Day Log 126

Tuesday January 11, 2011 Lethbridge, Alberta

5:30 am

The first step this morning is to set up this web page. I learned my lesson yesterday when I tried to move too quickly and got ahead of myself with my adjustments to the Ship It! software.

7:00 am

I have re-read chapter 10 of the Ship It! manual. Section 10.7 describes the settings for the Options 3 tab under the File menu. This provides a set of parameters to handle the situation where a car is 'stuck'. The idea of a default destination for each industry should help move cars. Another option is the 'convert to empty at destination' which may help a stuck car move as empties are treated differently than loaded cars. I will check this shortly.

Chapter 15 (p. 15-4) mentions that passenger trains and through trains should have the "Do Not Generate Moves" box checked. This page also notes that if one has different train types then ALL cars should have both the primary and secondary train types filled in. I will check this shortly.

Chapter 17 describes staging and appears to be highly relevant to situations involving passenger and unit trains. Section 17-3 gives a detailed example of how to set up a unit train.

Unit coal trains: There must be 2 towns (Black Diamond and Coaldale) which are 'staging' (the staging check box is checked) and each town must have an industry where the cars are shipped to (e.g. Mercoal Mines and Coaldale Coal).

Passenger trains: There must be 2 towns (Jasper and Coaldale) which are 'staging' (the staging check box is checked) and each town must have an industry where the cars are shipped to (e.g. Jasper Station and Coaldale Station).

During the last few days I have made numerous changes to the shipper and consignee records that have helped the balancing. Therefore I will begin by looking at the last version of Ship It! that does not have any errors in the error messages report.

The first step will be to review each car as being available and for primary and secondary train types to be filled in.

I also need to add an industry called Coaldale Coal for use by the unit coal train.

8:15 am

I am working with the shipit4 folder.

All cars are available.

I have created an industry called Coaldale Coal in the town of Coaldale for staging the unit coal train.

I ran ShipIt! for 2 sessions without any errors.

Deluxe Balancer gave an "overall quality of balance" value of 18.3 .

The car mix report indicated that AAR type FM needed 2 cars but I only have 1. It also indicated that AAR type TM needed 11 cars but I only have 7. I think I can eliminate these two problems.

More serious is the train length report produced by Ship It! which indicates that neither the passenger train nor the unit coal train are working properly.

I have rerun Ship It! with a new car setup and received no errors. Now to back this set of files up.

8:35 am

I am now working with a shipit4b folder.

I changed the Prairie Dog: Hillside Lumber consignee frequency from 24 to 48 hours and reran Deluxe Balancer. There was no change in the values of the "overall quality of balance" or the car mix report. It still seems to think it needs 2 flat cars to handle the load between Pine Ridge: Big Pine Lumber and Prairie Dog: Hillside Lumber. I will try changing the 48 hours to 72 for my last try at this. I have also changed the number of empties at Big Pine Lumber from 1 to 0.

I reran Ship It! and then Deluxe Balancer.

Deluxe Balancer gave an "overall quality of balance" value of 17.6

Interesting. There is no longer a problem with the FM type cars (flatcar - lumber). Good.

But now there are problems with XM cars (boxcars) and TM cars (tank cars). For the boxcars the minimum required is 21 and I have 20. For tank cars the minimum required is 11 and I have 7. In both cases I will need to reduce the amount of traffic by reducing the consignee requests.

There are 2 other warnings in the car mix report. There is a line for an XP car (boxcar) which indicates the minimum, maximum and actual values are all 0. Strange. And there is a line for a BE car (baggage express) that indicates it needs 0 but that there is 1 on the layout.

Now for the adjustments:

I verified that there were no cars with an XP type. But there were 2 cars with an XMP type. I then deleted the AAR type XP from the database using the Deluxe Toolbox/Balancer.

I deleted the consignee Coaldale Yard (furniture) which should reduce the need for 1 boxcar.

I reduced the demand for gasoline (TM car) by the Big Pine Lumber consignee from 3 to 1. I also reduced the demand for fuel oil (TM car) by Wild Rose Coop Fuel from 2 to 1.

I need a consignee for the BE (baggage express) car. I added a consignee (Coaldale Yard) for office supplies express that uses a BE car.

Now to run Ship It! for the beginning. No errors. Now to run Deluxe Balancer.

Deluxe Balancer gave an "overall quality of balance" value of 20.0, a slightly higher value (i.e. weaker).

The car mix report now only had one warning message: the TM (tank car) demand indicates a maximum of 5 cars are needed and I have 7. Thus I now need to add a small demand for boxcars. But the warnings for tank cars, XP cars and BE cars have disappeared. Good. I will ignore this for the moment.

Now to focus on my unit coal train.

Staying with the shipit4b files, I generated Session 1 using Ship It!. No errors. Good.

Looking at the train length report, although both trains 100 and 200 were empty at the beginning of the session, they both had a full consist for 101 and 201. Lets run another session and see what happens.

