging track This is because the program wants to send cars out of staging on the next available train even if it is not the train you intended the cars to go on and even if it is not going to the default staging destination for those cars Disappearing Cars If you run into a situation where cars have been picked up in staging but then do not get dropped off anywhere it may be the case that the wrong train has picked up the cars The program wants to send cars out of staging on the next train whether or not that train is going to the default staging destination of those cars So if you have disappearing cars look to see ifthe cars have gotten on the wrong train If they have isolate them by using a dif ferent train type or send them to a different staging town Preload Your staging You can pre load your staging by using the revise car location tab see Chapter 7 If you have paired staging set up the loads will convert back and forth forever unless they leave the staging train Use the empty checkbox on the revi
68. all the related records in the database For example each record in the towns file is referenced by many other files including the industry shipper and consignee files If a town name was changed from Harrison to Jackson in the towns file that change would also occur in all the related files You would not have to call up all the files the town was referenced in and change them manually the change would occur on its own What About Deletes If you attempt to delete records referenced by other files an error message will appear because the software has been designed to prevent you from mistakenly deleting too much data at one time For example if you attempt to delete a town record that has industries belonging to it you will be prevented because deletion of that town record would cause deletion of those industries In order to delete a town record you will need to delete all the industries that reside in that town To delete the town Harrison for example you would need to delete all the industries that belong to Harrison But to delete those industries you would first need to delete all the shipper and consignee records belonging to those industries Referential Integrity Delete Error Delete Related Records Only When Necessary Delete records that other files refer to only if necessary If you need to change the name of a town don t delete it and create it over again use the change button Only delete a town if you are el
69. ames and Dates Options for your main layout The secondary database is also used as Primary Name The iiates an example database See Chapter 14 Sample Layouts for Monsa further explanation Note The exapmle databases ca n be BE deleted and replaced by your own databases Secondary Name 5 Secondary Date Title Bar The title bar of the main window always dis plays the current database Example 1 Name Example 1 Date Names and Dates Tab Example 2 Name This tab allows you to assign a name amp era to your database Example 2 Date These show up on all your print outs The date will also incre ment for each session if you wish see the Options Tab Cancel 6 2 Options 1 Tab Enable Third Pass For absolute maximum car movement turn this option on However one of the side effects of this is that some empty car movements between divisions may occur before empty car movements within a division If this causes problems turn this option off Increment Date Each Session Generation If this box is checked Ship It will increment the histori cal date in the Names amp Dates Tab each time you gener ate a session If you want to stay at the same date uncheck this box Distribute Cars Only In Home Division For Start Fresh If you end up with empties which cannot find their way home check this box before you start generating ses sions This will prevent the system from placing cars out
70. and Back 17 5 Through Staging as Part of a Loop 17 6 Through Staging in a Point to Point Layout 17 6 Return Loop St ging isisisi sisii 17 6 Common Staging neeesesnsensnenenennnnnenennn 17 6 Disappearing Cars Local amp Thru Pick ups 17 7 SETTING Up HIDDEN STAGING 17 1 Two Types of Staging In model railroads staging usually falls into two types hidden staging non accessible and fiddle staging acces sible Ship It can handle both types of staging This chapter is about setting up hidden staging using Ship It Fiddle Staging If you have access to your staging switching access that is your best bet is to not use the hidden staging features of Ship it This will be easier to set up and will allow for more prototypical operation In addition with fiddle stag ing you can set up one or more off line divisions there by expanding the size of your layout Your computer will not know where your layout ends which is a big bonus Your layout can expand virtually Ship It will keep track of cars as they travel on off line divisions The cars will leave the layout and sit in your fiddle yard until their trains return them to the layout Meanwhile they will travel virtually on one or more trains be dropped off at some far away industry convert to a load or empty get picked up by a virtual train and eventually end up back in the fiddle yard even though the car never
71. are no shipper or consignee records and not enough cars in the rolling stock file Remember after Fresh Start completes you have still not generated yourself an operating session You need to select Generate Session to do this Title Bar Information Session status information is displayed in the title bar of the main window You are kept abreast of exactly where you are in terms of session generation No Session indicates you have not generated any sessions yet and you have not com pleted Fresh Start Fresh Start Completed indicates you have completed Fresh Start but have not generated a session yet Session 1 indicates you have generated session and can now print out switchlists and starting and ending car location lists for that session Starting Car Locations There is one report you can print out after completing Fresh Start This is Starting Car Locations found in the Print menu This is the initial car layout for the first session The only difference between this print out and the Starting Car Locations print out available after completing Generate Session is in the car lading The print out after Fresh Start would contain the lading as it would exist before the con version of loads and empties that takes place before the first session The print out after Generate Session would contain the lading as it would exist for that session In both reports the car locations are the same in this respect it does not mat ter which you
72. asn t car xyz moved Hopefully this will also pinpoint possible bottlenecks in your system Three Tabs are displayed in the window Siding Capacity This tab shows every car not moved because there was no room at the destination for the car Train Type This tab shows every car not moved because the train type did not match between the shipper consignee and train Please note that this will show every car not moved for this reason including cars you might not think should move like hopper cars on a grain train This is where these moves are weeded out by the program An attempt is made to move every car many times per session The diagnostics cannot tell between a move you think was legitimate and one you think was not it simply displays all rejections Train Full This tab shows all cars not moved because the train that tried to pick them up was full Please note that a given car could show up multiple times even in a single tab This is because the program attempts many times to move each car on different trains and to different destinations Car Search To search for a car simply start typing the car number as soon as you enter the window You don t need to select the search field in fact it works better if you don t As long as the focus of the window is on the browse the pro gram will get closer and closer to the car for each digit of the car number you type in Reports There are three reports that list rej
73. at is created when a shipper or consignee requests an empty or a load The initial value is set to the priority value for the shipper or consignee plus one which is added to represent the request Each time that the particular shipper or consignee requests a car the demand variable is incremented by one Each time a car is delivered to the shipper or consignee the demand variable is decremented Shippers consignees with higher demand variables receive attention first The demand vari able changes through time depending on how often cars are requested and received The demand variable should never get below the priority value Ship It takes care of this Clear Demand There is a Clear Demand menu selection in the Generate menu This resets the demand variable to the priority value You will need to use this whenever you change priorities for shippers and consignees If you don t use this the priorities will not change because Ship It looks at the demand vari able when generating sessions not the priority value Train Schedules Train schedules are important for balancing because the more often a train visits an industry the quicker it can clear out empties and loads that need to move Lower duration times less than 24 do no good if an industry is visited only once per operating session Smaller sidings 1 2 cars benefit from increased train visitation and lower duration values Tintroduction 0cieccsesseseessses
74. atch If you are starting out use a single train type for everything 2 Make sure you read chapter 19 Balancing and at least perform initial balancing on your setup 3 Can all of your industries receive from any direction Set all of your industries pickup setout direction fields to any when starting out See chapter 8 Update Industry window for more information on this 4 Do you have cars of the correct AAR type those associated with your industries available 5 Are you using a single division It is best to start out with one division and get cars moving before adding multiple divi sions 6 Are your train schedules set up correctly Your trains origination point should be the first stop on the schedule Arrival times must be filled out for every stop on the schedule Departure times are not required Stay away from 12 00AM as an arrival time Do not have two towns in the same schedule with the same arrival time 7 The Do Not Convert option in the Consignee Update window should not be used for every industry use sparingly See chapter 8 Update Consignee window for more information 8 Test the matches between your industries by printing the Orphan Industry Report This will list industries that do not have product matches Better yet use Shipper Consignee Diagnostics Chapter 15 to help you look for orphans 9 When starting out keep all of your duration and frequency times at or under 24 hours If
75. ation tab in the Rolling Stock Update Window Note Make sure the AAR type of the car has a default primary train type in the AAR type database If you are using local and through trains fill out the secondary default train type there also If these fields are not filled in the car will not be added Clear Empty and Load Requests Ship It normally saves unfulfilled empty and load requests from past sessions so that requests at the bottom of the list get filled This menu item is used to clear all requests from past sessions This is used when changes are made in the database and you want them to show up quickly For example let s say you had a frequency of 48 hours for a consignee and you wanted to change it to 24 Without this menu item you would have to wait until existing requests were filled before the new setting would have an impact Clear Motive Power Assignments This can be used to clear all motive power and caboose assignments in one fell swoop This is useful when you want to re assign your motive power before the start of a session 10 6 Clear demand Clears demand variable which has to do with priority See the end of chapter 8 Shipper amp Consignee Balancing for more information Process Complete T Add new cars completed successfully Press OK to print out a list of starting locations for the new cars Place these cars on your layout before the start of a new session Process Complete
76. b lished I have received tech support calls where cars were not crossing divisions This was caused by an incorrect storage track entry in the interchange update form I can not over emphasize the importance of filling out this field correctly It is crucial for the successful interchange of cars across divisions The storage track is where the physical interchange of cars will take place this is where your trains will pick up and set out cars The trains that you expect to do divisional interchange work must stop at the towns that the storage tracks belong to Both trains must stop there the ones doing the pick up and the ones doing the set out You must have a train from each adjoining division stop there so that cars can pass from one division to another When you are setting up divi sional interchange of cars it is very important that you have a train or trains to transfer cars between each town in a division and each interchange If cars do not have a way to get between the towns and interchanges cars will become stranded Note The storage track can be a yard it does not have to be a single track siding The more room it has the bet ter if the storage track gets filled this can severely limit your car movement f Interchange Name Harrison interchange in Yard Connecting Division 1 Man Connecting Division 2 Easten 2 Connecting Division 3 fC O O Connecting Division 4 P _ Connecting Divis
77. bark on a rebuilding program on your layout and tear out a yard or an existing town you will need to revise the database to reflect those changes then do a Start Fresh to clear out the car locations and make a clean start What Happens When Start Fresh new car positions Is Selected The screen at the bottom of this page appears when you select Start Fresh new car positions This screen allows you to pick Cancel if you got into Start Fresh by mistake If you select OK your session number is set to 0 and if you had generated sessions earlier the session history for those sessions is erased Next the layout is populated with cars Loads and empties are generated and placed according to the Start Fresh is about to begin Ea Start Fresh will clear out your session data if there is any All car location data will be erased and your session number reset to 0 If this is acceptable and you wish to continue click on Cancel Fresh Start will NOT erase database information such 2 OK If you do not wish to clear out your session data click on as rolling stock industries etc Note if you are a new user and you have not generated any sessions yet and are ready to do so now click on OK OK 10 2 shipper and consignee records you have created This means duration times for loading empties at the shipping industry and emptying loads at the receiving industry are set up for these cars The goal of Start Fresh is to
78. ble information about each car at every industry on the layout at the beginning of the next session Information includes the status of the car loading or unloading which product and how many hours till the loading or unloading is com plete and whether the car is an available load or an available empty Also included is the session and time when the car arrived at its location For cars routed between divisions their next destination and their final destination is noted 11 3 Industry Activity Report This report gives you a list of industries with their activi ty shipped loads shipped empties received loads received empties for each session listed This is a good way to look at the activity going on at each industry You can generate many sessions then look at the report to see the activity This is very useful for balancing There is also a demand variable listed there See the end of chap ter eight for balancing tips Empty Request amp Load Request Reports The empty amp load request reports tell you what your industries are requesting at the beginning of the next ses sion These reports along with the switchlist and the industry status report should enable you to see more clearly what s going on on your layout Car Diagnostic report This report shows you consecutive locations for the selected car Full information from the database is includ ed for help in debugging You can show any cars location history fro
79. ble when called to head trains There are currently no provisions for scheduling meets It is your responsibility to arrange for avoiding cornfield meets Update Train Types Window Fields This data provides train type selection in the Trains 1 Train Type This defines the type of train Common Shipper and Consignee browse windows entries would be General Freight Way Freight Hot Shot Through Freight etc This is completely up to the model Affects er This field is used in the train shipper and consignee update windows to determine what type of train can pick up or deliver each product Note Use more than one train type only if you want to restrict what trains can pick up and deliver Required Trains will not pick up or deliver products or empties if their shipper and consignee records do not match the type of train 2 Notes This is an optional description field 10 0 Type General Freight 2 Notes Cs Cancel Record will be Changed Update Locomotives This window provides modelers with an area to document the locomotives on their pike When filling out the Locomotives field in the Update Motive Power window this data provides a selection list Affects Has little effect on operating sessions other than provid ing a way to identify and select locomotives for heading trains Most of the fields are optional because it is the modeler who assigns locomotives to trains not the pro gram Fields 1 Numb
80. call it random because many of the rules inherent in Ship It are broken in order to get more cars moving The principle of car type however is still uti lized Check Train Type of Existing Car in 4th Pass Turn this option on only if you care about what type of train picks up cars that are being moved in the 4th pass Last Pass Turning this option on can limit the amount of car movement going on in the 4th pass Stuck Car Processing This feature is for moving cars that have become stuck cars that for any number of reasons have not moved You set up destinations for cars to go to when they become stuck and Ship It 6 0 will send the cars there The Options 3 tab File Options in the pull down menu contains the settings for Stuck Car Processing Enable Stuck Car Processing This checkbox turns on the feature Hours to Exceed Before Moving This can be set between 24 and 240 hours 1 10 sessions or days For example if this is set to 48 only cars that have not moved in 48 hours will be moved by Stuck Car Processing Ignore Empties This checkbox tells the software to ignore empties if they are stuck You may want empties to stay where they are for instance if they are in a yard or if you just want them avail able for use by shipping industries Default Destination This is where a car will try to go to when it becomes stuck It is possible to override this setting by creating a Stuck Car Destination f
81. can get to it Diagnostics Print Window Help Shipper Consignee Diagnostics Browse Car Move Rejections Perform Division Diagnostics View Error Messages Print Capacity Rejections Print Train Type Rejections Print Train Full Rejections Print Siding Capacity Car Move Rejection Totals Print Stuck Cars Shipper Consignee Diagnostics Menu EJ 8 08 2007 9 33PM Note If you have made database changes press the button below Analyze Shippers Consignees Status Ready Shippers Consignees Last Analyzed Print Diagnostic Failures Only Print Train and Routing Orphans Only Close 15 5 Industry B amp L E Town Butler Capacity 8 Shipper produce Empties 1 Duration 24 Consignee produce Industry McBride Cannery Town McBride Amount 1 Frequency 48 Duration 48 Division Butler Division Results Train 200 Shipper general freight Empties 1 Duration 24 Consignee general freight Industry McBride General Freight Town McBride Amount 1 Frequency 24 Duration 24 Division Butler Division Results Train 200 Consignee general freight Industry Morgantown Freight Town Morgantown Amount 2 Frequency 24 Duration 24 Division P amp V Results Div Success Divisional Results Train Number 200 found between towns Butler Hall From Industry B amp LE To Industry Hall Yard From Interchange To Interchange Hall Junction Divisional Results Train Number 400 found between towns
82. change you suspect it is getting jammed during session generation and pre venting car movement Simply set the type of this particular industry to interchange and make sure no other industries are set to this type unless you want them to have capacity faking turned on also Then when you gen erate a session only the industries of type interchange will have capacity faking turned on Because there are five types that you can use for this purpose there is a lot of flexibility in setting up this feature See the Rolling Stock Update Form for the industry types Industry Value Interchange Value Yard Value Siding Value Passenger Value This is where you set up how much to increase the amount of extra capacity the industry will have during session gen eration You can enter in a number to increase the capacity by or a percentage of the original empty capacity Enter in a numeric value based on the following rules 1 If the number is less than 100 this number is added to the original empty capacity of the industry So if the origi nal capacity was 2 and you entered 1 the total capacity would go up to 3 only during session generation not during Start Fresh 2 If the number 100 nothing changes The original capacity is used 3 If the number is greater than 100 percentages are used For example if you enter in 200 the siding capacity is dou bled If you enter in 150 the siding capacity is increased by 1 5 times an
83. ckup and Restore Export These options are described in pages 6 2 Generation Menu Set Number of Generations Described in Chapter 10 Diagnostics Menu Browse Car Move Rejections Described in Chapter 15 page 15 8 Perform Division Diagnostics Described in Chapter 12 pages 12 4 and 12 6 View Error Messages See page 6 5 and page 15 8 Trains Menu An additional blocking sort has been added Block To from See page 9 7 Version 6 Features added Stuck Car Processing See page 10 7 through 10 8 along with page 6 5 Artificially Increase Siding Capacity See page 6 5 Version 7 Features added Measure siding and train capacity in terms of feet or other units See page 10 9 and page 6 6 Last Pass Random Generation See page 10 6 and page 6 6 Shipper Consignee Diagnostics See pages 15 5 through 15 8 and page 12 6 Improved Division Diagnostics See page 12 6 New Reports See page 15 8 Start Fresh Siding Fill Percentage improves generation see page 6 6 Version 8 Features added Balancing Your Database to Improve Operations See chapter 19 Balancing Also see Deluxe Balancer Manual pdf file in your Ship It install folder 19 1
84. ct report described in Chapter VII you will be amazed at the insights you will get about the flow of products in your database For example if you have a complex coal operation where coal is produced in several divisions and consumed in several other divisions these reports will help you see exactly what the flow of products is carload by carload from where these carloads are produced to where they are consumed Of course there is no problem if you have several complex product flows besides coal The Deluxe Balancer will break down the flow of products for every one of your products and indus tries iv And if you would like much of the detailed information about your database produced by the Deluxe Balancer can be conveniently exported into a spreadsheet See the description of the spreadsheet export files in Chapter V And these are just a few of the many capabilities of the Deluxe Balancer that go well beyond just balancing 19 2 The Deluxe Balancer is written in the scientific program ming language FORTRAN It is the kind of mathematical program that scientists and engineers call a pure number cruncher For example it computes the rate at which your shippers are producing each shipment and the rate at which consignees are requesting these products If the rates don t match the Deluxe Balancer will adjust the frequencies and the empties values in your database to try to get the numbers to match The Deluxe Balancer a
