What would you do? Options

[Frascati]

Hi

AG has a number of limitations. One is that it will sometimes tell you to pick up wagons but then not tell you what to do with them. On a straightforward pull from A to B that's simple... you end up with the string in tow, looking for a yard marshal to tell you where to put them... and he probably would... but luckily the activity ends before he has a chance.

But on a turn it's more problamatic... My situation is this. I'm in Klamath in the BN E Yard, about to set out on a turn to Crescent Lake (100 miles away) I have to pick up 3 empties in the yard with no destination set. So what should I do...

Do I drag them to Crescent Lake and back to Klamath (200 miles round trip) Or do I Assume I've just been asked to move them in the yard and shuffle them to the back of the cut they're in (having nowhere better to put them).

The above is a special case, but it highlights that in fact I could satisify ALL of the pickups en-route by simply picking them up and dropping them off somewhere nearby...

And on a turn, would I leave the outward pickups at Crescent Lake and the Inward at Klamath?

It's a bit much to expect AG to tell you this sort of stuff, and I guess I'm left to do whatever I want with them...

But a set of House rules would be good to keep me on the straight and narrow.

I propose the following... (The underlying pricipal is to minimise movement)

1) pickups at the beginning of a turn activity with no destination are assumed to be movements to the rear of the cut that they are currently in.

2) Outward pickups are left at a convenient track at the turn location for forwarding.

3) Inward pickups are brought home.

Nuff Said. Comments please...

[nbeveridge]

[TO ALL READERS:  I hope that everyone reading this topic has the patience to read all of what Frascati has said, because you need to read the whole topic and think about it to fully understand.]

This is a dillema for all trains, in fact, not just a turn, since as stated on a straight pull the activity will end before you have to do something with the cars you pick up.  I believe that Steve's basic assumption is that the cars which are picked up will stay in that train until the activity terminates.  Consequently, AG does not  specify a further destination for those cars.  In fact, the default ending "last pick up" will exit the activity exactly at that point, even before putting that last pick up in the train, if all set outs have already been made.  And the player train will never get back to a yard unless that is where the final pick up or set out is made.

The user can complicate issues by selecting the "assemble train" option for terminating the activity.  When this is done, even if all the set outs and pick ups have been done, the train will not terminate until the cars are sorted in the order listed on the workorder.  Now the question is this:  Where do you sort, at the last siding or at the yard?  AG doesn't care where you do it.

For operating a turn, you have a very good point.  Some turns in the RW work sort of as you describe, dropping some cars at the turn point for forwarding on down the line, and returning to the point of origin with the rest.  But sometimes all pick ups return to the point of origin.  And in any case it is not certain that all pick ups on the outbound leg are set out at the turn point for forwarding.

When you develop your operating scheme and then generate an activity for that purpose, you can carefully choose what track to work, but the end point is sort of free form.  Steve has talked of helping the run through activities by giving a more definite end point, and I suspect that this would help the local freights and turns as well.  For instance, another option for ending the activity would be to choose an ending track at some town or yard, and stop the entire train on that track.  Due to track length vs. train length issues, this may be more complicated than it seems.  E.g how do you end an activity where the final train is 20 cars long, and the end point has only one track, and that track is less than 20 cars + locos + caboose in length?  I think MSTS has our hands tied in this case.

And that doesn't solve the question of forwarding on the outward leg of a turn.

All in all, the end point of these activites requires a little imagineering.  Have you done the work specified in the work order?  Yes.  Has the train run to its terminus and the crew departed.  Probably not.

[sgdavis]

Frascati,

I like the way you're thinking.  The way I wrote the program, the general assumption is that cars picked up in "Yard" tracks (or, now, "Source" tracks) will be set out somewhere down the line.  Cars picked up at industry spurs will be kept on the train.  I could have required all cars picked up to later be set out somewhere, but then you get into problems with the order in which the work is done, and can the car be set out at a track you've already passed, etc.

I'm surprised you had a pickup at Klamath Yard but no setout for it.  To make sure you understand how AG works, cars picked up at tracks you choose as "Source" tracks, will be required to be set out somewhere down the line.  Cars picked up at tracks selected from the "Work tracks" list are assumed to be pickups from industries, destined to go back to a yard and out on an outbound train.  So you must have selected the klamath work as an "Industry" track.  I would agree hauling that car out of Klamath 100 miles north then hauling it back isn't very prototypical.  You can get "credit" for the work (and a more realistic run) by picking up that car in Klamath yard and setting it out at some other track in the yard or a RIP track etc. rather than hauling cross country (if you're doing a turn -- if not, that car may NEED to be hauled north).  Does this make sense?  In other words AG doesn't "sometimes" have a pickup w/o a setout, it always has a pickup w/o a setout if that pickup came from an "industry" track (selected from the lower window).  And it will always have a required setout if the car was picked up at a track you selected from the "Source track" window.

