quote:Originally posted by prrjim:
It seems everyone is considering the physical aspects in their answers in this thread.
Why aren't people mentioning their operating requirements? Why don't people on this forum mentioning their switchlists (and how generated) or the use of car cards or some sort of car forwarding that causes the trains to be made up and move across the layout?
I do have a program that generates traffic, it's called "Model Railroad Dispatch" and it was made by Bob Fischer. It was developed in DOS and it's been so long that I've messed with DOS I can't get it to print out a report.
I tried using the online program from Dallas Model Works, but I need more time to learn it. I've entered my engines and rolling stock, even my industries, but again can't seem to get anything printed out. There's something about having photos of your cars (and some other info) that I don't have at my fingertips to enter.
Has anyone else tried this program? I only have 30+ cars and it took me a while to enter all the data, I can't imagine what someone with 100+ cars is looking at.
Just for fun I even used the roll of a pair of dice to determine how many cars that would make up inbound and outbound trains, but that can leave you with too many or not enough if you're not careful. It can work though if you do some planning (check to see how many cars are already in a siding) and if there's less cars for an outbound train than the dice indicated you simply take what you have. It's simple, maybe too simple, but it does generate traffic.