85. cts file already knows which AAR type it needs If you wish to change this field you must change the product Car Style This is a display only field which is filled in automatically when the product is selected above each product in the products file already knows which car style it needs If you wish to change this field you must change the product 5 Primary Train Type Selecting this field causes the Train Types Browse Window to appear Select the train type from this list If you are not using divisions you only need to fill out this field and not the secondary train type below The primary train type field controls what type of train will ship the products from this industry If the train is not of the cor rect type it will not be scheduled to deliver cars at this industry If the secondary train type below is not filled in 8 6 the primary train type applies to all pickups amp setouts of the car involved even if the car passes through many inter changes Note the primary train type must be filled out 6 Secondary Train Type This optional field is only used by the program when a shipped car passes through interchanges during divisional car routing This field only applies if you uti lize the divisions and interchange features of Ship It This is the way it works On the first movement of a car to the first interchange on a multi divisional run the car will travel on a train of the primary local type Then the car wi
86. cussed under Preliminaries above But also even with the NS NC Only radio button selected the Assistant always tries to make changes in empties and amounts in staging areas C Balance Processing Once you have checked the database setup from the Prep Tab and set up the Balancer and Assistant Parameters from the Parameters tab you are ready to actually balance This is done from the Processing area at the bottom of the balanc ing menu Start by pressing the Export and Balance push button Doing that will cause a DOS window to open where you can see what calculations the Balancer is doing This window will close automatically when Balancer calculations are completed Do not attempt to close this window man ually Once the DOS window has closed itself the balanc ing process is completed by pressing the Import From Balancer pushbutton on the Processing menu But before doing that you may want to examine the Balancing Summary Report that is placed inside the balancer output files folder in case there are issues the Balancer has identi fied that you need to correct D Completing the Balancing Effort Although the Assistant can eliminate most of the discrepan cies balancing issues from a database often there are problems that will require some user attention For example a siding may be so overused that some products should be removed from it or so underused that products should be added to it
87. d by click ing with the mouse or using your arrow keys then click on View Route List This will cause the Browse Car Route List window to appear see below Morgantown Hall Route Insert Change Delete JO x View Route List 12 9 Browse Car Route List 4 Browse Car Route List This window displays a sequence of interchanges that 2 define the car route You can insert change or delete inter changes by clicking on the vari ous buttons If you choose Insert or Add the Update Car Route Details window appears see the next page Al Insert Change Delete Update Car Route Details This window allows you to define the sequence of inter changes that make up a car route Cars will follow the paths defined between divisions Affects Directly affects the manner in which cars are routed between divisions Without car routes divisional inter change of rolling stock will not take place Note with only two divisions there will be only one car route detail the interchange between the two divisions 4 Update Car Route Details a _ Sequence PWY Junction Hall Junction olx Close Fields 1 Sequence This defines the order of the interchanges travelled through It does not matter which interchange comes first or last But the order between the first and last is significant because it defines the sequence of interchanges travelled through This
88. d the train s schedule will be printed but no car moves will be generated for it Along with passenger trains you can set up through freights this way also if you want to do them by hand do not enter the cars into the rolling stock database or uncheck the Available box in the Rolling Stock Update Window before you run Start Fresh Using Directions For Industries Be very careful when using this option If set to anything other than any the industry will need to be visited by a turn which will visit the town from two directions on the same schedule Otherwise the industry will not be able to ship or receive cars I cannot emphasize this strongly enough I recommend using any particularly when starting out Also I am a firm believer in run around tracks Car Diagnostics In the Car Diagnostics report the next and final destinations will only be filled out if the car is destined for another division Revise Car Location When using this make sure you fill out the train type field Otherwise the car will not move Default Train Types AAR Type database Make sure you fill out the primary default train type in the update AAR window If you are using multiple train types fill out the secondary train type also If you don t do so your cars may get stranded This information is used when cars are placed in their home yards during Start Fresh after all sidings are filled half way Arrival Times The program u
89. d Delivery In the above mentioned prototype scenario the customer contacts the shipper and orders goods In Ship It it is the consignee entries in the database that do the calling Always keep in mind each industry may have more than one consignee entry When a session is generated each consignee record request is examined Each consignee record has a frequency field This field indicates how often the industry would like a car load of those particu lar goods delivered Ship It keeps track through time of all the car movements that have occurred If the industry has not received a carload of those goods within Frequency number of hours then a load request is trig gered Matching Available Loads and Load Requests When a session is generated all available loads and load requests are examined When a match is found between an available load and a load request the matchup is fur ther examined to see if a delivery can take place Other Factors The match up must pass the following tests if a loaded car movement is to occur Products the products must match In other words if a shipper is shipping bananas and the consignee is requesting apples a match would not occur Train size the maximum capacity number of cars of the train doing the delivery must not be exceeded Siding capacity the maximum capacity of the con signee s siding must not have been reached yet there must be enough room for all the cars bein
90. d in Chapter 1 How Ship It Works the pro gram attempts to match shippers and consignees When one industry ships what another receives car movement 12 2 Divisions Towne Interchange Car Routes is considered The routing of cars across divisions works in a similar way If a mill requiring coal is matched up with a mine several divisions away the hoppers will be routed through the necessary interchanges To trigger divisional routing there must be a shipper with loads available not requested already by the home division and a consignee requiring those loads whose needs aren t being met by its home division Then there must be trains on both sides that visit the common inter change If you want train to train interchange of cars to occur between divisions do not schedule any trains to travel between those divisions unless you use a different train type or unless the necessary towns are not on the train s schedule because the default is to route cars on a train traveling between divisions rather than to transfer the cars at an interchange In other words if cars can get to where they are going on a single train they will be scheduled to do so in preference to being scheduled on two or more trains via an interchange What is a Car Route A car route is a list of interchanges that a car passes through to get from one division to another If you only have one interchange you do not need any car routes
91. d then rounded For example if you started with a capacity of 5 and used 150 for a value you would end up with an 8 car capacity during session generation If you enter in 500 you would increase car capacity by 5X The maximum value you can enter is 1000 which would increase capacity tenfold The nice thing about this feature is that you can turn it on or off easily You may want to only use it for testing If you are concerned that it is siding capacity that is limiting you operation you could enter a value of 1000 into each Value field and then turn the option on for all industry types This would effectively eliminate siding capacity as a test during session generation Options 5 Tab ae EJ Measure Siding and Train Capacity by Length Database Names Dates Options 1 Options 2 Options 3 Options 4 Options 5 car Cards feet or other units Enable Start Fresh Siding Percentage Turning on this option tells the program to measure siding and train capacity by units of measurement such as feet or 50 Start Fresh Siding Fill Percentage meters instead of using the number of cars See Chapter 10 n A M Enable Last Pass 4th Pass Random Generation for an explanation of this feature Check Train Type of Existing Car in 4th Pass Enable Start Fresh Siding Percentage This option forces the program to use a different algorithm for populating the sidings during Start Fresh new car posi tions The advantage here is t
92. d will be Changed Update Window Type lt lt Interchange lt Yard lt Siding BROWSE AND UPDATE WINDOWS Building Your Pike s Database There are many types of information that need to be entered into Ship It The next picture is a list of all the files each has a browse window of information in Ship It Found Where Order for Beginner Entry Car Routes Car Routing between Divison Menu 1 divisions Rolling Stock Menu 1 rn Records One for each product Icon Industry Menu at an maast receives Division Menu a e Roling Stock _ AListotallvourCars Icon Roling Steck Menu 4 Car Route Details Lists Interchanges an Menu passed through in Car Route List of Ttrain Schedules ae Records One for each Product Industry Menu Da an Industry receives Icon Division Menu tee sts ffs Ten Types Train Menu ft Related Files Explained Many of the files in Ship It are related This keeps you from having to type the same information over and over again when filling out the database For example each industry on your layout must belong to a town Compare the update windows for the town Thurston and Industry Foley s Coal Yard below Notice the town name appears in each This data did not have to be typed in twice When you click on or enter the town field in the update industry window the town browse window will appear allowing you to select a town name Name Type o Thurston
93. divi sion that ties the rest of your divisions together If you are not sure which division to pick just take a guess 19 3 Staging and Balancing Staging industries must be set up following some simple rules The total number of amounts plus empties at staging industries must be exactly equal to the capacity of the stag ing industry The one exception to this is that if you are turning over a staging industry twice in a session see Chapter VI Deluxe Balancing manual then the total num ber of amounts plus empties at the staging industry must be equal to twice the capacity of the staging industry Another consideration in the setup of staging industries involves two special parameters used by the Balancer These parameters are called the NS and NC values NS repre sents the number of times in a session that the shipping por tion of an industry will be turned over NC represents the JE Balancer Menu Primary Prep Parameters Do Polishing Balancer Rebuild NS NC Edit NS NC Values number of times in a session the consignment portion of an industry will be turned over An NS or NC value of 1 means one turnover per session A value of 2 means two turnovers per session And a value of 0 5 means a turnover happens once every other session For staging areas the only allowed values of NS and NC are 0 5 for even odd ses sion generation 1 or 2 And both NS and NC must have the same sett
94. divisions towns industries products shippers consignees etc etc set up by the book first Do your best not to cre ate any problems while doing this The worse the shape that your database is in when you start using the Balancer the harder your job will be in correcting things when using the Balancer For example make sure the Orphan Industries report is blank And just so you know the Deluxe Balancer is not a panacea cure all for every problem that might come up in a Shiplt database If you have set up your car routes incorrectly have set up your default staging destinations improperly have created an impossible situation where trains cannot reach an industry to switch it due to limited setout direction etc etc the Deluxe Balancer certainly will not help fix those kinds of problems But when your Deluxe Balancer grade is good enough and you ve eliminated all the discrepan cies that the Deluxe Balancer tells you about your Shiplt database is in fact in balance So you can look elsewhere for what might be causing any troubles you might have in your database And just one more thing before we start Always keep in mind that the Deluxe Balancer is a program that will change your Shiplt database So always always always back up your database before using the Deluxe Balancer Especially it Balancer Menu Primary Prep Parameters hack Database Orphan Industry Check Check Product Overlap Chec
95. durations are too high your sid ings will be clogged with cars that are loading unloading If your frequencies are set too high not enough cars will be shipped to consignees See the end of chapter 8 for an explanation of balancing your shippers and consignees 10 Check your train capacity If any trains are set to capacity of one they will only be able to move one car 11 A car must be able to get from its shipper to its consignee on one train unless you have divisions interchanges correctly set up or you are using do not convert see warning in line 6 It is very important to understand this Your trains should visit all towns If a shipment cannot get from the shipper to the receiver on one train it will not be delivered note the exceptions above If you are using divisions see chapter 12 for further information on how to set up divisions inter changes Run Shipper Consignee Diagnostics described in this chaper to determine if cars can get between ship pers and consignees Also read the entire section on Diagnostics in this chapter 12 Turn on Last Pass Random Generation This setting is found in the Options Window Tab 5 When turned on this set ting causes the program to try and move any cars that have not yet moved in the current session whether or not a shipper or consignee has requested the car This can help get your traffic moving regardless of whether your shippers and consignees are perfectly in balance 13 If
96. e Next Interchange P amp WU Junction Next Interchange Storage Track t Train Number 488 found between towns Hall Munhall Make sure train types match between Train Shipper and Consignee Train Number 1666 found between towns Munhall Morgantown Make sure train types match between Train Shipper and Consignee Diagnostic Complete Print Eind Find Next Close Print _Eind _Ciose_ 12 6 Update Divisions Each layout no matter how small must have at least one division This update window is where division names are entered This information is used in the Towns and Interchange windows Fields 1 Division Name Enter the name of the division here Required DIVISIONS MENU Warning Because of a bug in the development soft ware used when division names are changed this change will not be reflected in the interchange update window If you change any division names you must also change those division names in the interchange update win dow if they are used there 2 Notes This is an optional description field W Update Divisions 1 __Division Name East Pittsburgh Notes Cancel Record will be Changed Update Towns Window Each town must lie within a division easy if you have only one division and each industry must lie within a town Affects Train scheduling and switchlist generation is affected by the towns on your pike 1 Name Enter the name of the
97. e but it also receives lumber textiles glue varnish nails and other 1 2 manufacturing supplies Each of these goods to be received will have its own entry unless you want to group them together under a miscellaneous supplies category and each can request cars to be delivered at a different frequency For example a carload of lumber might be requested every day but a carload of varnish might be requested once a week What Triggers Car Movement It is the matching up of goods to be shipped and goods to be received that triggers car movement inside Ship It When one industry requests what another industry produces car movement is established Other criteria are involved but this is the basis for all load movement within Ship It The Delivery of Empties In the above prototype scenario a car movement is born when a customer orders a load of goods from a manufactur er This first move is the delivery of an empty to the manu facturer In Ship It things work a bit different Each ship per record has a field within it called Empties On Hand This means the shipper always wants to have so many emp ties on hand for him to fill This is similar to the prototype situation of a large industry that has an arrangement with the railroad to send it so many empties per day When a session is generated inside Ship It one of the things looked at is Empties On Hand Each industry is examined to see if it has the number of empties that
98. e one of the towns must have an inter change for this to work The Storage Track field in the Shipper update window has been filled out for both Spruce and Nancy Mines This keeps the mine tracks free of cars by sending them to Harrison Yard where they can be requested by other industries If you are interested in setting up some of the more advance features in Ship It I strongly suggest spending some time studying this example Please Note The best Option Window settings for the example programs are different If you do not use these settings you may get incorrect or non optimal results For Examples 1 amp 2 the following settings should be used Options Tab 1 Check all boxes except Distribute cars only in home division during Start Fresh Set both multiplica tion factors to 1 Options Tab 2 Check Process staging early in generation and Process staging in mid generation Leave all others blank For Example 3 the following settings should be used Options Tab 1 Check all boxes except Distribute cars only in home division during Start Fresh Set both multiplica tion factors to 1 or 5 Options Tab 2 Check Do not Convert Loads out of Staging Leave all others blank 14 5 15 Quick Checklist for Lack of Car Movement 15 2 Diagnostics sa oie oso 15 5 TIPS SUGGESTIONS DIAGNOSTICS Quick Checklist for Lack of Car Movement 1 Check your train types Cars and trains must m
99. e entered locomotives into the file By pressing the insert button you can enter one on the fly See Chapter 3 for further information DIVISIONS TUTORIAL Interchange Name Connecting Division 1 central Connecting Division 2 fwesten Connecting Division 3 PO Connecting Division 4 fT O Connecting Division 5 Connecting Division 6 fC Storage Track West CentraliaYard Notes Cancel Record will be Changed 4 Browse Car Routes Biel Es Route Name aE Insert Change Delete BEES a Browse Car Route List Interchange Wrest Centralia Interchange aE gt Insert Change Delete Update Trains mmj E General Staging Session Generation Train Number 100 Train Direction Train Name East Centralia Turn Northbound Southbound Train Type generat freight PEA Train Class ooo RE SEEN Max Cars 10 Notes lI Record will be Changed 16 5 Step 15 Enter the information for Train 200 as you see it to the right Step 16 Enter the information for Train 300 as you see it to the right Step 17 The scrolling browse for the trains should now appear as it does to the right Step 18 will involve entering train schedules for each of these trains To do this highlight the train you wish to build a schedule for and click on the View Schedule button Step 18 Enter a train schedule for train 100 As you insert each rec
100. e for a train on only odd or even session numbers This is useful for staging when you wish to run trains every other session See the chapter on staging for more information TRAIN MENU Update Trains 7 General stasing Session Generation ke foo Train Direction 3 Train Name East Pittsburgh Pickup Northbound Southbound Train Type general freight C Eastbound Train Class C Westbound Max Cars or Train Length in Units 10 Notes I Cancel Record will be Changed 4 Update Trains General Staging Session Generation Default Town Morgantown _ Staging Destination Industry Morgan Mines A Cancel Record will be Changed General Staging Session Generation 1 2 _ ession Generation 3 7 all Even C Odd Cancel Record will be Changed 9 5 Viewing Train Schedules The only way to view train schedules is by first going to the Browse Trains window from the train icon Make sure the correct train is highlighted use your arrow keys or click on it with your mouse then click on View Schedule This will cause the Browse Train Schedules window to appear see below Print Switchlist Use this to print a switchlist for the highlighted train Copy Train The Copy Train Button in the Browse Trains Window allows you to copy a train and its schedule to anew name and number The Copy Train Window is seen to the right Simply highlight the tra
101. e location of the car Selecting this field causes the Industry Browse Window to appear Select your choice from this window 2 Product Empty The product field is used to indicate what you would like the car to be loaded with This field works together with the next field the empty checkbox If you would like the car to be an empty check the empty checkbox This will make the products field inaccessible To make the products field accessible again uncheck the checkbox 3 Train Type This field will restrict the type of train that can pick this car up Required Note if this field is left blank the cars location will not change 4 Future Load This field mainly used for populating staging yards can be used to select the type of load an empty will turn into Because staging automatically con verts empties to loads and vice versa you should use this field when you want to pre place loads into staging Make sure you also check the empties box Update Rolling Stock Required Revise Location Not Required indust Hal Yard Train type Cancel Record will be Changed ROLLING STOCK MENU Not Required Tab 1 Manufacturers Type This is used to indicate what name or style the manufacturer calls this car Optional 2 Notes Optional description field for this car for pro totype or modeler s information Update Rolling Stock i ll Introd uchl n 2 sinsszech esi casuaetsiocsssseazescie
