AG4 seed cars Options

[AT RR]

Steve,

Thank you for the AG4 upgrade it addresses and helps many of areas that the template writers run into every day.

Please clarify the new seed car function. In the new manual you state, "In earlier versions of Activity Generator, you had to place the types of cars in the spur which that industries might be expect to ship, on each spur. This is no longer required. You can just place any type of a car in any spur, and later, edit the activity TDB file."  

Do you still have to have all of the cars you wish see and use in the template seeded into the template for them to show in the switch list?

The confusion I'm having if I select a BX (Box car) for an industry and the program looks for any BX on my drive I could have modern, old, 40' 60' boxcars show up in the template and in the case of a switching template the longer modern cars won't work.

Input Please thanks.

Peter

 

 

[asteph627]

I don't know how well this will work but I have my Boxcars as follows:

BX4 - 40ft Boxcar

BX5 - 50ft Boxcar

BX6 - 60ft Boxcar

I haven't had time to try out the new 4.0 yet, maybe this weekend.

 

AJ

[nbeveridge]

First, yes, if you want a particular car to be available for AG4 to use in a template, you must place that car somewhere at least once.  For my templates, I generally place long strings of cars in the yards which contain one of each of the cars I intend to use for the template.  After that, I don't have to think about what cars are available, unless I am missing some type that will be needed.

Second, some sort of system such as suggested by AJ will be needed if you want to discriminate against a long box car for a certain track.  AG4 can accept a large number of car types, but Steve will have to tell you the exact limit.

[sgdavis]

Norm is correct.  AG doesn't search your hard drive for box cars, it still searches the template.  The difference with AG4 is, you can put any kind of car in every spur rather than worrying about putting the correct type in the spur.  But, as Norm also points out, you need to have at least one "example" of every type of car used by your template, somewhere in your template activity.  So I often put a couple long strings in a yard somewhere, so I can have a number of different box cars all classed as type "BX", many covered hoppers, etc. etc.  Then if I want a covered hopper shipped from an industry, even if a box car is sitting there, I just indicate CVH or whatever code I associated with the covered hoppers, for the CarTypeShipped.

As to Norm's question, currently AG supports up to 100 car types within a single template.

Thanks,

Steve

[AT RR]

Steve, Norman, AJ

Thank you for your input. The method that Norm uses is the one I currently use for AG3, I add long strings to one of my long yard tracks with all the extra cars that I want to be seen in the template, but it looks like with AG4 the job will go faster due to the new method if setting up the template. Using a yard track to seed the template has a plus side if you want to change the car mix all you have to do is go to that siding edit and save, you don't have to go all over the template and pick and place.

Peter

[nbeveridge]

Steve, Norman, AJ

Using a yard track to seed the template has a plus side if you want to change the car mix all you have to do is go to that siding edit and save, you don't have to go all over the template and pick and place.

Peter

Yes, that is exactly what I do.  By doing this the template designer knows where to look to change or add rolling stock -- one stop shopping!  And because AG4 no longer uses the car type which is placed on each track, the chance of a stray car of odd ball or mislabeled type is greatly reduced.

[Don Klaebel]

Steve, Norman

If we make a template placing the same car (say a BNSF box car) on each of the sidings (say 100 sidings)and one each of other box cars in a string on the sidings, would the BNSF box car probably show up 100 times more in generated activities than the other box cars?   I seem to remember reading somewhere that the AG selected cars based on the number of each car in the template. Hope I am wrong about this as it will be much easier to place the same car on each siding.

Don Klaebel

Don Klaebel

[sgdavis]

Steve, Norman

If we make a template placing the same car (say a BNSF box car) on each of the sidings (say 100 sidings)and one each of other box cars in a string on the sidings, would the BNSF box car probably show up 100 times more in generated activities than the other box cars?   I seem to remember reading somewhere that the AG selected cars based on the number of each car in the template. Hope I am wrong about this as it will be much easier to place the same car on each siding.

Don Klaebel

Don Klaebel

Don,

No worries on that one.  AG creates a table in which each car type and a car of that type, are listed only ONCE, i.e. a unique list (like an index to a database).  So, if there were 100 of US2Freight8 and only one of GW11432, and both were type "BX", the internal table would have ONE listing for US2Freight8 and ONE listing for GW11432 associated with the type BX.  Each has an equal chance of being used by AG.  If there are 5 different cars that each qualify as type BX, there will be a 1 in 5 chance that of any one of those being selected each time AG looks for a box (BX) car to place.

Thanks,

Steve

[Don Klaebel]

Thanks Steve. That is great.

Don