I generated Session 2 using Ship It!. No errors. Good. But the train length report now shows it falling apart. Only 1 car leaves Jasper and no cars leave Black Diamond. Let's assume the train parameters are okay and that the problem lies with the shipper and consignee information.

I changed the value for the Shipper (Mercoal Mines) for empties from 6 to 0. I then ran 2 sessions and there was still no car movement for the unit coal train. I have examined the shippers, consignees, products, and at the moment do not see what I might change. Back to look at the trains.

I have changed check box for "do not generate moves" for train 200 to uncheck. I then reran Ship It from a new start and for 2 sessions. No errors. And the train length report now seems to be okay. The unit coal train is staying a 6 cars for both train 200 and 201. The yard departure list report confirms this. Train 200 leaves Black Diamond with 6 loaded cars and Train 201 leaves Coaldale with 6 empty cars. Excellent.

However the passenger train still seems to be problematic. I will save this set of files before making more changes.

I am now working with files in shipit4c. I changed the check box for train 100 and reran the first 2 sessions. The passenger train now seems to be working as well.

Now to try the Deluxe Balancer again.

Deluxe Balancer gave an "overall quality of balance" value of 20.0, the same as before I managed to get the two unit trains running. My sense at the moment is that everything is working (fingers crossed) and that now the changes are relatively minor as I try to refine the balance between shippers, consignees, and resources.

Car mix report; The TM cars (tank cars) require a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 5 cars, but there are 7 cars on the layout. Therefore I can increase the consignee requests.

Pine Ridge (Big Pine Lumber) increase amount of gasoline needed from 1 to 3.

Deluxe Balancer gave an "overall quality of balance" value of 17.2

I overshot the amount of activity for the tank cars. The car mix report indicates that I now need 11 again, but only have 7 cars. A new problem has come up for the BE car - the report indicates I now need 2, but I only have 1. I'm not sure why this appeared.

Back to a little tinkering.

Pine Ridge (Big Pine Lumber) decrease amount of gasoline needed from 3 to 1.

Black Diamond: Foothills Cartage change frequency from 24 to 36 hours.

Rerun Ship It! from Start Fresh. No errors. Run Deluxe Balancer.

Deluxe Balancer gave an "overall quality of balance" value of 18.3, slightly poorer.

No change to the car mix report.

The Balancing Information report provides more details and suggestions on how to improve the balancing.

[ 2.62]: Demand exceeds production for product: office supplies

[ 2.51]: Demand exceeds production for product: furniture

[ 2.40]: Demand exceeds production for product: clothing

[ 1.27]: Production exceeds demand for product: gasoline

[ 1.00]: Too few products going into siding for industry: Parkland Meats

[ .97]: Too few products going into siding for industry: Prairie Dog Station

[ .97]: Too many products going into siding for industry: Dusty Coal And Cartag

[ .77]: Too many products going into siding for industry: Big Pine Lumber [ .71]:

Production exceeds demand for product: meat

[ .71]: Production exceeds demand for product: logs

[ .65]: Too few products going into siding for industry: Alberta Pool

[ .64]: Demand exceeds production for product: grain

[ .61]: Demand exceeds production for product: mail

[ .61]: Demand exceeds production for product: grain special

[ .58]: Production exceeds demand for product: lumber boxcar

Let's try adjusting the first three problems. Lower demand (i.e. consignees) or increase production (suppliers) for office supplies, furniture & clothing.

Office Supplies: I changed the number of empties for the shipper (Queenston Cartage) from 1 to 2.

Rerun Ship It! from Start Fresh. No errors. Run Deluxe Balancer.

Deluxe Balancer gave an "overall quality of balance" value of 15.3, a surprisingly good improvement since I only made one small change.

Now to try a similar adjustment for furniture and clothing.

Rerun Ship It! from Start Fresh. No errors. Run Deluxe Balancer.

Deluxe Balancer gave an "overall quality of balance" value of 9.6 ! This is the first time I have received a value less than 10. The goal is to obtain a value less than 1, but I am pretty pleased with this.

I am going to try obtaining a new set of reports for Session 1 from Ship It! A satisfying moment!

3:15 PM

I now have a new set of Car Starting Locations and a new Switching List for Session 1.

8:40 PM

While placing my cars in their starting locations I noticed that a boxcar (CN 520502) was supposed to be in 2 different places. I have had this problem before, and once again I have deleted the duplicate car record. I assume this was one of the deletions that I lost when I started today's activities with the shipit4 folder. I should be able to keep track of this car during Session 1 and the duplicate file should disappear when I run Session 2.

The cars are now in place and I am ready to begin my operational activities (tomorrow). The first train to leave tomorrow will be Train 601, a local freight which will leave Coaldale at 0:30 am and carry out switching maneuvers at Queenston, Prairie Dog, Pine Ridge, Black Diamond and arriving at Jasper at 5:00 am.