102. e problem cars unable to move across divisions Last Pass Generation In Tab 5 of the Options Window there is a setting to Enable Last Pass Random Generation Turning this fea ture on can help keep cars moving on your layout Ship it will attempt to move any car that has not moved yet in the current session regardless of whether another industry has requested that car This helps negate the need for super accurate balancing of shippers and consignees Loads and Empties Sitting Too Long 8 7 If loads and empties sit too long at sidings they are occupy ing valuable real estate on your model railroad Fortunately there are ways to get these cars moving inside Ship It Empties get routed home when a time out occurs The time out is set up by the Multiplication Factor for sending Empties Home variable in the options window see chapter 6 The formula is this the multiplication factor is multi plied times the duration time of the consignee When the empty sits without moving for this number if hours then the empty is routed to its home yard on the next train For example if the duration time is 24 hours and the multipli cation factor is 5 then the time out period is 12 hours There may be times when you need empties to be available as opposed to being sent home right away for use in the same town or in towns ahead on train schedules so this may take some experimentation For shippers there is a field called
103. e to add an intermediate cleaning Update Switchlist for Train 100 Thurston Daily BEE or icing move As long as the car ended up where Ship It thought it should be you would not need to update the Order Number fa database with revise car location see chapter 7 revise Rpt Mrks mw Number 23925 AAR km car loc tab Lading Bakea Goods L Empty From Industry Harrison Bakery You can block your trains using the Block From To or Block To From buttons This provides different sort To Industry Harrison Yard options for your train blocking The blocking takes into er OK Cancel Record will be Changed account turns siding direction etc Lon Blocking times for all of its calculations Therefore do not leave Update Train Schedule these blank Departure times are for documentation pur This window allows you to set up the operating schedule poses only Also do not use an arrival time of 12 00 for your trains Each update window filled out becomes a AM If two towns in the same schedule have the same stop on the schedule arrival time this will also cause problems Tip The order of the towns is set by the Arrival Time 2 Town Selecting this field causes the Browse Towns field to change the order change the arrival time for window to pop up Select the town that the train will be the towns arriving at Required Note You must specify the departure yard where a 3 Return Trip Check this box if the train is on its train o
104. east two car move ments to get from the shipper to the consignee receiver The first move is from the shipper to the interchange and the second move is from the interchange to either another interchange or to the consignee If you don t want car movement on your layout like this just use one division What is an interchange An interchange is a connecting point between two or more divisions The interchange physically consists of an interchange storage track This is where cars are dropped off and picked up In Ship It you can have multiple interchanges per division This allows you to model one main division with several branch lines connecting to it You can also have one interchange connect up to six divi sions With this feature you can model one main divi sion your main yard interchange that is the focus of up to five on line or off line divisions that interact with it How Divisions Work The purpose of divisions within Ship It is to enable the transfer of products from a shipper in one division to a consignee in another This is easy if a train is scheduled across divisions If there is no such train scheduled a car would need to be dropped at a connecting interchange by a train from the shipping division A train from the con signee s division would then pick the car up and deliver it Ifthe shipper and consignee were separated by many divisions the above transfer would need to take place many times As describe
105. ections Print Capacity Rejections Print Train Type Rejections Print Train Full Rejections These reports were added in Version 5 Version 6 added the Print Stuck Cars Report which lists cars that have not moved since a given session the report asks for a session before it prints This report is sorted so that cars that have stayed in place the longest are at the top Version 7 added this report Print Siding Capacity Car Move Rejection Totals This report is a listing of the industries that have car rejections sorted so that the industry with the highest number of rejections is at the top This is valuable because in all probability the ones at the top of the list are your bottlenecks 15 8 DIVISIONS TUTORIAL 16 A Tutorial on Divisions This tutorial is designed to help you understand how to set up and make use of the division and interchange fea tures of Ship It Before embarking on this tutorial you should be familiar with the rest of the program setting up industries consignees shippers train schedules etc and also have practiced entering data into the various Western Division Johnsburg West Centralia Central Division Centralia areas This tutorial is not designed to teach you how to enter data or navigate the various screens of Ship It its sole purpose is to teach you how to set up divisions and interchanges When you have finished you should have a working example of divisional interchange of rolling
106. ed because this stop occurs on the return trip of the train Remember to enter the arrival times correctly This has a direct bearing on the successful interchange of the cars ami Insert Change Delete Close Step 22 Run Some Trains First make sure you have cars of the correct AAR type HD amp RP entered into the rolling stock database If you are not familiar with the process of generating sessions read Chapters 10 and 11 Then generate sessions through 3 at least If you have entered the data correctly you should see reefers of milk shipped from Farmer s Milk Co op to the East Centralia Yard on Train 100 likewise with hoppers of coal bound for Johnsburg Foundry Train 200 should deliver the reefers of milk to Centralia Dairy and the hoppers of coal to the West Centralia yard Finally Train 300 should deliver the hoppers of coal to Johnsburg foundry Also note the travels of the empty cars back to the shipping industries Print out the switchlists and the industry status reports and track the cars as they ship products Who knows with some more industries this might be a fun layout to build 16 7 Introduction uaseeeeesnanseneessennnnneenennenennnennnn 17 2 Two Types of Staging Fiddle and Hidden 17 2 Definitions How Loads amp Empties Convert 17 2 How To Set Up Staging eeene 17 3 A Paired Set of StagingTrains 17 4 Staging Used in a Turn or Out
107. eed to verily car d r locations select Starting Car Locations from the Print menu to print out a list of current rolling stock locations To verify car locations at the end of the new session select Ending Car Locations from the Print menu If Generate Session does not complete successfully Process Complete ES the message to the right appears Possible causes of this Generate Ges ion NIT complete cucceeshilie Na include no train schedule lack of sufficient cars or car consignee shipper matches were found Select Orphan t d lack of tchi hi d Industry Report from the Print menu to print a list of shippers _ Ypes and lac 9 ma er 1ng Shipper consignee Beene S A consignees that do not have matches Also make sure there To print out a list of shippers and consignees with no _ are the right type of cars available in the rolling stock file for the products that are shipped It is also possible that no train match select Orphan Industry Report from the schedule was found Check to see that you have at least 1 Print menu train schedule entered into the database Add New Cars The purpose of Add New Cars is to allow you to add more cars to your layout without having to Start Fresh see the first section this chapter Only use Add New Cars if you are on session or greater Let s say you re on session 5 and you realize you don t have enough hop per cars on your layout for good operation After you buy some RTR or pu
108. een een Building Your Pike s Database e Related Files Explained eneee Which Files Should I Fill Out First Entering Data On The Fly eene Bypassing The Mouse eenseseseseennenennenn 4 Deleting amp Changing Records Cascading Changes cccccccsseeseescetecereeeteeseeeeeees What About Deletes usasenseen ana Deleted Related Records Only When Necessary Delete Error Message 5 The Main Window Introduction nsseeeesnseneeesssnnnnennnennnnennnnnnnnnnnnnnn 6 The File Menu Introduction uses essee na Eaei Backup Restore EXpOll en s reset Database Tab nase Names and Dates Tab enneennen Options 1 Tab nannten anni stein Options2 Tab dar m ei AHA Options 3and 4 Tabs neesensenseeneeesnennesenenennenenennn Options 5 and Car Cards Tab ee 7 Rolling Stock Menu Introduction 3 EEE AEE Update AAR Type Window eenennenennne Update Road Names Window Update Rolling Stock Window eeeene Revise Location Tab VI ode 1 2 1 2 1 2 2 2 3 2 3 2 3 3 3 4 3 4 3 4 4 2 4 2 4 2 4 2 5 2 6 2 6 2 6 2 6 2 6 3 6 4 6 5 6 6 7 2 7 2 7 3 7 3 7 4 8 Industry Menu Introduction Update Industry Window Update Products Window Update Consignee Window Update
109. eessnneeesnnneennnneenennnnn 12 2 Definitions How Divisions Work 12 2 How Automatic Car Routing Works 12 3 How Pre Set Car Routing Works 12 3 Division Diagnostics 12 4 Update Divisions Window 12 7 Update Towns Window 12 7 Update Interchanges Window 12 8 Update and Viewing Car Routes 12 9 Browse Car Routes List 12 10 Update Car Route Details 12 10 DIVISION MENU 12 1 The Divisions menu allows you to view and update data pertaining to the divisions on your layout The Divisions window allows you to list the various divisions on your lay out you must have at least one division The Towns win dow allows you to list all the towns on your layout The Interchanges window lets you list and edit the interchanges on your layout The Car Routes window lets you list the routes that rolling stock can take as they travels across divi sions Route Details not shown in this menu is accessible only through the Browse Car Routes window The Route Detail Window lists the sequence of interchanges cars pass through as they travel across divisions What is A Division Divisions perhaps districts is a better word within Ship It are used solely to define interchange traffic If you do not want interchange traffic on your layout then use a single division much easier to set up I define inter change traffic as when it takes at l
110. eing sent to their storage yard see chapter 8 Shipper Update window Multiplication Factor For Maximum Number of Loads This factor with a default of two controls the build up FILE MENU of loads at a shipper This factor is multiplied by the number of empties requested to calculate the maximum number of loads which will build up If the number in the empties field in the Shipper Update Window is two and this factor is set to two no more than four loads will build up No more empties will be requested till the num ber of loads there drops to three If your sidings are becoming clogged with loads reduce this factor to 1 5 or 1 If you are not getting enough empties delivered raise the factor to 1 5 or 2 This factor can make a big difference in session generation Keep in mind this fac tor is a global value it pertains to all shippers on the lay out Together with the empties field you can control the requesting of empties and the build up of loads very closely Allow Both Thru and Local Pickups for Non staging If this option is checked the program will allow cars to be picked up if their train type matches either the local type or the through type that was set up for them Train types of cars are set up in the Consignee Update window Each train s train type is set up inside the Train Update window If this option is checked any car to or from staging will be evaluated so that if its local train type matches the t
111. en In the first browse window the consignee matches are listed along with their results The second browse window dis plays any divisional results If there are more than one set of divisional results these can be distinguished by the ID number in the leftmost column In the above example ID 27 in the bottom window matches up to ID 27 Morgantown Freight in the top window Note that the same information contained in the report is contained in this overall window With this feature not only can you see at a glance all the matching consignees for a shipper you can see the analysis results as well 15 7 Perform Division Diagnostics Described in Chapter 12 pages 12 4 through 12 7 View Error Messages Session Generation error messages can be viewed here Ifthere are no errors only the heading appears in this format Generation Error Message File Session __ Date of session generation Regardless of the setting Stop Generation on Error Options Tab 2 errors will be output here For more information on the Stop Generation on Error option see Chapter 6 Browse Car Move Rejections If you have set the Option Turn On Diagnostics Mode File Menu Options Tab 2 this browse window will display car rejections from the last session generation note multiple generations do not accumulate only the last generations rejections are displayed The purpose of these diagnostics is to answer the question Why h
112. er ride the default setting Convert to Empty at Destination This is the same as the Convert to Empty at Destination option in Tab 3 Options Window where you set up the defaults for stuck car processing Note that whatever setting you choose on or off will over ride the default setting 10 8 Browse Stuck Car Destinations Industry Stuck Car Destination Harrison Bakery Harrison Yard 1 Newman Mine 1 Foley s Coal Yard 0 Insert Change Delete Close Note Industries not assigned will use the default setting see Options window Update Stuck Car Destinations Industry where car is located Harrison Bakery When stuck move car to this industry Harrison Yard Do Not Move Empties I Test Capacity of Destination Industry lv Convert To Empty at Destination T l Record will be Changed Measuring Siding and Train Capacity in Feet or other units You must mark the checkbox titled Measure siding capacity and train length in feet or other units on Tab 5 of the Options window File pull down menu Options Turning on this option tells the program to measure siding and train capacity by units of measurement such as feet or meters instead of using the number of cars The advantage of doing this is that you can be more accurate you will not have to rely on an average car length You do not have to tell the program what units you are using but you must be con sistent in your use of
113. er Enter the locomotive s reporting number Required 2 Reporting Marks Enter the reporting marks usually initials of the railroad here Required 3 Type Select Diesel Steam or Electric Optional TRAIN MENU 4 Classification Enter the name or class of locomotive Optional 5 Duty Select Freight or Passenger Optional 6 Home Yard This designates what yard the locomotive belongs to Selecting this field causes the Industry Browse Window to appear Select your choice from this list 7 Available When this box is checked it means that the locomotive is available for service Optional 8 Capacity This indicates how many cars this locomo tive can haul over the steepest grade Note When operat ing sessions are generated the program uses the Max Cars field in the Update Trains window not this field to determine the maximum cars for the train This infor mation appears totalled in the Total for Locos Below field in the Browse Motive Power window 9 Notes This is an optional description field 4 Update Locomotives 1 Number 5927 2 Reporting Marks PRR Fon Type en Diesel C Steam Electric 7 ERGEBEN Classification pico s2 C Passenger ene Freight 6 a Home Yard REN V Available 8 Capacity 140 9 Notes Po Cancel Record will be Changed Update Trains Window This window allows you to define the trains that will run duri
114. ery careful when using this option If set to anything other than any the industry will need to be visited by a turn which must visit the town from two directions on the same schedule Otherwise the industry will not be able to ship or receive cars I can not emphasize this strongly enough I recommend using any particularly when starting out I also highly recommend run around tracks Update Industry Name Vulcan Forge 1 Type Industry Interchange 2 Town East Pittsburgh C Yard ze Be C Siding 3 Passenger Car Capacity 3 Round Length to nearest Unit BIETER 4 N aa Any ae T Iv Allow Shipping Between Divisions U Eastboind g 5 C Westbound mm Notes C Northbound Southbound Cancel Record will be Changed Update Products Window The products file provides the connection between the type of product shipped or received by an industry and the car s AAR type It also provides a selection list for filling out the products field in the shipper and consignee update windows Be careful when changing a product name the shipper and consignee files are related to this one any change to the product name will be reflected in the shipper and consignee files Affects Car movement is directly affect by the products file because it links goods that are shipped or received with the type of cars required to carry those goods If the type of empties required by a sh
115. essecsagesscoessaseses Update Train Types Window Update Locomotives Window Update Trains Window Staging Tabus Session Generation Tab Viewing Train Schedules Browse Train Schedules Copy Train cin taa can iaitanncn ihn Condensed Switchlist Blocking Update Train Schedule 9 1 9 2 9 2 TRAIN MENU The Trains menu allows you to view and update data pertaining to the setup of trains on your layout The Locomotives window allows you to list and describe the Locomotives motive power on your layout The Trains window allows Trains you to define all the trains that will be scheduled for your Train Types operating sessions The Train Type window allows you to define the types of trains that run on your layout Schedules are not shown in the main Trains menu you can view them from the Browse Trains window see page 9 6 Scheduling Trains Scheduling trains is an important part of designing your operating sessions Sessions cannot be generated until at least one train is scheduled You may schedule an unlimited amount of trains Trains can originate or end at any town and divisions can be crossed Trains can perform out and back runs or terminal to terminal runs No provisions are made for keeping track of locomotives It is your responsibility to make sure locomotives are availa
116. ete Update Industry Window Update Products Window Update Consignee Window Update Shipper Window Balancing Shippers and Consignees 8 1 INDUSTRY MENU The Industry menu allows you to view and update the data files pertaining to the industries on your layout The Industry window allows you to list and describe all the Industries on your pike The Products window allows you to list all the products your industries ship and receive The Consignee window is where you list all the products received by each industry and the Shipper window is where you list all the products shipped by each industry Update Industry Window Affects Capacity directly affects the generation of operating ses sions If there are not enough slots open cars will not be delivered car movements will not be generated On the other hand don t put down more capacity than there really is because you ll find yourself with too many cars for a siding Remember industries need room for empties being loaded also The town the industry belongs to affects car movements because the towns appear on the trains schedule Fields 1 Name Enter the name of the industry here 2 Town Selecting this field causes the Browse Towns Window to pop up Select the town the industry belongs to Required 3 Capacity If you are using the option Measure Siding and Train Capacity by Length from Tab 5 Options Window you must set the capacity
117. first session Generate Session is used whenever you need to generate a new operating session The purpose of Add New Cars is to allow you to add more rolling stock without having to Start Fresh again You can also clear existing empty and load requests and motive power assign ments Start Fresh new car positions Start Fresh new car positions populates your layout with cars It must be selected before an operating session is gener ated via Generate Session Start Fresh attempts to distrib ute both empties and loads throughout your pike while allowing extra space for the first session deliveries When Generate Session is selected to create the first session it uses all of the set up information generated with Start Fresh The first set up is artificial compared to what hap pens after your sessions get going Ifthe car layout after Start Fresh is not pleasing to you don t give up Stick around to see what happens as you generate sessions and your pike begins to have a life of its own Note Before using Start Fresh close all windows inside Ship It Using Start Fresh new car positions After Session 1 Start Fresh does nothing more than distribute cars Jt does not create an operating session If you select Start Fresh after the first session it will clear the car locations from the layout and re populate the layout with cars Then it will reset your session number back to 0 in preparation for the first session which is alwa
118. frequency hours so shipments of coal will be received more often Cut down on the dura tion time so the loads are emptied faster Of course you may also need an increased amount of coal available so you might also change the matching shipper records or create additional shippers of coal at interchanges or other industries Fields General Tab 1 Industry Selecting this field causes the Industry Browse Window to pop up Select the industry whose consignee activity you are defining in this record Required 2 Town This is a display only field which is filled in automatically when the industry is selected above each industry in the industry file already knows which town it belongs to If you wish to change this field you must change the industry 3 Product Selecting this field causes the Products Browse Window to appear Select the product the indus try receives from this list This will determine what type of goods are received at this industry Required 4 AAR Type This is a display only field which is filled in automatically when the product is selected above each product in the products file already knows which AAR type it needs If you wish to change this field you must change the product 8 3 Update Consignee General Train Types Pre sets 1 Industry Harrison Bakery 2 17 Town Harrison 3 I Product coal 4 AAR Type HD Duration eB Amount 1 SE Frequency 24 E _
119. g this just because you re a serious operator now with out getting into an operating session While I m diverg ing one of the things I use to track where I m at in an operating session is a highlighter After every pickup or delivery I will cross it off the switchlist That way I can stop in the middle of a session if I want to Believe it or not with this system you can operate your trains by your self or with one or two guests You don t have to wait till the guys come over once a month to operate All Switchlists Use this menu option to print out all switchlists for the current operating session If this option is greyed out it is because you have not run generated an operating ses sion yet Refer to the chapter titled Generate Menu to learn how to do this Single Switchlist Use this menu option to print out a single switchlist for the current operating session When the Trains Browse window appears highlight the train desired and press the Print Switchlist button Train Schedules The switchlist will print out every train schedule unless the checkbox Do Not Schedule Trains is checked in the Trains menu Each train schedule will contain a section for each scheduled town wherein every switching move is detailed There is also a Train Schedule List you can print out Switchlist Description The top of each switchlist sheet tells you what session is current and what train is scheduled Each town i