I've been a railfan for quite a while and most locals I've watched either run from one terminal to another, or work as a turn.  We have both here in the Tulsa area.  All the turns I've watched, start with cars they got in the yard that need to be delivered to industries, and then as they work the industries they pick up cars sitting on the spurs there and take them back to the yard, to go out on another longer-distance train.  Most of the through trains (I'm thinking of the Tulsa-Madill for instance) set out cars as they work their way down the route, and pick them up, to be delivered to the yard at the termination of the run.

I have however seen some trains set out cars picked up at industries, at interchange tracks or other mid-points on a run, to later be picked up by a freight headed to a given destination.  So I guess Norm is right: some "Imagineering" is needed.  I wanted AG to provide a framework to give a realistic railroading experience (as close as possible) but it's up to the user to determine how realistic a run you want. 

Some users want a quick switching challenge, others want a more prototypical run.  For the latter, having the activity end as soon as the last pickup or set out is made is not really prototyical, unless the crew is reaching the end of it's hours of service and is replaced after that piece of work (which I HAVE seen happen).  The most authentic ending to me is the "assemble train" ending, which means AG keeps track of all the pickups made at industry tracks and those all have to be set out somewhere -- but you decide where.

Maybe I should look at one more feature: "final destination track"?  That would be a track that all pickups at the industry tracks, would have to be set out at.  Do you think that would be a desireable additional feature?  Assemble train works but it isn't 100% realistic because a) you can assemble the train anywhere and in real local service you don't always have to block your returning train in any specific order (though sometimes you do, depending on the railroad SOP for that district and yard).

Thoughts?

Anyway I do like this sort of discussion.  I welcome ideas on how to make the program better, more challenging, interesting, prototypical.  Norm and I often discuss these sorts of ideas when we get together and that's where a lot of the latest features in the latest version have come from.

Thanks,

Steve

sgdavis2007-3-2 18:14:20

[Frascati]

I do like the idea of final destination track. One of the annoying aspects of AG is generating a long activity and having it end prematurely with only part of the work done. This happens because you gain credit for a setout as soon as the wagons arrive at the destination track (even if buried deep in the consist). MSTS does not remove that credit if you then subsequently go onto to move them, say to achieve another set out. I don't see a way around this.

The whole MSTS activity ending logic seems messed up to me. I've always believed that you should have the option to continue after completing an activity, If only to look around at the destination. Perhaps the MSTSBin people could look at this?

While we're about it perhaps they could have a look at raising the number of action events in the AE?

AG says little about the order of wagons when setout. In the past I've liked to 'rotate stock' to the rear of a setout.

Say I'm picking up 3 loaded cars out of a 7 car cut and dropping off 2 empties. I'll pull out all 7 and put the 2 empties behind the 4 cars I'm leaving in the siding. The thinking is that the loaded cars will need to be picked up later and may as well be at the front of the cut as a courtesy to the next engineer. He doesn't have to move the empties to get at his cars.

As pointed out elsewhere http://www.3dtrains.com/forums/index.php?showforum=15) this, whilst a complication, is a rather arbitrary one. You do what the customer (in this case the AG wants). If you take the basic philosophy behind AG is to give the player a number of tasks and to move away from the 'free form, do anything you like' activity, then AG is not pernickety enough.

[sgdavis]

I do like the idea of final destination track. One of the annoying aspects of AG is generating a long activity and having it end prematurely with only part of the work done. This happens because you gain credit for a setout as soon as the wagons arrive at the destination track (even if buried deep in the consist). MSTS does not remove that credit if you then subsequently go onto to move them, say to achieve another set out. I don't see a way around this.

You are right, but, if you use "assemble train then the activity WON'T end until YOU decide -- by assembling the train you trigger the ending (provided you've done all y our setouts and pickups correctly).  However I do think the "end track" is a great idea and will also help for those who don't really like switching activities and just want to run a train from one point to another, but see AI trains and cars in the spurs etc. unlike "Explore a Route".  So a future version of AG will have 3 boxes instead of 2: Source tracks, Industry/Work Tracks, and Destination Track(s).  I thank you for getting me to think of this.

