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Dale's Depot

Daley Train Log
Page 93

Saturday December 13, 2008 Lethbridge, Alberta

6:20 am

I am going to begin this morning by rerunning the starting session 0 for Ship It!, and then run session 1 and see what I notice about the reports.

Session 0 runs successfully. There are cars located in Coaldale (3), Queenston (3), Prairie Dog(2), Pine Ridge (1), Distillery Row (1), Black Diamond (5) and Jasper (5). Good. All 20 rolling stock cars are placed.

Session 1 runs successfully. Looking at the Condensed Switchlist I notice a few actions that seem a little surprising.

• Train #500 from Coaldale to Jasper (Coaldale - Queenston - Wild Rose - Prairie Dog - Pine Ridge - Distillery Row - Black Diamond - Jasper):
  
  
  • 3 empty boxcars are transferred from the Coaldale Yard to the Jasper Yard. They are not going to any industry, just from one yard to another.
    
    
  • an empty hopper is picked up at Dusty Coal in Prairie Dog and set out at Mercoal Mines in Black Diamond. This makes perfect sense.
    
    
  • an empty boxcar is picked up at Queenston Cartage in Queenston and set out at Pine Lumber in Pine Ridge. This also makes perfect sense.
    
    
• Train #501 from Jasper to Coaldale: (Jasper - Black Diamond - Distillery Row - Pine Ridge - Prairie Dog - Queenston - Wild Rose - Coaldale)
  
  
  • 2 empty gondola cars are transferred from the Jasper Coaling Tower to the Coaldale Yard. It would make more sense (to me) if they were set out at Mercoal Mines.

  I just noticed that I had the location of the Queenston and Wild Rose reversed for Train #500. I don't see why this should make any difference to anything, but I will correct this and rerun session 0 and session 1. I am expecting the reports to remain the same.

  Yes, the Condensed Switchlist report is the same. But I have corrected an error in the set up. Now to continue looking at the report.

  • 1 empty reefer is picked up at Parkland Meats in Jasper and set out in the Coaldale Yard. It would make more sense to me if it were set out at Swift Meats in Queenston. There is already one reefer at Swift Meats but the siding capacity is 4.
    
    
  • 1 empty boxcar is picked up at 36th St Warehouse in Jasper and set out in the Coaldale Yard. This is okay at that is the home yard for the boxcar.
    
    
  • 1 loaded hopper car with coal is picked up at Mercoal Mines in Black Diamond and set out at Dusty Coal in Prairie Dog. Excellent.
    
    
  • 1 loaded boxcar with lumber is picked up at Big Pine Lumber in Pine Ridge and set out at the Coaldale Yard. It would make more sense to me if it were set out at Hillside Lumber in Prairie Dog. There is one empty car there but the car capacity for that siding is 2.

  I noticed that Big Pine Lumber was classified as a Siding. I have changed that to be an industry as it will be shipping lumber as well as receiving lumber. I will see if I want to make any other changes before rerunning the session.

  • 1 empty boxcar is picked up at Hillside Lumber in Praire Dog and set out in the Coaldale Yard. Good.
    
    
  • 1 empty boxcar is picked up at Queenston Cartage in Queenston and set out in the Coaldale Yard. Good.
    
    
  • 4 empty cars that arrived in the Coaldale Yard are also listed as staying there. This may not be a problem but I don't see why this is mentioned in the report.

  I am now going to rerun sessions 0 and 1 and see if changing the status of Hillside Lumber from a siding to an industry makes any difference in the switch list. Nope. The switch list remains the same.

The Shipper/Consignee Diagnostic Report indicates no failures or train routing orphans. Good.

The Car Move Rejections Report lists 3 cars where the siding was full:

• CN 210048 reefer (initially at Swift Meats in Queenston) on Train #500 at Queenston Cartage.
  • The siding capacity for Queenston Cartage is 3. There are 2 cars there at the start. ??
    
    
• CN 500899 boxcar (loaded with Lumber) on Train #501 at Purple Gas.
  • This makes no sense to me at the moment. Purple Gas is a consignee in Pine Ridge that accepts fuel oil. Train #500 set out the empty boxcar at Big Pine Lumber in Pine Ridge and Train #501 picked it up and set it out Hillside Lumber in Prairie Dog.
    
    
• CN 539027 boxcar (loaded with lumber) on Train #500 at Purple Gas.
  • This makes no sense to me either. Train #501 picked this car up at Big Pine Lumber in Pine Ridge and set out at the Coaldale Yard.
    
    
• This report also list 4 boxcars that were unable to be on Train #501 because the train was full. 3 of these cars were the empty boxcars that Train #500 took to Jasper. I agree the train was full. But then when it arrives in Black Diamond it is allowed to pick up a car and again at Pine Ridge where it picks up 2 more. ??

I have now had a look at the All Switch List report. Train #500 leaves Coaldale with 3 boxcars and does some switching on its trip to Jasper. This all seems okay. But when Train #501 is formed in Jasper it lists 3 cars twice! (AOBX 527 - a gondola car, CN 55069 - a gondola car, and HHX - a reefer).

I thought I was clever when I indicated that the Jasper Coaling Tower would accept gondola cars and that Dusty Coal would accept hopper cars, but that they would both receive coal from Mercoal Mines.

I have changed the records to only indicate coal as the product but this has made no difference to the reports. I am going to delete car AOBX from the rolling stock database and see if it disappears from the records. I have now deleted all 3 cars that were causing problems. That has helped.

There is also a problem with the consignee Purple Gas as it seems to be receiving lumber instead of fuel oil. I will begin by deleting Purple Gas from the list of consignees.

I now have everything making sense, but I have deleted 3 cars and 1 industry. Now to slowly bring them back and see if I still have problems.

10:30 am

I am unable to see why I can't move my reefer cars from Swift Meats to one of my two consignees. Time for a break.

11:30 am

Okay, let's have another look at this. Why do my 2 reefer cars, which are initially placed at Swift Meats in Queenston, not move to the two consignees (Parkland Packers in Jasper, and Prairie Meats in Prairie Dog)?

I will try clearing the storage yard at Swift Meats. That did it. This is tricky, as I don't yet realize the significance of this parameter.

Overall, this now seems to working okay.

The next step is to get a tank car working, delivering fuel oil from the Husky Refinery at Distillery Row to Coop Fuel at Wild Rose. I have one tank car in the Ship It! database (AT & SF 100801). This turned out to be the same problem as with the reefer cars. I cleared the storage yard and then it worked fine.

I now have a new setup and session 1 switching list. This will be the first run with locomotive CN 1706.

2:00 PM

I have placed the rolling stock according to the initial setup instructions from Ship It! CN 1706, a GP7 diesel, will power the local freight. And I will use CN 7985, an ALCo S-4 switcher, to put together the consist for Train #500 in the Coaldale Yard. This will be the first time that I have tried to put together a train in the yard.