120. g Stock AAR Types Road Names Rolling Stock List 2 Car Style Boxcar hopper etc Optional 3 Primary Default Train Type This field defines the primary default type of train that will pick up this car type In most cases the train type is set by the shipper or the consignee but when cars are initially populated via start fresh some end up in the home yard The default train types are then used Also when add new cars is selected the default train type is used Every car on your layout will have at least a primary train type If you set up secondary train types also your cars will have two train types Primary and secondary train types are both necessary if you are using both local and through train types The primary train type is usually the local train type 4 Secondary Default Train Type This field defines the secondary default type of train that will pick up this car type The secondary train type is used when through train types are involved 5 Description This is an optional field used primarily to describe car features more accurately 3 Update AAR Types 1 AAR Type ho em Car Style Hopper 3 Primary DefaultTrain Type General Freight r Secondary Default Train Type Thru Train Cancel Description Record will be Changed Update Road Names Window This window allows you to enter road names so you can select the road name from a browse window when enter ing rolling stock data rather tha
121. g delivered Train type the shipper and the consignee train type fields must match Train type is set up by the user Examples include wayfreight general freight extra local hot shot passenger etc Train schedule the movement of the car must be phys ically possible In other words there must be a way for the car to get to where its going The route the car must take must be part of a train s schedule or a com bination of train s schedules If all these tests pass a car movement is built How Suir IT Works The Last Step In the prototype when a car is delivered it is unloaded This takes time depending on the load In Ship It the same is true There is a duration field in the consignee record This is the number of hours it takes to unload the car After duration number of hours has passed the load automatically becomes an empty What happens to empties In Ship It empties are available to be picked up by any industry requesting them If an empty remains at the industry where it was unloaded for more than double the duration time then it is moved toward the home yard across divisions if necessary What actually happens within the program is any load converted to an empty becomes an available empty Empties Are Matched Also Within Ship It shippers that require empties create empty requests As with loads empty requests are matched up with available empties The match up must pass the followi
122. h would be Decatur Ill Central Monon Car Route Roachdale Monon lt Last Interchange Ill Central Decatur Springfield First Interchange ABWN eK Example 2 The above examples demonstrate that a car route can be used for more than one pre set consignee a portion of a car route can be used and a car route can be used for both directions The selection of first and last inter changes determine this Train Schedules Are Critical Train schedules are crucial in divisional car routing The program does not test for train schedules when it routes cars via interchanges It works on the assump tion there are always trains to take the car where it needs to go Ship It always assumes that any car in a divi sion can get to any interchange in that division on a single train If you do not provide that train you will 12 3 end up with stranded cars This means you have to pro vide trains that travel from each town in a division to each interchange in that division This only makes sense Pd be pretty ticked off if I owned a factory in a town that had rail traffic but did not have access to an interchange You would be surprised at how many times I have seen this in peoples databases If you notice cars that have been dead ended make sure a train is available to take them where they are going If you have reasons for not having a train that connects a town to an interchange perhaps the prototype didn t then
123. hat you can fine tune how Start Fresh populates your sidings It pays to experiment Pea here Try values between 50 and 80 In the example 2 data base I found that the best percentage to use was 70 Thisis Car Cards Tab easy to determine by trial and error Run trials with various n2 settings generating around 6 sessions for each Print pre view the Industry Activity Report which is a list of all the car movement generated for each trial Whichever setting gives you the longest report indicating more car movement These items are for use with Ship It Car Cards with one exception Export to Condensed Switchlist Database During Session Generation This must be checked for switchlist data to be output to the condensed switchlist database Once in the database trains can be blocked is probably the one you ll want automatically Enable Last Pass 4th pass Random Generation This option when turned on generates a last pass of car movement generation using a different algorithm than the rest of the program in order to try and move cars that have not moved in the curent session This can create car move ment and unclog bottlenecks See Chapter 10 for further explanation of this feature Check Train Type of Existing Car in 4th Pass See Chapter 10 for explanation of this option 6 6 Introduction aeeeeesnsnneseessennnnnnnenennennen 7 2 Update AAR Type Window 7 2 Update Road Names Window 7
124. ich interchange or industry is there Then make sure that you have a train sched uled that stops at both the current car location and the next destination Keep in mind that train schedules are not examined when cars are routed across divisions For divisional routing the program makes the assumption that a car can get from any interchange in the division to any town in the division Town B Town A Coal Mi Interchange un Steel Mill Town B Town A West Town A East Interchange Steel Mill Coal Mine Single Train Delivery Supercedes Divisional Routing If a car can get to its destination via a single train it will do so instead of going via divisional routing Let s say you have a train running from Town B to Town A and there is an interchange in town A Because the Steel Mill is in the same town as the interchange and because there is a train that runs between the two towns the coal will be delivered directly from the mine to the mill without being delivered to the interchange first This is because when a train arrives at a town it always has access to all the industries there unless the consignee or shipper records are of a different train type In order to ensure that the hoppers are routed through the interchange the revised schematic below shows that Town A was split into two parts west and east The original train travels between Town B and Town A West but does not go on to Town A East A new train is created to travel be
125. ies in other words the car will not move if the industry where it is located is requesting an empty Database Names Dates Options 1 Options 2 Options 3 Options 4 car Cards Artificially Increase Siding Capacity not during Start Fresh r of the same car type i Fake Industry Capacity T Industry Value 150 5 Ship Empties Only at Consignee Request Fake Interchange Capacity V Interchange Value 4 5 Only ship empties if there is a request from a consignee for Fake Yard Capacity 1 Yard Value 150 4 that type of load This may help if cars are sitting too long and clogging the system Fake Siding Capacity T Siding Value 200 4 Fake Passenger Capacity l Passenger Value 300 Stuck Car Processing See Chapter 10 for an explanation of Stuck Car Processing Cancel Options 4 Tab Exaggerating Siding Capacity This feature allows you to artificially increase siding capacity during session generation Note that this does not affect Start Fresh Enable Capacity Faking This turns it on and off allowing you to leave your settings in place Fake Industry Capacity Fake Interchange Capacity Fake Yard Capacity Fake Siding Capacity Fake Passenger Capacity These checkboxes allow you to turn on and off capacity faking for different types of industries What you can do here is set up the types of industries to benefit your usage of this feature For example suppose you only want to turn capacity faking on for one inter
126. ill go on that train Turning on the Last Pass Random Generation option see Chapter 6 can help move these cars 15 4 Cars with Next amp Final Destinations TIPS SUGGESTIONS DIAGNOSTICS When you see cars in the industry status report having next amp final destinations this means these cars have to go to these destinations They cannot be requested by another industry A train must be available to take them to their next destination if not it is possible you have your interchange storage track or train schedules set up so the cars cannot get to their next destination Cars Switching Trains in Staging If this happens check your default staging destinations Reselect the default staging destination to fix this problem If you had changed the next train staging set up for the train previously and did not reslect the default staging desti nation a problem would occur because the default staging dest would still be from the older next train s schedule Reselect the default staging destination to solve this problem even if the town and industry name looks correct Diagnostics Shipper Consignee Diagnostics Before you can use any any of the Diagnostic Reports or fea tures the program has to analyze your Ship It database From the Shipper Consignee Diagnostics Menu which you get to by selecting Shipper Consignee Diagnostics from the Diagnostics pull down menu press the button titled Analyze Shippers
127. iminating it from your layout Delete Error Message The following error window occurred when a town record deletion was attempted If you read the message it will tell you which file has the referenced records in it In this case it is the industry file that is referencing the town record If you need to delete that particular town record you will need to go into the industry file and delete any records there that reference the town record When that is accomplished you will be able to delete the town record ri This record is referenced from the file Industry This record cannot be deleted while these references exist Introduction uaeseeeeeenaeneseessennnnnenesennennen 5 2 THE MAIN WINDOW 5 1 Introduction The row of icons allow you quick entry into files Not BEE f every file has an icon for it but all files appear in the The main window is your work area for Ship It Here pull down menus click on the menus in the Menu Bar you will open up database windows generate sessions below A table in chapter 3 lists all files and which menu and print out reports The Menu Bar see below con they fall under tains every function available inside Ship It The Title Bar see below lets you see at a glance what session you are in and what pike database is active Title Bar Tells which session if any is active Menu Bar See chapters 6 thru 12 Tells which database is selected for descriptions
128. in you wish to copy and press the Copy Train button Then fill in the new Train Number and Train Name Press OK to complete Copy Train also creates a maindata bak in case maindata tps becomes corrupted during the copy View Schedule This window displays a schedule of the towns a train vis its You can insert change or delete towns on the sched ule by clicking on the various buttons If you choose Insert or Add the Update Train Schedules window appears View Motive Power Use this button to view motive power for the selected train Print Condensed Switchlist Use this button to print your switchlists in the condensed format two to a page You must generate your sessions with the option Export to Condensed Switchlist Database During Session Generation turned on to use this see chapter 6 Note Ship It Car Cards can be used to change fonts and add logos to the condensed switch list 9 6 olx Type of Train General Freight General Freight General Freight hru Train General Freight Browse Trains Thurston Dail 200 Staging Train 300 CrossvilleTurn 400 Harrison Crossville Thru gen frt D Insert Change Delete Print Switchlist Copy Train View Schedule View Motive Power Print Condensed Switchlist Browse Condensed Switchlist Copy Train 300 Morgantown Erie Through Please Enter Information For The New Train Train Number i Train Name PO Cancel
129. information report will get smaller See chap ter III Deluxe Balancer Manual for more information Once your overall quality of balance grade is below 1 and all discrepancies are gone from the balancing information file your database is balanced Polishing Once your balancing grade is below 1 and all discrepan cies have been eliminated using Standard balancing you may need to polish to obtain the best possible grade in bal ancing See Chapter IX Part A for more information on this topic Further Reading The information given in the current chapter is just a brief introduction to the use of the Balancer and the Assistant For more information on correcting discrepancies that the assis tant fails to eliminate see the full Deluxe Balancer manual Chapter HI For more information on polishing see Chapter IX part A For more information on the Assistant see Chapter X Important Features Some of the many balancer features that are not encountered in the current chapter include the Train report Chapter V the Layout Design Quality report Chapter V the Car Mix report Chapters IV amp V and spreadsheet export files Chapter V Setting pdither and fdither to larger values than the default will increase balancing speed Edit Balancer Chapter 20 Version Feature List 5 8 Version 5 Features added Options Tab 2 and Options Tab 3_Windows These options are described in pages 6 4 and 6 5 File Menu Ba
130. ing for staging areas It is the user s responsibility to make sure meaningful values are set for NS and NC for staging areas How use the software to set the NS NC val ues is discussed below in Section C of this chapter For example if you are using even odd staging trains but leave the default settings of NS NC of 1 the staging area is set up incorrectly Maximum NS NC 2 00 Minimum NS NC 0 50 l x Allow Assistant To Adjust Allow All Processing Export and Balance Assistant Passes fo 4 Reset Assistant Parameters C NS NC Only except for staging Import From Balancer C Empties Amounts Only Print Error Report B The Parameters Tab The Balancer and Assistant parameters all have default val ues that are good for most databases But the Parameters menu lets you pick other values if you would like to do so The Balancer parameters are set in the area at the top of the Parameters menu while the Assistant values are set near the middle of that menu If you are balancing for the first time you probably do not need to worry about the meanings of the Balancer parame ters so at first you will not need to press the Edit Balancer Parameters pushbutton Just use the default values What the parameters mean is discussed in Chapter VIII Deluxe Balancer Manual The Rebuild NS NC pushbutton is there to reset the NS NC values when you make major database changes s
131. ion 5 ooo O O fa ____ Connecting Division 6 A a R Storage Track HarrisonYard BT Notes 12 8 Cancel Record will be Changed Update Car Routes This window allows you to name your car routes Affects If you only have two divisions you can ignore car routes If you have two or more interchanges car routes are needed to define the routes cars may take A car route is a sequence of interchanges the car will pass through on its way from one division to another You can have a very complex network of divisions Car Routes define the path cars take when they travel from one division to another For a good example of car routes see Chapter 14 Sample Layouts Fields 1 Car Route Name This is used to identify the car route Required DIVISIONS 2 Notes Optional description field 3 Use For Presets Only When checked this prevents the automatic car routing from using this Car Route This allows you to prevent cars from automatically being rout ed on complex car routes where they might get strand ed 4 Update Car Routes i oOo Car Route Name East Pgh Butler Route 2 Notes PO 3 Use For Presets Only Cancel Record will be Changed Viewing Car Routes 4 Browse Car Routes Route Name The only way to view a car East Pgh Butler Route route list is by first going to the Browse Car Routes win dow from the pull down menus Divisions Y Car Routes Make sure the correct route is highlighte
132. ion is where any cars must go which Max Cars 10 Fee are not destined already for on line industries Because Locomative 3456 T Do Not Generate Moves the cars cannot be left in staging they must have a place Notes to go The default staging destination provides these cars a destination When setting up paired staging the default staging destination should be the last stop on the current trains schedule and the departure point of the next trains schedule This is where the current train converts into the next train and must be inside staging Lo Cancel Record will be Changed General Staging Session Generation Next Train turns into inside staging 300 Default Town Morgantown Staging Industry Morgan Mines Destination Clear Staging Destination Running Only 1 Train of a Pair per Session In the Session Generation tab of the Trains update form there are selections for running your trains All sessions Even sessions or Odd sessions One train of the pair should be set up for odd and one should be set up for even That way they will alternate sessions Screen Shots For Train 301 Example 2 Staging Used In A Turn or Out and Back Munhall Munhall Yard Train 1000 Morgantown Morgan Mines Staging Staging is easier to set up for a turn Example 2 above shows how Train 1000 is set up for hidden staging Train 1000 is part of the Example 2 database which comes wi
133. ipping industry are not avail able then delivery of those empties will not occur and shipment of the products to fill those empties would be delayed INDUSTRY MENU Fields 1 Product Enter the name of the product here 2 AAR Type Selecting this field causes the AAR Types Browse Window to pop up Select the AAR type of the car from this list Required 3 Car Style This is a display only field you can t edit it controlled by the AAR type selection above If you wish to change this field you must change the AAR type of the car 4 Notes Optional description field 4 Update Products x Product Fertilizer 2 ____ AAR Type xm 3 i Car Style Boxcar Notes Cancel Record will be Changed Consignee Update Window The consignee records are where everything falls together in Ship It When you are building consignee records you are setting up all the products received on your layout whether they are received by actual industries on your pike or by off line industries via interchanges When sessions are generated consignee records are matched against shipper records If there is a match between prod ucts then a car movement is considered Affects These records have a direct bearing on car movement This is where you will be able to fine tune your operating sessions You say there isn t enough coal traffic Increase the amount field of the foundry to receive more cars per shipment Decrease the
134. is example You must also click in the Next Train field This causes a browse select for the Trains file to appear Select the train you wish to convert to When the train leaves staging it will leave as the train you specify The Default Staging Destination fields are very important but sometimes confusing entry fields When you click on 17 4 4 Update Trains Ei General staging Train Direction Train Number 300 een 1 Northbound Train Name Morgantown Erie Through C Southbound Train Type fhrougn Freight C Eastbound Train Class C Westbound Max Cars fro T Do Not Schedule Train Locomotive 3456 T Do Not Generate Moves Notes 0k _ Cancet_ Record will be Changed General Staging Session Generation Next Train turns into inside staging 301 Default Town ferie Staging Industry Lake Erie Steel Clear Staging Destination Cancel Record will be Changed Destination Screen Shots For Train 300 SETTING Up HIDDEN STAGING the towns field a browse select appears containing the towns in the trains schedule When you click on the u i Train Direction industry field a browse select appears containing the s ETRA Fe Northbound A Pi P Train N rie Morgantown Thru industries in the town you selected above The Default ng su SERIE Staging Destination Town Train Type Through Freight Eastbound ging Train Class Westbound The default destinat
135. ists and reports Also in the industry update window make sure that your yards or interchanges are marked as yards or interchanges Be careful when filling out the pick up and drop off locations if the train is a turn you must select the correct town in the schedule because the same town will appear twice in the schedule Helper Service Use the pick up and drop off fields to add helper service to your train You can add one or more locomotives on at any town and drop off one or more locomotives at any town Use the Train Length Report to determine where you need to add any extra pulling power This report lists 9 8 olx Needed fo Browse Motive Power for Train 100 East Pittsburgh Pickup Calculate Max Cars Train Capacity Total Req d 10 Total for Locos Below Jig Locomotive iii Rpt Marks Number Caboose Capacity Type Rpt LIE Insert Change Delete Update Motive Power for Train 100 East Pittsburgh Pickup Locomotive Order 1 Locomotive Number 300 Reporting Marks furr Caboose Number Reporting Marks Pick Up At optional Clear Fields Town Han Siding Han Yard Drop Off At optional Clear Fields Town East Pittsburgh Siding Westinghouse Birbrake Lo Record will be Changed Update Motive Power for Train 100 East Pittsburgh Pickup Locomotive Order lo Locomotive Number Reporting Marks Caboose Number 200 Reporting Marks JRR Clear Fields
136. it wants If it doesn t emp ties are scheduled if available to be delivered there Loads Convert To Empties And Vice Versa In the prototype after an empty is delivered to a shipper it is loaded Inside Ship It the same is true Each shipper entry has a field called Duration This is the number of hours it takes to load the empty After Duration number of hours has passed the empty automatically becomes a load Ship It keeps track of all the available loads Time Inside Ship It You don t need to operate with a fast clock while using Ship It However the program does need to track time so a deci sion was made to define the time span between the start of one session and the start of the next session as day 24 hours This does not mean you need to operate your trains every 24 hours but even if you don t operate your trains for 3 months only 1 day will have passed inside Ship It since you started your last operating session This impacts Duration time For example lets say you set the duration time in the shipper record for the loading of furniture at 48 hours The program would not convert this empty to a load until the second session after the empty was delivered In other words the car would sit there not available for ship ment as a load until two sessions 2 days or 48 hours had passed Time is also present within each train s schedule this sets up the timing within the 24 hour session What Starts Loa