The whole MSTS activity ending logic seems messed up to me. I've always believed that you should have the option to continue after completing an activity, If only to look around at the destination. Perhaps the MSTSBin people could look at this?

I think we'll have better luck fixing this in AG than in MSTS.  One reason MSTS does this is, with "scripted" activites, there won't be any more player path, or any more AI traffic, once you've finished the work that the activity author scripted.  If you REALLY want to "dream" about a better sim, for me it would be something more similar to Flight Simulator, where there would always be trains in the "world" and those would run based on prototypical schedules or at least something based on that but with randomization (since those schedules are a lot harder to get than airline schedules which are a matter of public record).  And appropriate cars should be on the spurs as you traverse the "world".  To do that a future MSTS would have to have a feature simliar to AG that allows route designers to designate what types of cars would be found on those spurs.

While we're about it perhaps they could have a look at raising the number of action events in the AE?

You'll get no argument from me there!  And the quantity of rolling stock also.  There's no reason for a limit, since the player can never "see" all the stock on a route.  So it should be permissible to fill every spur with cars and if the player never runs by/sees that spur then the computer never loads those shapes and no impact on memory or performance.  I really don't understand the limit of ~500 or so cars.  Just sloppy coding I think.

AG says little about the order of wagons when setout. In the past I've liked to 'rotate stock' to the rear of a setout.

Say I'm picking up 3 loaded cars out of a 7 car cut and dropping off 2 empties. I'll pull out all 7 and put the 2 empties behind the 4 cars I'm leaving in the siding. The thinking is that the loaded cars will need to be picked up later and may as well be at the front of the cut as a courtesy to the next engineer. He doesn't have to move the empties to get at his cars.

 

As pointed out elsewhere http://www.3dtrains.com/forums/index.php?showforum=15) this, whilst a complication, is a rather arbitrary one. You do what the customer (in this case the AG wants). If you take the basic philosophy behind AG is to give the player a number of tasks and to move away from the 'free form, do anything you like' activity, then AG is not pernickety enough.

I think you're right about this one.  Right now I'm not sure how to handle in AG but I'll keep thinking on it -- anything is possible.  Not all MSTS users are as interested in prototypical operations as you are, so I'll admit I had to make AG appealing to various levels of simmers.  Some don't want too much shuffling of cars.  I agree the empties or loads DELIVERED should go closest to the customers loading facility/dock.  Then again some think my program is TOO persnickity!

Thanks for the comments, please keep 'em coming, they are great food for thought!

Best,

Steve

[Frascati]

One of the things that the kuju programmers missed is when writing MSTS was making the Save files unicode text readable. If they had done this all sorts of things become possible... persistant environments, basing an activity on the outcome of a previous activity, and in the case of AG, serious post activity analysis. You are limited to what MSTS provides. I guess they took the developers shortcut of just zapping out the whole of the programs work area, and then never had to think about saves again... reliable but a sledgehammer approach.

But that's history... A quantum leap forward for MSTS which might breathe in new life would be for someone to decode the save files, say a utility that would unpack them into unicode (though the idea of editing the unicode, re-packing and loading the save would be highly unlikely to work). The unpacked save file could then possibly be used as a basis to generate new activities, or analysed as to what wagons finished where... Obviously this would be a long road, with many pitfalls ahead, but it would have a 'pot of gold' at the end.

The MSTSBin people must have a fair idea as to what is in the save file and where. From the AG analysis point of view, the problem would be smaller than trying to understand the whole file. You can ignore most of the file as long as you can identify the information you need to do the analysis. That is the end positions of wagons. There would have to be some way of tying back the internal MSTS physical view of the route with the logical view taken by the AG.

This is getting into pretty deep waters...

I keep thinking that in real life there is no MSTS to tick off drops and setouts. You do the best you can and go home with a 'job well done'

If AG arbitrarily told you on a drop to set out 'wagons behind.in front those on the sidings', It would not effect the current MSTS logic for completion at all. You could do it or not. It would become an 'honour thing'.

Two ideas occur to me. An extra column in the track csv file, of 'special instructions' for pickups and drop offs. Contents something like 'setouts to go nearest the buffers', or more ambitiously 'Empties to go to such and such siding'

Or AG could come up with a finishing arrangement for each track to be worked, just like in assembling a consist...

