Journal 68

Tuesday November 11, 2008 Lethbridge, Alberta

1:00 PM

This will be my first attempt at constructing a switch list for picking up and setting out a few cars on my layout. The intent is simply to get a feel for the various steps that are involved in both creating the list and then following it.

Town: Coaldale

Locomotive: CN 6700

Road	No.	AAR	Setout	Pickup	Lading	Destination
CN	501417	XM		Coaldale Yard	empty	Queenston/Power Track 2
CN	461010	XM		Coaldale Yard	empty	Prairie Dog/Track 1
CN	123411	GB		Coaldale Yard	empty	Prairie Dog/Track 5
CN	74009	NE		Coaldale Yard		Jasper/Yard

Town: Queenston

Road	No.	AAR	Setout	Pickup	Lading	Destination
CN	500899	XM		Power Track 1	empty	Jasper
CN	501417	XM	Power Track 2

Town: Prairie Dog

Road	No.	AAR	Setout	Pickup	Lading	Destination
CN	123411	GB	Track 5
CN	461010	XM	Track 1

Town: Jasper

Road	No.	AAR	Setout	Pickup	Lading	Destination
CN	500899	XM	Jasper Yard			Jasper
CN	74009	NE	Jasper Yard

Already I realize this is more work than it is worth! It is a good argument in favor of having this created with software.

2:00 PM

Overall, this was a successful test. I had no difficulty picking up and setting out the various cars in the appropriate locations. I did notice that the end around track in Queenston does not have enough length for both a car and a locomotive. That will only take a couple of minutes to fix.

While the route functioned in a realistic manner, the emphasis changed dramatically from running a train on the mainline to various switching maneuvers. One way to achieve a balance between these two activities would be to specify a number of outer mainline circuits for each route between towns.

I am going to try downloading the Ship It! 30-day trial and see if it will run on my version of Windows xp on the Mac.

Downloading was simple, straightforward and successful. I have tried adding one boxcar to my primary file and it seemed to work just fine. The next step is to read the documentation for the database program.

11:00 PM

I had some excellent chats with some of the members of SAMRC this evening. I should be able to set up Ship It! with two separate databases - one with all of my 1950's cars and a second with all of my modern cars. Great.

I tried deleting a few records from the database but was surprised to find that I had deleted them from all 4 databases. I also deleted the record that I had created for one CN boxcar. I have recreated this record and have added a photograph.

I also discussed my idea of having my trains run a few loops around the outer mainline circuit as part of the "route" between towns. This would give a better illusion of distance as well as giving the trains an opportunity to travel at scheduled speed for much of the journey. This seems to be a good idea. Good.