137. ity Ignore Empties T Convert To Empty at Destination Convert to Empty at Destination This is a unique feature that lets you convert a stuck car to an empty as it is delivered to the stuck car destination This will let Ship It move the now empty car across divi sions because once a car is converted to an empty at the stuck car destination Ship It can then send the empty back home across divisions like it normally does This is the only way to send stuck cars across divisions Reasons why stuck cars may not move 1 If you have train type testing siding capacity testing or train capacity testing turned on 2 If you do not have a train going from the town where the stuck car is to the town where the stuck car destina tion exists This means that stuck cars cannot move on multiple trains across divisions except as described in the feature Convert to Empty at Destination above 3 You do not have a default destination set up in the Options Window Tab 3 Stuck Car Destinations Ship It 6 0 will try to send any stuck cars to the default destination However you can set up a specific stuck car destination for any industry This is valuable if for instance you want all cars at a mine that become stuck to be transferred to a specific yard Every industry can have a specific destination If there is no specific destination set up for an industry Ship It will instead use the default destination Importa
138. jections See Chapter 15 for more information on Diagnostics FILE MENU Stop Generation on Error When you turn this option on error messages will print out to the screen during Option session generation This halts generation until you press OK Database Names Dates Options 1 Options 2 Options 3 Options 4 Options 5 With this setting off messages will not be printed to the screen p Regardless of the setting here all error messages are output to errors txt which is viewable from the menu item View Error Messages in the Diagnostics Menu 95 of these error messages are triggered by making changes such as deleting industries towns etc while cars are on the layout Either a Hours to Exceed Before Moving 24 Ignore Empties I Start Fresh old car positions or a Start Fresh new car posi Default Destination tions will clear most if not all of these messages Test Train Capacity M Test Destination Siding Capacity I Ship Empties Only on Consignee Request Options For Processing Stuck Cars Enable Stuck Car Processing M Test Train Type M Convert To Empty at Destination I Don t Print Town in Switchlist if there are no Moves Setting this option will prevent towns with no cars Cancel moves from being printed on a switchlist Options 3 Tab Force Usage of Existing Empties at Industry This option forces the utilization of empties sitting at industries that are requesting empt
139. k Consignee Durations Check Divisions Check Staging Set Durations To 1 Set Divisional Values Processing Export and Balance A Prepping Your Database for Balancing The buttons in the above screen are used to perform various tests on your database and to log any issues found These can be printed via the Print Error Report button You should press all the check buttons prior to balancing anytime you have made database changes Don t worry these checks all happen quickly unless your database is large or your com puter is very slow Check Database this looks for blank data rows and bad characters symbols in the names of any divisions industries or AAR car types The nine forbidden special symbols are gt lt It also looks for rolling stock that are missing home yards or car numbers Orphan Industry Check Looks for shippers that don t have any matching consigness and vice versa Check Product Overlap looks for any industries that both ship and receive the same product Also looks for industries that have more than shipper or consignee of the same prod uct Check Consignee Durations tests whether duration exceeds frequency generally a bad idea Your database will Import From Balancer BALANCING when you re just learning to use the Deluxe Balancer you might make mistakes It will give you confidence to play with the Deluxe Balancer as you wish if you know there are
140. lancing grade See Chapter X Deluxe Balancer Manual for more information Balancing Summary Report txt Located in the balancer output files folder under your data base folder Example if you are using the Primary database it would be here shipit primary balancer output files This is the first report you should look at after each run of the Balancer This report lists your balancing grade explained in Chapter III and the grand total number of cars requested each session the more cars that are requested the greater will be the operational activity in your database Also listed are a complete summary of all the warnings and problems the Deluxe Balancer has identified in your database and which report you need to look in to find the details of each warning and or problem Warnings are indi cated with W s WWWWW and problems are indicated with asterisks The warnings may or may not be something that need fixing and are given only to call your attention to potential problems The problem indications asterisks are given to identify things that really do need fix ing Using the Balancing Summary Report lets you avoid having to hunt through all the reports that the Deluxe Balancer has produced in order to find problems All prob lems are listed and summarized right here and this one report will tell you what other Deluxe Balancer reports you need to consult The error message gt CH
141. ld filled in You must have a home yard for each car if the program is to run correctly This error can be triggered by a blank value in this field File Error in get_train_type This error can be caused by having towns and industries that are not on a train schedule If you get this error make sure that all of your towns are visited by a train Attempts to automatically number this record have failed ERROR creates duplicate key This means that there is a blank record in the browse window where you are trying to insert a record Look for a blank line at the top of the browse list and delete it The error message will go away after the blank empty record is deleted Blank Database records Keep an eye out for blank database records These can cause many error messages They appear as blank lines at the top of the various browse windows Delete them when you see them Other Errors Many error messages are non fatal in Ship It Hundreds of error checks go on during the generation of an operating session many of them of no real significance Even though an error message was produced your switchlists could be fine Many if not most errors can be fixed by issuing a Start Fresh If you have wish to test this without losing your session data the record of what has gone on in previous sessions along with all of your present car locations back up the data files from the appropriate sub directory then try Start Fresh If you need to you ca
142. left at all With fiddle staging Ship It does not know the boundaries of your train room You can use Ship It to quickly and easily expand the size of your layout Hidden Staging Hidden staging is used when you do not have switching access to your staging yard When this is the case the same train same consist must exit staging that entered it You do not want to pick up or drop off any cars inside hidden staging Because Ship It s main task is to drop off and pick up cars to from industries this becomes a problem There is also the problem of empties and loads to consider Do loads still convert to empties and emp ties to loads What about duration times Hidden staging throws a monkey wrench into all of this Ship It has tools and routines built into it to overcome these prob lems this chapter will explain how they work Because load empty conversion is such an important part of the prototype and such an integral part of Ship It I knew that this had to continue with hidden staging Duration times would have to become zero because empty load conversion would have to occur whenever the train left staging The main problem became where to send the cars if they had no on line requests The train simply could not wait until every car became requested it would have to stay on its schedule The solution became the default staging destination Staging Towns Each staging yard will contain one or possibly more 17 2
143. ll be picked up at this interchange by a train of the secondary through train type It will travel on the secondary type trains even if it has to be picked up set out by multiple trains until it reaches an interchange in the division of its destination From this last interchange it will again travel on its primary local train type For more information see chapter 18 7 Storage Yard This field contains the name of a yard or interchange it could be an industry too which will receive the loaded cars if they sit too long at the shipper before being sent out The reason for this is to help eliminate bottlenecks if your siding is jammed up with loads waiting delivery which nobody is asking for it can slow things down The time out period is calculated using the Multiplication Factor For Sending Empties Home variable contained in the options win dow and works the same way see chapter 6 Also see the section at the end of this chapter on balancing your shippers and consignees Important The storage yard field should not contain an industry that has a consignee requesting the same type of load The Storage Yard must be in the same division as the Shipper Note the new storage yard feature in the shipper update window can be used to send your cars to an icing plant Just set the duration field to 1 in the shipper window As long as no train visits the town where the shipping industry resides before the 1 hour duration is up the car
144. lso checks the number of carloads going into each siding and adjusts things so that those carloads will fit If it is mathematically possible to balance your database the Deluxe Balancer will drive your database into balance no matter how badly out of balance things are at the start Chances are though it won t be possible for the Balancer to balance your database on the first try That is because even if you try your best to add industries shippers consignees and products to your database carefully it is almost a given that you will set things up in a way that things simply cannot be balanced There is no reason to feel badly about that A ShipIt database can be very complex That s because Shiplt reflects the real world so well But generally speaking it is beyond the capacity of the human mind to set up such a complex mathematical system in a way that it can be brought into balance But not to worry If the Deluxe Balancer finds that it cannot automatically drive your database into balance it will create several reports that you can use to change your database so it is possible for the Balancer to bring it into balance And explaining how to do that is what much of this users guide is about Before running the Deluxe Balancer you should know that it is assumed that your ShipIt database has already been creat ed So go ahead and follow the instructions in the Shiplt users manual for setting up your database Get all your
145. m any given session to the current one Note the next and final destination fields in this report are usu ally only filled out when the car is going to another divi sion Debugging Your Sessions Use these reports to debug your session generation For example if you see many industries have load requests but no loads are being delivered some examination of the reports will show you why Perhaps the sidings are full the industry status report will show you this or perhaps no loads are available to be shipped look at the shipping industries cars in the industry status report Perhaps there are no loads because no empties were available to be delivered to the shipping industry A Snapshot In Time Please note the reports are a snapshot in time at the start of the next session Therefore not everything going on in a session will be visible but you can infer a lot based on loading amp unloading times and how long a given car has been at its location all of which is given Other Reports Each of the databases has a report for it so that you can obtain printouts There is no sorting functionality beyond what you get for each printout If more advanced reports are needed Railbase Professional is available it s com patible with the database and offers many ways to query sort and print reports on your databases in addition to 11 4 providing a great way to track your rail related assets Introduction unesees
146. mimic as best as possible the end of a session that was generated via Generate Session 24 Hours Between Sessions Start Fresh mimics the end of a session because when Generate Session is selected it advances the internal time clock by 24 hours from the start of the previous session Based on the elapse of time the first thing Generate Session does is to convert empties to loads and loads to empties based on their duration times The cars Start Fresh distrib utes all have a duration time assigned to them based on the values in the shipper and consignee records Also the arrival time for these cars is set to be at the start of the previous imaginary session The purpose for all of this is to have loads and empties convert normally at the beginning of the first session Duration Times One potential problem would arise if you set all your dura tion times for 48 hours hours In this case no loads or emp ties would be converted until the next session and you will limit the action on your pike It is best to have a mix of dura tion times with the majority set at 24 hours or less to keep the action going There is no set rule you have to experi ment and see what works for you When Start Fresh Completes Either of the message screens below will appear when Start GENERATE MENU Fresh completes If it does not complete successfully it means that you have not entered sufficient information into the database Likely causes
147. n always reload your data files If you are unable to correct the error on your own write it down exactly as it is worded and contact us at Albion Software We will assist you in every way possible Note Start Fresh new car positions clears out more errors than Start Fresh old car positions Problems With Divisions For problems with divisions see chapter 12 particularly the section in the beginning and the section on division diagnostics Warning Because of a bug in the development software used when division names are changed this change will not be reflected in the interchange update window If you change any division names you must also change those division names in the interchange update window if they are used there Motive Power Not Showing Up On Switchlists You must fill out the pick up and drop off locations for the motive power to appear in the switchlists and reports Also in the industry update window make sure that your yards or interchanges are marked as yards or interchanges Be careful when fill ing out the pick up and drop off locations if the train is a turn you must select the correct town in the schedule because the same town will appear twice in the schedule Yards Interchanges Not Appearing On Yard Lists In the industry update window make sure that your yards or interchanges are marked as yards or interchanges if thet are not they will not appear in the Yard Reports System Error The file you are t
148. n fact Ship It will force you to define things on your layout you haven t wrestled with yet Hopefully you will find your layout coming alive and in the process enjoy it a whole lot more After all designing modeling and detailing a layout is so much work a lot of us ignore the operating aspect of it Ship It provides you with a framework to design your layout operations around This framework is the database within Ship It A database don t let these computer terms fool you is nothing more than a collection of highly organized information An empty database is like an empty library there s lots of shelves all organized and numbered by a system the dewey decimal just wait ing to be filled with books Ship It s database like wise is organized by a system the one programmed inside it and likewise is empty except for some AAR types already input The database within Ship It is a collection of related files There is a file for rolling stock information towns industries consignee and shippers etc Within each file however there are many groups of information called records For example in the industries file there will be after you ve typed in the data a record for each indus try Within each industry record there will be detailed information such as name capacity town etc These pieces of information are called fields It is good to understand this because you will be entering a lot of information int
149. n having to re enter it each time Affects This file is not related to any other it is only used to select from If you change a road name here that change will not affect any other file 4 Update Road Names Reporting Marks HENS Update Rolling Stock Window Each car must be tracked on the layout The switchlist identifies the car by the road initials and the road report ing number Affects The AAR type of the car affects car selection and deliv ery to industries See the AAR Update Window section for more information Note On Use Of Tabs Tabs allow more information to be fit in one window Simply click on the tab that contains the information you wish to edit Required Tab 1 Number This is the reporting number for the car Required 2 Reporting Marks When you select this field the Road Names Browse Window pops up allowing you to select the reporting marks from a list Required 3 AAR Type Selecting this field causes the AAR Types Browse Window to pop up Select the AAR type of the car from this list Required 4 Car Style This is a display only field you can t edit ROLLING STOCK MENU Fields 1 Reporting Marks Enter the initials of the railroad here as they would be found on a car Required 2 Road Name Enter the full length railroad name Optional 3 Notes This is an optional description field Road Name Baltimore amp Ohio Notes Cancel Record will be Changed it
150. n the trains schedule is listed starting with the town of depar ture When operating all the switching that should be done at the current town is listed within the box You do not need to refer to any previous or future town s switching instructions Just follow the instructions within each box as you arrive at each town When you arrive back at the yard each car in your train should be listed as a set out Arrival and Departure times are listed to add a prototypi cal flavor Keep in mind you do not need to use a fast clock Conductor and Engineer instructions are given at the beginning of the switchlist for each town The text for this is generated from the fields in the trains file Pickups and Setouts are listed separately so a car being picked up and set out in the same town will have two lines in the section for that town The lading is called out for each car also to give the operator a better feel for what is going on This helps us think of our trains as performing an actual service as opposed to just moving cars around PRINT MENU Orphan Industry Report This report lists all the shippers with no matching con signee for their products and all the consignees with no matching shipper to receive products from In order for a delivery to occur in Ship It a shipper must exist that ships the same goods a consignee wants to receive What this report does is print out each shipper that does not have anywhere to ship its g
151. nd Westbound trains can be set up These trains can start and terminate inside hidden staging but the hidden staging cannot become the default staging destina tion unless you convert to another train Example 4 Through Staging in a Point to Point Layout N Hidden Staging Town A Town B Town Through staging can also be implemented in a point to point layout Designate a town in your hidden staging area and mark it as staging using the checkbox in the Town Update WIndow You can either set up one train or you can con vert to another train inside staging A single train would originate in Town A stop in the staging town in the middle and terminate at Town B The next train checkbox would not be checked and the default staging destination would be Town B If you set up two trains the first would originate in Town A and terminate in the hidden staging town The second train would originate in hidden staging and terminate in Town B The first train would have its next train box checked this next train would be the second train The default staging destination would be the hidden staging town For the second train there would be no staging information filled out Example 5 Return Loop Staging Town A Return Loop Staging Town The train would leave town A enter the staging loop and return back to Town A The staging loop would be set up as a staging town and would appear in the middle of the trains schedule The default st
152. nd not the secondary train type below The primary train type field controls what type of train will ship the products received at this industry If the train is not of the correct type it will not be scheduled to deliver cars at this industry If the sec ondary train type below is not filled in the primary train type applies to all pickups amp setouts of the car involved even if the car passes through many interchanges Note the primary train type must be filled out 5 Secondary Train Type This optional field is only used by the program when a car shipped to the consignee passes through interchanges during divisional car rout ing This field only applies if you utilize the divisions and interchange features of Ship It This is the way it works On the first movement ofa car to the first interchange on a multi divisional run the car will travel on a train of the primary local type Then the car will be picked up at this interchange by a train of the secondary through train type It will travel only on the secondary type trains even if it has to be picked up set out by mul tiple trains until it reaches an interchange in the division of its destination From this last interchange it will again travel on its primary local train type For more informa tion see chapter 18 6 Shipper Pre Set This optional field locks a con signee into receiving goods from only this shipper When you click on this field a browse select window
153. ndustries interchanges and yards II Set Your Options From the File menu select Options Next select the data base you want to hold your layout data usually primary and make sure enable second pass is checked See chap ter 6 for further explanation III Data Entry Fill in the following browse windows in this order Divisions Towns Industries Train Types See chapters 12 8 9 and 3 for information about entering this data IV Make A List For each industry list in two columns on a blank sheet of paper each product the industry ships and receives These will become your shipper and consignee records For each product shipped from a given industry an industry is needed to receive that product Interchanges and yards can also be used to receive or even produce goods When your list is complete enter all the products in the Products browse window making sure you select the correct AAR type for each product see chapter 8 If necessary add more AAR types keeping in mind your available rolling stock Next fill out the Shipper and Consignee browse windows For each industry you can have multiple shipper and consignee records similar to many industries in real life which both ship and receive many products For the sake of simplicity leave the duration and frequency fields at their default of 24 hours see chapter 8 these can be easily revised later on V Rolling Stock Enter at least one car for every indu