 

[sgdavis]

One of the things that the kuju programmers missed is when writing MSTS was making the Save files unicode text readable. If they had done this all sorts of things become possible... persistant environments, basing an activity on the outcome of a previous activity, and in the case of AG, serious post activity analysis.

But that's history... A quantum leap forward for MSTS which might breathe in new life would be for someone to decode the save files, say a utility that would unpack them into unicode (though the idea of editing the unicode, re-packing and loading the save would be highly unlikely to work). The unpacked save file could then possibly be used as a basis to generate new activities, or analysed as to what wagons finished where... Obviously this would be a long road, with many pitfalls ahead, but it would have a 'pot of gold' at the end.

The MSTSBin people must have a fair idea as to what is in the save file and where. From the AG analysis point of view, the problem would be smaller than trying to understand the whole file. You can ignore most of the file as long as you can identify the information you need to do the analysis. That is the end positions of wagons. There would have to be some way of tying back the internal MSTS physical view of the route with the logical view taken by the AG.

Youre right about that one.  I've often wondered about a more persistent environment based on starting with the save files and basing activities on that.  I think it might be possible to render these readable, I'll have a look and see.  This would open up the possibility of a more advanced, "disciplined" ActivityGenerator program more similar to some of the Model Railroad car shipment programs.  So we'd track how often industries needed various cars and call for work depending on the needs, something like that.  I'd think you wouldn't just want to leave the .sav file as is though, you'd want to replace some cars with others.  For instance if you delivered empty coal cars to a coal mine, when you generated the next activity those would be subbed for loaded cars (assuming the mine loaded them) and you would then haul them elsewhere.  I'd be interested in your thoughts as to how such a program might work.  Basically you'd need to build an elaborate set of rules (I'd think) about the various online industries and how often they needed to ship/receive various car types.  Creating the templates for something like this would be a much more involved exercise but the world that would be created would be a lot more immersive for the true enthusiast.  There IS a program out there that does a better job of analyzing the outcome of activities, tracks success, etc. and many of the virtual railroads use it.  It's a program called "Activity Enhancer" by Rich Garber.  If you'll go to Rich's web site (I have a link in the "MSTS Links" section of the Skyline web site) you can look for this and see what you think.

I keep thinking that in real life there is no MSTS to tick off drops and setouts. You do the best you can and go home with a 'job well done'

I've seen real railroaders running with switch lists and they check them off as they get the work done.  Then if they "die on the law" or their shift ends, the crew taking over knows where they left off.  Also when the return to the yard or end their run the yardmaster or trainmaster can check if work was missed or certain cars that should be on the train, weren't.

If AG arbitrarily told you on a drop to set out 'wagons behind.in front those on the sidings', It would not effect the current MSTS logic for completion at all. You could do it or not. It would become an 'honour thing'.

Actually it IS possible to enforce the order of the setouts, using an "assemble train at location" event.  AG doesn't currently do this but scripted activities can.  If there's more interest I could see adding this feature.  Most of my users seem to like more freedom rather than strict orders that must be followed to the letter.  I'd be interested to hear from others as to whether there is interest in this feature.  I could add it as an option that could be turned on or off when generating activities.

Two ideas occur to me. An extra column in the track csv file, of 'special instructions' for pickups and drop offs. Contents something like 'setouts to go nearest the buffers', or more ambitiously 'Empties to go to such and such siding'

Or AG could come up with a finishing arrangement for each track to be worked, just like in assembling a consist...

You coul always add special instructions for each spur to the template docs, and users could follow those, or not, on the "honor system" as you said.  Also your idea of a finishing arrangement, as I mentioned above, could definitely be implemented if there is interest.

I am getting ready to start work on version 4 of AG.  I'm not currently planning the enhancements you mention here, though I'll consider those for that or a later future version (the reading of save files will likely have to be handled via an entirely different program).  Take a look at my post "AG4 Enhancement Ideas" in this forum and let me know what you think of those enhancements.

Thanks,

Steve

[AT RR]

Steve,

I like the "Final Destination Track" idea.

Knowing I will "can" after the last pick up  I currently add all my pickups to the end of my train and will drop them at a long siding or yard near my last set out. By doing this I get the "Tonnage" and the switching dynamics of a long train.

Having to run around my local at the end and then haul the train back to the starting location "Final Destination Track" would be an added bang for the buck.  

Thanks

Peter