154. nerate unique switchlists for you You will be surprised at the way car traffic ebbs and flows across your layout Ship It is based on the prototype Every car movement is generated by a request from a shipper or a consignee You will dis cover that the shipment of empties is a big part of freight operations It may come as a surprise that many cars do not move at all during a session but this is what happens on the prototype Many of us myself included before I wrote this program think maximum car movement means good operation but this is simply not the case Operation is more satisfying and more prototypical when every car does not move during every session With Ship It you can set it up so certain industries hang onto cars for many days using the Duration field And you can be assured when that car s duration time has exceeded it will convert to a load or an empty and will be available for shipment once more What Happens Inside Generate Session For a detailed explanation of all the factors controlling the generation of car movement within Ship It see Chapter 1 How Ship It Works In particular read the sub section called How Ship It Compares With The Prototype The first thing that happens within Generate Session is loads get converted to empties and empties to loads depending on their duration time and how long they have been at their present location Next lists of available empties and empty requests are
155. ng tests if an empty car movement is to occur Car type the AAR car type must match In other words if a shipper is requesting an AAR type XM boxcar the movement would not occur unless the available empty was also of AAR type XM Train size the maximum capacity number of cars of the train doing the delivery must not be exceeded Siding capacity the maximum capacity of the ship per s siding must not have been reached yet there must be enough room for all the cars being delivered Train type the shipper and the consignee train type fields must match Train type is set up by the user Examples include wayfreight general freight extra local hot shot passenger etc Train schedule the movement of the car must be physically possible In other words there must be a way for the car to get to where its going The route the car must take must be part of a train s schedule or a combination of train s schedules If all these tests pass a car movement is created Please Note Balancing see chapter 19 can help balance activity between your shippers and consignees so that session generation is optimized Introduction useeeeeenneneseeesennnneneneennnnenn 2 2 A DATABASE EXPLAINED Introduction Ship It is a database application In order to generate operating sessions for you Ship It needs to know everything about the towns industries and cars on your layout plus a whole lot more I
156. ng your operating sessions Affects The two fields here that affect your operating sessions most are Train Type and Max Cars Fields General Tab 1 Train Number This is used to identify the train Required because it is used on the printed schedules 2 Train Name This is also used to identify the train but in a more expressive format Required only if you want it to appear on the printed schedules along with the Train Number 3 Train Type Selecting this field causes the Train Types browse window to appear Select the train type from this list This controls what type of train this is If the train is not of the same type as is listed for the ship per or consignee records it will not be scheduled to stop at the shipper or consignee Required 4 Train Class Priority first class second class third etc Not required 5 Car Capacity Depending on the setting Measure Siding and Train Capacity by Length from Tab 5 Options Window this is either the maximum number of cars this train can pull or the maximum length of cars this train can pull not the individual cars but their com bined length This affects operating sessions because if the train is at its maximum capacity part way through its schedule it will not be allowed to pick up more cars until some are dropped off This information also appears in the Total Req d field in the Browse Motive Power win dow Note if measuring train capacity by length the length
157. nly that is found in the Car Routes update form This helps automatically routed cars from follow ing the wrong car route How Automatic Car Routing Works When there are no pre set car routes set up for a con signee automatic car routing takes place All existing car routes in the database are examined in turn until one is found that matches the needed criteria Each car route is examined like this you don t need to understand this 1 All interchanges are found for the division that the industry is located in 2 All interchanges are found for the division that the car is going to 3 Each car route is examined until one is found that goes from an interchange in the car s originating division to an interchange in the car s destination division 4 The car is then assigned two addresses a next desti nation address and a final destination address The final destination is the requesting industry where the car eventually ends up 5 The car is then sent to the next destination 6 When the car reaches the next destination the car route is again searched for as in step 3 above except that the originating division will have changed to the cur rent division 7 The next destination address is then updated to suit 8 The process is repeated until the division containing the final destination is reached The next destination then becomes the requesting industry and a car move ment is created from
158. nt if you set up a specific destina tion the software will use any of the options that are set up for this destination see screen shot and descriptions below 10 7 From the Industry menu pull down menu at the top of the main frame select the option Stuck Car Destinations This will bring up the window to the right This browse window works like all the other browse windows in Ship It Use the Insert button to add a new stuck car destination Remember you do not have to enter any destinations here at all this is only if you wish to override the default stuck car destination for a specific industry Industry where car is located When you choose an industry here you are telling the software that you wish any car that gets stuck here to move to the stuck car destination below When stuck move car to this industry This is where you select the stuck car destination for cars stuck at the industry selected above Ignore Empties This is the same as the Do not move empties option in Tab 3 where you set up the defaults for stuck car processing Note that whatever setting you choose on or off will override the default setting in Tab 3 Options Window Test Capacity of Destination Industry This is the same as the Test Destination Siding Capacity option in Tab 3 Options Window where you set up the defaults for stuck car processing Note that whatever setting you choose on or off will ov
159. o Ship It However if you are one of those folks saying just now Don t give me any of this computer bull don t worry you ll be able to enter information into the database without understanding the nuts and bolts of it Industry File Name Field Town Field Record 1 Millers Granary Thurston 3 Record 2 Harrison Yard Harrison 20 Record 3 Harrison Bakery Harrison 3 Etc Capacity Field Industry Field Description Field Industry Largest Shipper Yard Main Yard Industry What Is An Update Window u ee 3 2 Building Your Pike s Database 3 3 Related Files Explained 3 3 Which Files Should I Fill Out First 3 4 Entering Data On The Fly 3 4 Bypassing Your Mouse 3 4 BROWSE AND UPDATE WINDOWS 3 1 Introduction You will be using two main types of windows for enter ing all the information about your pike the browse window and the update window What Is A Browse Window The first picture below shows a typical browse window A browse window contains a scrolling area that allows you to browse through the records of your database Compare the file from chapter 2 page 2 2 with this browse window Notice the similarity in information The browse window is simply a view into your data base with it you can examine all the information you have entered so far The browse window is also where you insert change and
160. on is generated Just make sure you have printed out your switchlist for the previous session before you generate a new session You would also want to make sure you had printed out the starting car locations for the previous session if you needed them You cannot revert to previous sessions except by using the maindata bak file as mentioned earlier While Ship It tracks session data through time certain data is not tracked This prevents you from reverting to previous ses sions Generate Session is about to begin Generate Session will generate a new operating session for your layout After Generate Session completes you will not be able to print out the switchlist or the starting car locations from the previous session If this is acceptable and you wish to gt continue click on OK If you need to print out the switchlist 7 or the starting car locations from the previous session click on Cancel Generate Session will MOT erase database information such as rolling stock industries etc Note if you are a new user and you have not generated any sessions yet and are ready to do so now click on OK OR GENERATE MENU When Generate Session Completes Process Complete The message to the right will appear when Generate Generate Session completed successfully A new session has P been generated Select Switchlist from the Print Menu to print Session completes successfully 4 out a zwitchlist for the session If you n
161. oods and each consignee that does not have anyone to ship them goods In this way you will be able to optimize the network of industries on your layout Keep in mind interchanges are a great source for eliminating orphans An interchange can ship or receive any product because the ultimate destination is off line This is the best way to increase car movement The following picture shows an orphan industry report with two orphan consignees Loco Caboose Location Report This report lists all the arrivals and departures of locomo tives and cabin cars This helps you in set up and in mak ing sure that these items are located properly when they are needed Helper service locomotives show up on this report Train Length Report This report shows the number of cars on a train between towns on a trains schedule This is valuable for setting up helper service adding on extra locomotives between towns Yard Arrival and Yard Departure Report Your Yardmasters will love these reports Complete car caboose and locomotive information is given for anything entering or leaving a yard For cars arriving at a yard bound for other destinations their next and final destina tions are given In the Yard Departure Report complete consists are given for trains leaving the yard There are 2 styles of yard departure reports Style 2 is formatted sim ilar to the yard arrival report Industry Status Report The industry status report gives you valua
162. or any individual industry See the section on Stuck Car Destinations for further explanation One caveat is that you must have a train that goes between the industry where the stuck car is at and the default destination The options listed below are also tested if those options checkboxes are marked Test Train Capacity If checked this tells the software to check the capacity of the train seeking to move the stuck car Keep this turned off if your main interest is moving stuck cars and you are not so much concerned about train capaci ty Test Train Type If checked this tells the software to check if the train type of the train seeking to move the stuck car matches the train type of the stuck car Keep this turned off if your main interest is moving stuck cars and you are not so much concerned about train types Test Destination Siding Capacity If checked this tells the software to test the siding capacity of the destination for the stuck car to see if there is enough room there for the car Keep this turned off if your main interest is moving stuck cars and you GENERATION MENU Options Ship Empties Only on Consignee Request Options For Processing Stuck Cars Enable Stuck Car Processing Hours to Exceed Before Moving 24 p Default Destination Miller s Granary Test Train Capacity Test Destination Siding Capacity M Test Train Type T Cancel are not so much concerned about siding capac
163. ord in the schedule the arrival time will set the sequence order in the schedule For entering AM times you can omit the AM For PM times you must include PM Make sure that you check the Return Trip checkbox in the update form for the last stop Wilsonville This indicates to the program that this stop occurs on the return trip of the train Note that the return trip indica tion does not appear in the scrolling browse but please don t forget to enter it For convenience sake we are not creating a new train for the trip back This can easily be done by adding another train with a different number and altering the schedule to suit For this example please fol low these screens Enter the times exactly 16 6 BEE Update Trains General staging Session Generation Train Number 200 Train Direction Train Name Centralia Local Northbound Southbound Train Type general freight a Train Class 1 SEE Max Cars 10 Mess sOSSOSCSCSC CSSCSC CNCS Cancel La Update Trains Record will be Changed Mm x General staging Session Generation Train Number 300 Train Direction Train Name Johnsburg Turn Northbound Southbound Train Type generaltreight pee Train Class usin Max Cars 10 Notes Es ok _ _ Cancel Browse Trains Record will be Changed East Centralia Turn Centralia Local Johnsburg Turn general freight gt Close In
164. ormation on printing your reports X Congratulations You have generated your first operating session with Ship It XI Balancing see chapter 19 Don t forget to investigate the Balancer features which will enable you to balance the activity of your Shippers and Consignees thus making sure that you are getting maximium enjoyment out of your operation sessions GETTING STARTED XI Tint GUC HOD Sy 0525 5055 cs esssecs sig essudetsteeszaecassaeisates 1 2 Prototype Operation 1 2 Ship It Vs The Prototype n 1 2 How Suir IT WORKS Introduction Ship It routes cars based on the requests of the shippers and consignees receiving industries on your pike There are also other variables which affect the routing of cars that you need to be aware of In this chapter we will examine each of these in turn so that you will be able to design your transportation system to give you the type of operating sessions you desire most Prototype Operation In the real world a car movement is born when a cus tomer orders a car load of goods from a manufacturer The manufacturer shipper then contacts the railroad to request an empty car so it can be loaded and shipped to the customer This constitutes the first move ofa car in connection with this customer order When the requested empty arrives it is loaded by the shipper The pickup of the loaded car is then scheduled the car appears on the switchlist for the
165. orthbound Southbound C Eastbound C Westbound Cancel Record will be Changed Update Industry Type G Name Vulcan Forge 2 ep Interchange Yard Town East Pittsburgh aan Passenger Car Capacity Bo Round Length to nearest Unit En DER ER Any NM Allow Shipping Between Divisions C Eastbound C Westbound Notes C Northbound C Southbound Cancel Record will be Changed 10 9 Introduction uaeseeeeesnaeneneessennnnnnnenennnenen Previewaseet ee tn Starting Car Locations Ending Car Locations SwitchliSt 0 ss0s0 een amp Orphan Industry Report Industry Status Report 11 2 11 2 11 2 11 3 11 3 11 3 PRINT MENU The Print menu allows you to print operating session information Print Setup allows you to set your printer options Your printer options are determined by your printer driver The Preview option when checked allows you to pre view your reports before sending them to your printer Starting Car Locations prints out a report detailing all car locations at the start of the current operating session Ending Car Locations prints out a report detailing all car locations at the end of the current operating session Switchlist prints out a list of each trains schedule complete with Conductor amp Engineer instructions and a breakdown of all the switch ing moves that occur at each town Orphan Industry Report prints out a list of all the consignees and shippers
166. per set of new cars Once the cars are placed in the internal database Add New Cars recog nizes this and refuses to run again until more cars are added to the rolling stock list Fortunately it is easy to know where it places the cars 10 5 Where Does Add New Cars Place The New Cars Add New Cars places the new cars in their home yards If for any reason you do not have a print out telling you car locations after selecting Add New Cars simply put them into their home yards see the rolling stock data base Then when you generate a new session print out the Starting Car Locations from the Print menu and make sure you have your new cars in the right location After Add New Cars Completes The message to the right will appear when Add New Cars completes successfully If you do not have a print er and you see this message press OK anyway and fol low the previous instructions for placing your cars If Add New Cars is not successful the message window to the right will appear Two reasons for failing are no new rolling stock and not enough available room in the home yard of the cars The cars must also be marked as available in the Rolling Stock Update window for Add New Cars to work Note You must also use Add New Cars if you wish to mark a car as being available if it was unavailable previ ously in the Rolling Stock Update Window After the car has been added to the layout you can change its location via the Revise Loc
167. pers AAR types in staging then the car will remain empty For it to convert to a load it must be able to find a shipper record that uses the same AAR type in the staging industry Staging Options The options window has many staging options The stag ing options are Allow both through and local pickups for staging Process staging in early generation Process stag ing in mid generation Do not convert loads out of stag ing and Send empties home from staging Make sure you read about these staging options in Chapter 6 Most of these options were added in later versions of Ship It in response to customer requests so they may pertain to you also Staging trains can pick up from and deliver to on line industries The same rules for creating car movements exist for stag ing trains as for other trains The only difference is cars cannot be dropped off or picked up in staging When you build off line industries in staging the cars are never dropped off there The duration time for these shippers and consignees becomes zero The car is converted as soon as it arrives Empties leave staging as loads and loads leave as empties Any train entering staging leaves with the cars it came with Staging Trains Staging trains are built like any other train You create industries with shippers and consignees to generate your traffic In staging these industries are considered off line The program thinks of them and treats them as normal indu
168. quests of the shippers and consignees receivers on your layout Ship It is designed to mimic the prototype hence the name As you begin to enter your layout s information into the computer you will begin to feel like a shipping agent overseeing a living transportation network It doesn t matter whether your layout is a4x 8 oval or a club size layout as big as a barn realistic operation is possible on it and Ship It can help bring it to life Key Features All car movement is caused by the requests of shippers amp consignees nothing is random Loads and empties are routed across divisions via interchange trackage Hidden and fiddle staging is supported off line towns amp industries can be simulated Individual cars can move more than once during an operating session Empties are scheduled as well as loads Car dwell time duration can be set for each product shipped and received Number of cars amount can be set for each product shipped and received Frequency of shipments can be set for each product sent to a consignee Car lading and location is tracked through time Switchlists include train schedules amp Conductor amp Engineer instructions Supports Local vs Through Train Types local through local All Databases can be printed out Shares its database with Railbase Professional our inventory program Status number of cars lading etc of all industries can be printed out Industry Stat
169. rain or its through type matches the train the movement will be allowed Note This checkbox is for setting up non staging See below for staging Allow Both Thru and Local Pickups for Staging This option is identical to the option above except it affects Staging only Send to Last Interchange When Possible This option should be used when one finds the same car being set out and picked up at the same location during the same schedule stop This option prevents this from happening by sending the car to the last interchange in the car route bypassing the intermediate stops Options Database Names Dat wi M Increment Date Each Session Generation I Distribute Cars Only in Home Division for Start Fresh 1 00 Multiplication Factor For Sending Empties Home 1 00 Multiplication Factor For Maximum Number of Loads M Allow Both Through And Local Pickups for Non staging MV Allow Both Through And Local Pickups for Staging M Send to Last Interchange when possible Cancel Options 2 Tab Process Staging In Early Generation Process Staging In Mid Generation These control when cars are processed for staging Staging works by sending cars when they arrive in stag ing towns without destinations to the default staging destination for the train they are on This needs to happen or the cars would remain inside hidden staging Cars can not remain in hidden staging because it is very hard to drop off and pick up cars inside
170. riginates as the first stop on a train s schedule return trip when it stops at this town If the train is not on Make sure you specify the arrival time departure its return trip this box should remain unchecked times are not used in the actual calculations 4 Notes This is an optional description field Fields Paes 5 Departure Time This field defines when the train is 1 Arrival Time This field defines when the train is scheduled to depart from the town Enter the time in the scheduled to arrive at the town Enter the time in the fol following format 7 30 AM Note This field has no bear lowing format 7 30 AM Required Note this field ing on car movement Moves are calculated using arrival must be filled in because the program uses arrival times EJ Update Train Schedule Train 100 East Pittsburgh Pickup x Arrival time 6 00am Departure time 6 30am Town Han Return Trip Notes Co Cancel Record will be Changed 9 7 Browse Motive Power This window displays a list of the motive power and the caboose assigned to the highlighted train You can insert change or delete these items by clicking on the various buttons If you choose Insert or Add the Update Update Motive Power window appears This is where you set up M U locomotives and helper service Determine Required Motive Power You can use this window to determine if you have enough pulling power for your train The Total Req d field displays the
171. ring the desired override value The other reason to override capacities is if you are using length measurements for your sidings Options 5 tab instead of car capacity The Balancer requires all capac ities to be specified in terms of numbers of cars not length units You can still use length units for sidings if you want But in that case you will have to manually specify the capacities in terms of numbers of cars by set ting override values for all industries The override val ues are set on the Edit NS NC Values screen The Do Polishing checkbox is used later in the balancing process When first starting to balance this should be left unchecked For more information on polishing see Chapter X Deluxe Balancer Manual The Assistant will adjust the NS NC values and the empties and amounts at your shippers and consignees to bring your database into good balance The default settings seen in the Assistant area of the Parameters menu are good for most databases One thing that is important to keep in mind though is that the default maximum NS NC values of 2 may result in database adjustments that would cause your indus trial sidings to turn over up to two times in a session If all of your industries are not served by at least two trains you will need to reduce the maximum allowed NS NC values to 1 The Assistant will look over your database multiple times based on the number of passes you
172. rying to open is already in use by another program This error is usually caused when you generate a session or start fresh with one or more windows open inside Ship It You must close all windows in Ship It before generating sessions or starting fresh 13 2 Example 1 The H amp R RR 14 2 Example 2 The Union Lines 14 3 Example Jenseneannonenannrannareni 14 4 SAMPLE LAYOUTS 14 1 NEWMAN MINE 4 a THURSTON fo N LE H amp R R R N HARRISON BAKERY HARRISON HARRISON YARD Example 1 The H amp R RR The H amp R RR is a simple layout ideal for you to examine while learning Ship It This layout was developed for test ing purposes and is a good example of how much operation you can get from a small layout There is some repetition of car movement but on the whole this layout is quite enjoyable to operate I never actually built this layout but I spent many hours running cars on it by the 0 5 0 method hand on a chalked in track plan on the basement floor Generate some sessions with it and print out the switchlists See how you can affect the switchlists by changing para meters such as duration frequency and amount in the consignee amp shipper update screens Add some products or even some more industries This is a good way to learn Ship It before tackling the data entry on your layout Beta Tester Larry Goss Northern Maine RR came up with the following idea
173. s see Chapter 12 Division Menu 2 Receive As Through Type This is only here for data base compatibility to previous versions Use Allow both 8 4 Cancel Record will be Changed 9 Frequency This number indicates how often in hours this industry likes to receive the products called out above Ship It keeps track of all sessions When ses sions are generated Ship It looks back through time to see when each industry last received each type of prod uct Let s say the frequency was set at 24 hours Ship It would calculate how many hours ago the industry last received a shipment of that type of goods If it was more than 24 hours then another shipment would be requested 10 Priority This field lets you prioritize consignees in order to indicate they should receive shipments before other consignees As long as the number here is higher than at another consignee it will receive priority Note in town shipments always receive higher priority than out of town shipments regardless of the settings here Also see the section at the end of this chapter on balancing your shippers and consignees local and thru pickups in the options window chapter 6 instead 3 Send As Through Type See item 2 Receive as Through Type above 4 Primary Train Type Selecting this field causes the Train Types Browse Window to appear Select the train type from this list If you are not using divisions you only need to fill out this field a
174. se location tab and fill out the future load field the car will convert to this load in staging If you wish to create an empty in staging fill out the prod uct field and it will convert to an empty in staging Local amp Thru Pickups There is one important option you need to be aware of when setting up staging This option is called Allow both Through and Local Pickups for Staging If this option is checked the program will allow cars to be picked up if their train type matches either the local type or the through type that was set up for them Train types of cars are set up in the Consignee and Shipper Update window Each train s train type is set up inside the Train Update window If this option is checked any car to or from staging will be evaluated so that if its primary type matches the train or its secondary type matches the train the movement will be allowed This allows through trains to pick up or drop off cars at an industry Do not attempt to use the checkboxes Receive as Thru or Send as Thru found in the Consignee Update window These do not work with stag ing SETTING Up HIDDEN STAGING Cars In Staging Not Moving Cars in staging will not move for the following reasons if the number of cars exceeds the maximum capacity of the train or if the train type of the cars does not match the train type of the train 17 7 Introduction aseeeeesnaeneneessennnnnnnenennennn 18 2 Using
175. sert Change Delete Print Switchlist Copy Train View Schedule View Motive Power Print Condensed Switchlist Browse Condensed Switchlist 4 Browse Train Schedules Train 100 East Centralia Turn East Centralia ilsonville 8 00AM al gt Insert Change Delete Close DIVISIONS TUTORIAL Step 19 reference only no work involved The update form to the right shows the checkbox Arrival time s 00am Departure time checked Any stop on the return trip of the train must Town witsonville have this box checked Note the arrival time must be filled in because Ship It uses this in its calculations The Return Trip 7 departure time is for documentation only Notes I Cancel Record will be Changed Browse Train Schedules Train 200 Centralia Local Step 20 Enter the train schedule for Train 200 as shown to the n T DDAM right The second occurrence of Centralia and East est Centralia 11 00AM f Centralia 12 00PM Centralia will both have their return trip checkboxes East Centralia 1 00PM marked because these stops occur on the return trip of the train Km gt Insert Change Delete Close Step 21 4 Browse Train Schedules Train 300 Johnsburg Turn ery Arrival Time Enter the train schedule for Train 300 as shown to the ee ae right The second occurrence of West Centralia will a a have its return trip checkbox mark
176. ses arrival times for all of its calculations Therefore do not leave these blank Departure times are for docu mentation purposes only Also do not use an arrival time of 12 00 AM If two towns in the same schedule have the same arrival time this will cause problems Departure Yards Train Origination You must specify the departure yard where a train originates as the first stop on a train s schedule Make sure you specify the arrival time here departure times are not used in the actual calculations Interchanges For interchange of cars to occur trains from both divisions have to go to the same town this is the town that the interchange storage track belongs to Make sure you study chapter 12 if you are setting up divisions and interchanges Cars Not Moving If you have cars not moving chances are that you have your divisons interchanges set up incorrectly or the cars are of a dif ferent train type than those doing the pickup Use division diagnostics chapter 12 to determine if your set up is correct If you suspect your cars are of the wrong train type try sending an extra that matches the train type of the cars look at the industry status report or car diagnostics to the town to see if it picks the cars up Cars with their next and final destina tion filled out have a definite destination in mind They want to go the the next destination on one train If you provide that train and it match the train type of the cars the cars w
177. sign your division interchange set up you must draw a schematic showing your towns interchanges and divisions Don t even think about just doing it in my head It doesn t have to be fancy but every town and yard should be listed there At this point develop some train schedules also After all your interchanges and divisions will be based on where your trains pick up and drop off cars so you need to have an idea of where this will occur Along with the train schedules you should develop some patterns of car movement Only when you know where your cars are coming from and where they are going to can you design your interchanges and divi sions Division Diagnostics Division diagnostics are available to help you test your division interchange set up This menu item is found under the division menu You will be prompted for a shipper and a consignee The diagnostics will test the routing between the two Depending on what the diagnostic test finds different messages will appear If the shipper and consignee are in separate divisions and the divisions interchanges are set up correctly each interchange and interchange storage track will appear in series of consecutive messages You must examine this sequence of interchanges to determine if it is the one you desired Version 7 added the capability to look for and list the trains required Each train will be listed Also if a required train is not found this is listed also
178. sions are generated these shipper records are matched against the consignee receiver records If there is a match between products then a car movement is considered Affects These records have a direct bearing on car movement This is where you will be able to fine tune your operating ses sions You say there isn t enough coal traffic Increase the number of empties requested by the mine Cut down on the duration time so empties are loaded faster Of course you may also need an increased demand for the coal so you might also change the matching consignee records or create additional requests from interchanges or other industries It is all in your hands Fields 1 Industry Selecting this field causes the Industry Browse Window to pop up Select the industry whose shipping activity you are defining in this record Required 2 Town This is a display only field filled in automatically when the industry is selected above each industry in the industry file already knows which town it belongs to If you wish to change this field you must change the industry 3 Product Selecting this field causes the Products Browse Window to appear Select the product from this list that the industry produces This will determine what type of empty cars will be delivered to this industry to be loaded Required 4 AAR Type This is a display only field which is filled in automatically when the product is selected above each product in the produ
179. st of cover or other indirect special incidental economic or consequential damages arising out of the use or inability to use the Software or documentation This limitation will apply even if Albion Software has been advised of the possibility of such damage In no case shall Albion Software s liability exceed the amount paid by you for the software Some states do not allow the limitation or exclusion liability from incidental or consequential damages so the above lim itation or exclusion may not apply to you Limited Warranty Albion Software warrants the physical program disk to be free from defects in materials and workmanship If with in 90 days of purchase the physical program disk is found to be defective return the disk and we will replace it at no charge This product is not warranted in any other way The limited warranties stated above are in lieu of all other warranties oral or written expressed or implied Some states do not allow the limitation or exclusion of implied warranties so the above exclusion may not apply to you Table of Contents Introduction Welcome sek Requirements armani Installations sans Getting Started 042 2 5 4 4422 5205252420520040024008200 20H 1 How Ship It Works Introduction a2 a2 seele Prototype Operation ses an Ship It Versus The Prototype ene 2 A Database Explained Introduction cietntcn chistes 3 Browse And Update Windows What Is An Update Scr
180. sted of a series of interchanges A B C D E If you specified D as the first interchange and B as the last interchange the car would pass through interchanges D C B to get to the con signee The important thing to remember is that you do not need a unique car route for each consignee that you use a pre set car route for Many consignees can use the same car route Using the same example above if B was selected as the first interchange and E was the last inter change the car would pass through interchanges B C D E to get to its destination Note You are responsible for setting up logical car routes and assigning them The computer does not check if the sequence of interchanges is logical or if there are trains that travel between the interchanges The program does not perform magic You must build a logical route between the shipper and consignee and ensure that the proper train with proper train types travels between the interchanges Receive As Through Type l Send As Through Type Primary Train Type General Freight m Secondary Train Type Pre sets Shipper Newman Mine 1 Bi Car Route 8 5 Update Shipper Window The shipper records are where everything falls together in Ship It When you are building shipper records you are set ting up all the products shipped on your layout whether they are produced in actual industries on your pike or gen erated off line in interchange trackage When ses
181. stern Division Staging Division W I m ad YN a Thurston Harrison Crossville Coalpile Staging Town Newman Mine _Foley s Coal Yard Harrison Bakery Staging Industry x s N Miller s Granary i Harrison Yard Harrison Branch Division F Denotes Interchange r S Mi Nancy Mine eae Spruce Example 3 Example 3 is found in the secondary directory It combines many of the advanced elements found in Ship It It uses hidden staging multiple interchanges and divisions and local thru train type switching The basis for this layout is Example 1 The same industries and towns are found in Example 3 except that it has been expanded Three divisions have been added see diagram The Eastern division consists of two towns Crossville and Coalpile These towns only contain interchanges The Hidden Staging division which connects at Coalpile contains one industry called Staging Industry This industry receives flour from Millers Granary in Thurston coal from the mines at Spruce and Thurston and baked goods from Harrison It ships grain to Millers Granary and supplies to Harrison Bakery 14 4 SAMPLE LAYOUTS The Branch division contains the town of Spruce and the two mines there Nancy Mine and Spruce Mine Coal is pro duced at these mines and carried to Crossville interchange on the Crossville Turn a local train From there the Crossville Harrison Through through train takes
182. stries except for the fact cars never get dropped off there There is another way to build staging trains which does not involve creating industries Using the Revise Car Location Tab in the Rolling Stock Update Window you can salt your staging with rolling stock When doing this you specify lading location and train type What makes this work is cars do not remain in staging The first train out of staging will take those cars with it If you have paired staging trains set up as in the above example you can start a train off by salting a staging yard with cars Those cars will keep going back and forth between the two staging yards involved as long as the cars do not get requested by on line industries When set ting up a staging train you must set up a default staging destination This destination described elsewhere in this chapter is extremely important If your staging is not working the way you want there is a good chance the default staging destination is not set up correctly SETTING Up HIDDEN STAGING How To Set Up Staging Example Staging Yard to Staging Yard on a Point to Point Layout This example covers how you would set up two staging yards at either end of a point to point layout Refer to the schematic for Example 2 The Union Lines in the Sample Layouts Chapter The example 2 database match es the screen shots here The plan here is to ship loaded coal hoppers from Morgan Mines in Morgantown WV
183. stries pull down menu to gain access to the scrolling browse The picture to the right shows how the Products scrolling browse should look after you have entered the products please make sure you select the correct AAR Type for each product Step 5 Enter the train type used in this example select Train Type from the Trains pull down menu to gain access to the scrolling browse The picture to the right shows how the Train Type scrolling browse should look after you have entered the data There is no need for more than one train type unless you want to restrict some trains from picking up cars Step 6 Enter one consignee for Centralia Dairy select Consignee from the Industry pull down menu Fill the update form as as shown to the right Most of the fields should be selections from information you have previous ly entered Note fill out the Primary Train Type field as general freight in the Train Type Pre sets Tab the only field from this tab filled in DIVISIONS TUTORIAL Browse Industries ISTE Centralia Centralia Dairy A East Centralia East Centralia Yard Yard 8 Johnsburg Johnsburg Foundry Industry 3 West Centralia West Centralia Yard Yard 12 Wilsonville Farmers Milk Cooperative Industry 3 Wilsonville Nellie Mine 1 Industry 5 al i Insert Change Delete Reefer En ia 2 Insert Change Delete Close 4 Browse Train Types olx Sa freight L EEE ap ae ee e mE l Insert
184. stry that you have added to the industry file into the Rolling Stock browse window see chapter 7 Eventually you will need to enter all of your available cars but you can start with less to make it easier Just make sure the majority match the AAR types used in the products shipped and received by those industries VI Motive Power Enter at least one locomotive into the Motive Power browse window see chapter 9 VII The Train Schedule Enter at least one train in the Trains browse window see chapter 9 Make sure the train type matches that used in the majority of the shipper and consignee records you filled in earlier Next create a schedule for the train chapter 9 also Make sure the train will visit the towns where the industries exist that you have filled out ship pers amp consignees for VIII Orphan Industries Select Orphan Industry Report from the Print menu to tell you if you have any unmatched shippers and consignees These are consignees or shippers that have nowhere to ship their goods to or receive their goods from IX Generate amp Print Select Start Fresh from the Generate menu When it has finished select Generate Session from the generate menu to generate your first session To print your car locations select Starting Car Locations from the Print menu To print your switchlist select Print Switchlist from the print menu See chapter 10 for information on generating sessions and chapter 11 for inf
185. t together some kits you decide to put them on the layout But where do they go And how is Ship It going to know where you put them so it can use them Be Patient The program might not move the new cars for several sessions This is because it saves empty and load requests from session to session It may not use the car right away Re haan x ause it is still filling older r ts because oe 80 de mu The purpose of add new cars is to print out a list of car locations for any new cars you may have added to the rolling za stock file If pou have added new cars to the database and How To Add New Cars To Your Layout 7 wish to place them on the layout click on OK If you have not added any new cars to the rolling stock file click on Cancel First add the car information to the rolling stock database 5 2 This process does not erase or clear out any information from don t forget to add the home yard information Next the database select Add New Cars from the Generate menu The mes sage to the right should appear EEE The purpose of this window is to allow you to Cancel if you got into it by mistake Add New Cars will automati cally print out a list of cars and car locations on your printer Note there is no screen preview in Add New Cars so do not select OK unless you have a printer con nected or otherwise you will not be able to see where to place your new cars This is because you can run Add New Cars only once
186. tabase Reports AAR Code List Starting Car Locations Caboose List Ending Car Locations Car Route List All Switchlists Consignee List Single Switchlist Divisions List Condensed Switchlist Industry List Loco Caboose Location Report Interchange List Train Length Report Locomotives Yard Arrival List Products List Yard Departure List Style 1 Rolling Stock List Yard Departure List Style 2 Shipper List Industry Status Report Towns List Industry Activity Report Trains List Orphan Industry Report Train Schedule List Car Diagnostic Report Empty Request Report Load request Report located Industry what siding the car is on Car Type boxcar hopper etc Road car road initials Number car reporting number This information should sound familiar to you now especially if you have started build ing your database This is information you have to enter into the database to fully describe your layout Ending Car Locations Ending Car Locations prints out a report detailing all car locations at the end of the current operating session The information is in the same form as Starting Car Locations see the previous column Why Use These Reports These reports are used at the start and or end of an oper ating session to verify your car locations Use them to determine if every car was switched correctly in the pre vious session or to set things back up after you ran some trains around for the heck of it please don t stop doin
187. th Ship It Train 1000 originates in Munhall travels to Morgantown and returns to Munhall Since Morgantown is set up as a staging town the staging checkbox is checked in the Town Update Window for Morgantown all the cars arriving there will also depart when it returns back to Munhall The default staging destination town is Munhall for this train and Munhall Yard is the default staging desti nation industry Note The default staging destination cannot be a staging town itself unless it converts to another train or you will see multiples of the same car in the staging area destination Because all of the cars must leave Morgantown with the train the default staging destination is Munhall Another rule for the default staging destination for a turn is it must occur after the staging town in the schedule In this case it works out better because the default staging destination is also the origination point for the train This allows for more car movement because cars will travel back and forth between Morgantown and Munhall going through the load empty cycle There is no next train because the same train number returns which went out 17 5 Example 3 Through Staging as Part of a Loop Hidden Staging Westbound Eastbound _ y Town B Hidden staging can be set up as a part of loop operation Designate a town in your hidden staging area and mark it as staging using the checkbox in the Town Update Window Both Eastbound a
188. the option Send To Last Interchange in the Options window the car will not stop there but division diagnostics will still list out all the interchanges This is because it it not analyzing any train schedules it does not know what train the car should go on If division diagnostics cannot find the an interchange and a car route if one is necessary between the shipper and the consignee the following error message will appear Division setup fails Car cannot get between shipper and consignee This is what I call a hard error That means there is no doubt that something is wrong with your inter change division set up and division diagnostics is telling you so If you get this message you either did not define your interchange correctly if you have one at all or you do not have a car route that lists the interchanges between the shipper and the consignee Analyze your schematic and print out your interchanges and car routes to determine what went wrong Division diagnostics attempts to find an interchange that connects the division the shipper belongs to It also attempts to find an interchange that connects the division the consignee belongs to When it finds the interchanges that these two divisions are associated with it attempts to find a car route that lists both interchanges This is the car route that will be used If it can t find a car route and the divisions are not adjacent the error message listed above
189. ting goods very often loaded cars will not be moved from their ship ping locations and these sidings will then be unable to receive goods The Snowball Effect When durations and frequencies are set too high one filled siding leads to another and the situation steadily gets worse until few cars are moving Balance in Numbers There should be an adequate supply of loaded cars to ship to consignees requesting them Likewise there should be enough consignees to use all the loads that your shippers will be shipping Pay particular attention to the amount field for the consignees the amount of cars desired and the empties field number of empties requested for ship pers Use the Diagnostics button on the Shipper and Consignee Browse windows to see matchups between shippers and consignees This can help you balance them Industry Activity Report This report will list the activity of industries across many sessions It will give you a snapshot of activity across many sessions that will alert you to industries that are bogged down Industry Status Report This report lists the status of each industry at the beginning of the next session It will list siding occupancy and status of the individual cars there Also shown is when each car arrived Cars that have sat for many sessions are indicative of either a balancing problem train type problem cars are the wrong train type for the trains visiting the town or division interchang
190. to be delivered also If an industry with a one car siding has multiple shippers and consignees don t count on getting much car traffic out of it Remember empties have to arrive before they can turn into loads and if the siding is occupied with a shipment that is unloading the empty will not be scheduled for delivery and 15 2 TIPS SUGGESTIONS DIAGNOSTICS the loading of the new shipment will not occur See the section on balancing at the end of chapter 8 To test siding capacity use the option called Artificially Increase Siding Capacity See Chapter 6 for more information Car Routes amp Divisions Car routes are only needed if you have more than two interchanges with only one interchange you do not need a car route Train Capacity If your train capacity is consistently exceeded trains running full you may have some industries that rarely get serviced This is because the train is full or will become full later by the time their movement is analysed To fix this situation sim ply run more trains or increase the capacity To test for this condition increase capacity and generate sessions Cars Dead Ended At An Interchange It is possible for cars to get dead ended at an interchange You will know this has occurred because the cars will sit there forever If you notice this happening look in your Industry Status Report to see if the car s have a next destination and final destination set If they do examine wh
191. to length of the siding in the units you are using If the above option is set the text Round Length to nearest Unit appears to the right of the Capacity entry box as shown below You must round your units fractions and decimal fractions are not allowed Ifthe Measure by Length option is Industry Trains Divisions Industry Products lonsignees Shippers Stuck Car Destinations not set then enter the number of cars this siding can hold See chapter 10 and chapter 6 for further informa tion on the option Measure Siding and Train Capacity by Length 4 Allow Shipping Between Divisions This checkbox allows you to prevent shipments from occurring to and from divisions for this industry All consignee and ship per records for this industry will be affected This is a good way to keep shipments between certain industries within their division The default is a checkmark 5 Notes Optional description field 6 Type Select one of the options here If yard or inter change is selected the industry is included in the Yard Arrival and Yard Departure style 2 reports 7 Pickup Setout Direction This is used in cases where there is no run around available For instance if the industry spur for a westbound train had facing points preventing a setout you could disable the setout for the westbound train by selecting eastbound as the pickup setout direction The default is any direction Note Be v
192. to the consignee There is only one interchange involved here In other words the car will be set out and picked up at only one interchange on its journey from shipper to consignee If the shipper and the consignee are not in adjacent divi sions and the interchanges divisions have been set up correctly a message will print out stating Shipper and consignee are NOT in adjacent divisions Car Route IS required for this shipment Interchange software fills in the interchange name Interchange Storage Track software fills in interchange storage track name Then for every interchange a car must go through to get from shipper to consignee a message window will appear stat ing the name of the interchange and the name of the interchange storage track in this format Next Interchange software fills in the interchange name Next Interchange Storage Track software fills in inter change storage track name Note the software is not telling you to create a car route by saying a car route is required Indeed it has found one or else it would not be listing interchanges instead it would give the error message discussed below You may notice that extra interchanges are listed In other words there may be 5 interchanges listed between shipper and consignee yet the train you have scheduled runs between all 5 Therefore the car would not need to DIVISION MENU stop at all the interchanges If you have checked
193. to the right Cars being dropped off will be stored at East Centralia Yard while awaiting pickup note the storage track field 16 4 EELE Duration ja 4 Amount 1 Frequency la 4 Priority jo 4 Update Consignee General Train Types Pre sets Industry Johnsburg Foundry Town Juomnsbug Product eoa AAR Type HD Car Style Hopper Notes fC O Cancel Record will be Changed Update Shipper ot x Industry Nenie Mine 1 Duration hours 24 Town wisonvilie Empties l2 4 Product coar Priority jo H AARType HD Car Styte Hopper Primary Train Type generat freight Secondary Train Type Storage Yard Clear Storage Yard Notes Update Shipper _ISIx Industry Farmers Milk Cooperative Duration hours fea z Town wisowile Empties Product Milk Priority jo AARType RP Car Style Reefer Primary Train Type Jueneraltreight Secondary Train Type Storage Yard PO Clear Storage Yard Notes Mo Interchange Name East Centralia Interchange Connecting Division 4 central Connecting Division 2 Easten ss ConnectingDivsion3 Connecting Division 4 PO Connecting Division 5 GE Connecting Division 6 PO Storage Track EastCentraliaYard Notes Io Record will be Changed Cancel Step 11 Enter the West Centralia Interchange data select Interchange from the Divisions pull down menu This interchange connects the Western Division to the Central
194. train that will pick it up and the car begins its journey to the con signee This constitutes the second move of the car If the car is traveling to another division or perhaps across the country there may be many moves before it arrives at its destination It may first be delivered to the yard for classification and it may need to pass through several interchanges and several railroads before the con signee receives it The second move that of the loaded car from the shipper to the consignee could be many moves When the car arrives at the consignee it is then unloaded and becomes empty again ready to be filled with another shipment Empties are normally routed back to their home district following in reverse the route they took to get there unless there is a direct connection to the home road Empties on the way home may be intercepted and loaded as required in order to better uti lize car movements The movement of an empty car home is the third move at least generated by the cus tomer s request for a load of goods This move could land the car at another shipper ready to be loaded again Ship It Versus The Prototype Industries Shippers and Consignees Inside the Ship It program you will build a database containing all the information about your shippers and consignees Each industry can and probably will have many shipper and consignee records For example that furniture factory on your pike ships furnitur
195. tween Town A West and Town A East The hoppers are dropped off at the interchange because there is no single train that could take them to their destination Cars May Interchange Within A Single Division It is possible to set up train to train interchange of cars within a single division To do this choose a location some type of industry or small yard to act as a holding yard Establish a consignee record for this industry using the product you want interchanged Then check the Do Not Convert checkbox in the consignee update screen This prevents the load from unloading converting to an empty This carload will then be available to any consignee requesting it See the HR amp R exam ple in Chapter 14 for an example of this Frequency amp Duration Beware of setting your frequency amp duration values too high in the consignee amp shipper update screens This will slow down your car movement Keep an eye on your industry status reports to tell you what is going on Using The Reports For Debugging The Industry Status Report combined with the Empty and Load Request Reports can help you with problems you may encounter in setting up your operations For example if you see industries with load requests but no loads are being deliv ered you can use the reports to determine why Perhaps the sidings at the requesting industry are full look at the industry 15 3 status report Perhaps no loads are available to be shipped look at
196. type back to local general freight the Johnsburg Turn will pick it up and take it to Johnsburg Foundry and our delivery will be complete Browse Trains East Centralia Turn general freight 200 Centralia Through Through Freight B00 Johnsburg Turn general freight aimi Insert Change Delete Close View Schedule Copy Train LOCAL AND THROUGH TRAIN TYPES in Types Pre sets t Receive As Through Type Send As Through Type Local Train Type general freight Through Train Type Through Freight optional Pre sets Shipper optional Car Route First Interchange Last Interchange Co Cancel Record will be Changed Sending and Receiving As a Through Train Type You can also ship and receive directly to a through train The best way is to simply mark the checkbox in the Options window File Options titled Allow Both Thru and Local Pickups for Non staging If this option is checked the program will allow cars to be picked up if their train type matches either the local type or the through type that was set up for them Train types of cars are set up in the Consignee Update win dow and the Shipper Update window Each train s train type is set up inside the Train Update window If this option is checked any car will be evaluated so that if its local train type matches the train or its through type matches the train the movement will be allowed The checkboxes titled Send
197. uch as adding or deleting industries towns consignees shippers etc For a first balancing this pushbutton can be ignored But if you make major database changes you will need to rebuild 19 4 Close The Edit NS NC Values pushbutton is where you can set desired NS NC values For a first use all you have to worry about is setting the NS NC values correctly for your staging areas SeeStaging and Balancing this page for guidance on how to set the NS NC values correctly for staging areas Keep in mind also if you press the Rebuild NS NC Values pushbutton you will need to re set any staging NS NC val ues you have previously set because a rebuild will return all NS NC values to their default settings of 1 The Edit NS NC Values pushbutton also will let you set override capacities for your industries There are two rea sons to override the capacities First if you place shippers or consignees inside yards or interchanges generally not a good idea it is important to set an override capacity so the balancer does not attempt to fill the yard or interchange with shipments and or consignments Use the override setting to specify how much capacity should be devoted to shipping and or receiving The default override value is the number of empties plus amounts at the shippers and consignees but you can change the default value by double clicking the yard or interchange on the NS NC values screen and ente
198. uesting no more requests will be made for that industry until the exist ing ones are fulfilled If this box is checked requests will keep accumulating as long as the frequency and amount fields of the consignee warrant it Database Names Dates Options 1 Options 2 Options 3 Options 4 Options 5 IV Process Staging in Mid Generation Do Not Convert Loads out of Staging F Send Empties Home From Staging F Allow Build Up of Load Requests NV Allow Delivery of Cars if Duration is Low Enough M Turn on Diagnostics Mode l Stop Generation on Error M Don t Print Town in Switchlist if There are no Moves Allow Delivery of Cars if Duration is Low Enough Setting this caption can help increase car move ment in and out of small sidings The drawback is that there is a chance that the siding can be overfilled but only by 1 car It s calculated in this fashion if an existing car there will change over finish loading or unloading before the arrival ofthe car being placed the program will move the new car in in the hopes that the existing car will be picked up by a train But if the train is filled and the car is not picked up the siding will be overfilled My advice is to enable this option as it will increase movement Note This option has no effect when siding capaci ty is measured by actual length of car see Option Tab 5 Turn On Diagnostics Mode with this option on the software collects data on car movement re
199. us Report Select multiple locomotives and develop helper service Print out Yard Arrival and Yard Departure Reports Train Length Reports more than 24 reports in all Division Diagnostics Connect up to 6 divisions via one interchange Multiple interchanges unlimited per division Set priorities for shippers and consignees Industry Activity Report charts shipments and arrivals across many sessions III Copyright 1995 2011 by Albion Software All rights reserved Portions of Chapter 19 Balancing copyright 2011 by Dr Jean C Piquette Printed in the U S A This manual may not in whole or in part be copied photo copied reproduced translat ed or converted to any electronic or machine readable form without prior written con sent of Albion Software Trademark Information Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation Acknowledgements Thanks to my wife Maria and my daughters Sylvia and Alysia for their constant sup port and love during this development I could not have done it without them Thanks to lead Beta tester Doug Sandmeyer for all his hard work and all the other Beta testers for their time effort and support Thanks also to Harry Bonham for his sugges tions and help with the manual A special thanks to Dick Bradley MMR for the inspiration to create a non random switchlist generator Photos courtesy of John Fiero Bill Appell Dec 1
200. xt Shipper B amp LE view the text file press the button View divdiag txt and P clear the text file press the button Clear divdiag txt Eros Morgantown Freight Select the industries involved the ones you are testing divi Trai general freight i rain Type general freight sional routing for the options you desire and press the Perform Diagnostics button You can output both to the screen and the text file by check ing the Output to Screen in addition to divdiag txt checkbox If you are outputting to the text file each time you run it the results will be added to the end of the file M Output to screen in addition to divdiag txt Clear divdiag txt View divdiag txt Close Version 7 added the capability to look for and list the required trains This feature works similar to the Shipper Consignee Diagnostics explained in Chapter 15 If you are unfamiliar with this topic please read the explana tions in Chapter 15 The Division Diagnostic Viewer is pictured to the right In addition DivDiag txt is just a text file it can be found in your database folder and viewed printed with notepad View Division Diagnostics BAR xxx Shipping Industry B amp L E Receiving Industry Morgantown Fr Shipper and consignee are NOT in adjacent divisions Car Route IS re Train Number 288 found between towns Butler Hall Make sure train types match between Train Shipper and Consigne
201. y default train types when it places cars in their home yards The whole idea here is for every car to have both a primary and secondary train type This means that it can travel on the primary type usually the local or the secondary type usually the through Note that if you are not using both local and through train types if you are only using a local type you need only fill out the primary type The second area is the shipper update window There are fields for both primary and secondary train types here The third area is the consignee update window It too has fields for both primary and secondary train types The fourth area is the train type of the train itself Here there is only one train type a train cannot change its train type How Local and Through Trains Work On the first movement of a car to the first interchange on a multi divisional run the car will travel on a train of the local type Then the car will be picked up at this inter Local and Through Trains Example 1 Western Division Johnsburg West Centralia Central Division Centralia Eastern Division Wilsonville East Centralia Nellie Mine U Centralia Farmers Milk Co op Dei East Centralia airy y West Centralia West Centralia a Yard Interchange East Centralia __ Johnsburg Foundry Interchange change by a train of the through train type It will travel only on through type trains even if it has to be picked up set out
202. you may want to rethink your divisional interchange set up or add the train anyway Stranded cars are no fun at all even if prototypical Industry Status Report The industry status report is useful because it lists the next destination and final destination for all cars that have them assigned Any car routed through an inter change will have it s next and final destination filled out This makes it easy to find cars that have been stranded Just look for those cars that have not moved for many sessions and have their next and final destinations filled out Keep in mind that each interchange has a storage track which must be assigned This is where the cars are routed to and is actually an industry in the database The Interchange Storage Track This field is found in the interchange update window and is one of the most critical items when setting up an inter change The interchange storage track is the yard where the cars are stored while waiting for pick up by the next train This track is a yard or an industry which you have set up beforehand in the industry database Keep in mind that each industry belongs to a town Likewise the interchange storage track belongs to the same town that its yard or industry does It is this town that your trains must visit to be able to pick up and drop off cars I can not emphasize this strongly enough If your trains do not visit the town that the interchange storage track belongs to
203. you want more control over moving stuck cars try turning on the option Enable Stuck Car Processing in Tab 4 of the options window Read the section on stuck car processing in Chapter 10 Read this thoroughly as it is not as simple as Just turning the option on there is significantly more set up work than when using last pass random generation 14 See Appendix A Rules of Thumb for Developing and Using a Shipit Database in the Deluxe Balancer Manual by Dr Jean C Piquette included as a pdf in your Ship It installation Is Your Car Fleet Balanced With Your Industries You must have the same AAR Types in your fleet that your industries are asking for If these cars are not available or there are not enough of them car movement will be severely restricted Movements of cars will not occur if they are not of the AAR type requested by the various industries Siding Capacity Single Car Sidings Another potential bottleneck is siding capacity Avoid single car sidings if you can This is hard to do with an existing lay out but try and utilize the single car sidings for low volume shippers and receivers or have single car sidings be only ship pers or only consignees Above all don t have many single car sidings shipping and receiving with one another because you are bound to end up with a bottleneck Just one siding full will cause car movement with the others to fail in a cascad ing effect Keep in mind that empties have
204. yout Together with the empties field you can control the requesting of empties and the build up of loads very close ly Old Loads Ship It will process older loads loads sitting for a longer time first as long as there is a request for them Demand and Priority Note Demand and priority only work under the follow 8 8 ing two cases 1 When both shippers and consignees are within one divi sion and the consignees are in the same town 2 When the shipper is in one division and the consignees are in a different division than the shipper In this case the consignees can be in the same division as each other or in different divisions than each other as long as they are in a different division than the shipper Keep the above limitation in mind when reading the fol lowing section For both shippers and consignees there is a priority field As long as the priority number is higher any given shipper or consignee will receive their loads or empties before others that have a lower priority number Giving a shipper con signee a higher priority number ensures that the shipment of an empty or a load to them will be looked at first before a shipment to a shipper consignee with a lower number But keep in mind that Ship It does not look at the priority value when generating sessions it looks at the demand variable explained below In the Industry Activity report there is a demand variable listed Demand is a variable th
205. ys session 1 Be aware when you select Start Fresh you will need to redistribute the cars on your layout usually by hand To generate an operating ses sion select Generate Session after you select Start Fresh Start Fresh using old positions Start Fresh using old car positions differs from Start Diagnostics Print Window Help Start Fresh new car positions Start Fresh using old positions Set Number of Generations Generate Session Add New Cars Clear Empty and Load Requests Clear Motive Power Assignments Clear Demand Delete Activity Report Data compresses database Trim Session Database compresses database Fresh new car positions in that cars are not re populated around the layout It cannot be used to populate your layout in preparation for your first session because there are no cars populated Existing car locations are utilized so that you do not have to move any cars Loads and empties are re assigned according to the shippers and consignees at the existing locations All future destinations such as those used for interchange traffic are cleared The advantage here is that you do not have to spend hours in the case of a large layout moving cars around if you make database changes requiring a start fresh The session number is also reset to 0 Why Use Start Fresh If you make large changes to either your layout or the data base inside Ship It you may need to select Start Fresh For example if you em

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