Entering the Layout’s Basic Information
· From the main screen, click "Edit Layout Data". This will take you to where you can enter all the layout information that the program needs. Remember that a fair amount of data may need to be entered, depending upon the size of your layout. You do not need to complete this all in one day. You can spread the data entry over any time period you need.
· Start at the tab entitled "Railroad, Towns and Yards".
· Enter the layout name.
· Enter the name of the railroad you are prototyping. This will be the default name for all new rolling stock added to the layout. If you are not prototyping an actual railroad, just enter what ever the name of your railroad is.
· Choose the simulation type (Simple, Relative or Absolute).
· Choose if you want the number of cars picked for a train not to exceed the size indicated for the train.
· Enter the simulated date and select the method that date advances.
· Select the default size, car size of 40’ or scale feet
· Select the simple car types, or the realistic car types (most are preloaded). You can add more car types any time, as well as remove those you do not use.
· Add towns by including the full town name, a 2-3 character code for the town name, and the passing siding size.
If the town has it’s own local switcher, select that option. Local switchers are not yard switchers. Local switchers are where an industry or a town that is not at a yard has it's own locomotive. Cars destined to here would be dropped at a small siding. The program produces a separate local switcher switchlist indicating which cars are for which approaching train.
· Add yards by including the yard name, and a 2-3 character code for the yard. You must indicate if it is used to insert new rolling stock on the layout, the default yard. All new rolling stock must start at the default yard. You can indicate if a yard is either a staging yard or a fiddle yard. Please note that you can have as many staging yards as you want, but only one yard can be designated as a fiddle yard. If you indicate a fiddle yard it must be the default yard for the program. Fiddle yards will be used to obtain cars for interchanges. Branch lines will require a "yard" to exchange cars with the main line. This could be an existing yard (note how the Elora Branch uses Orangeville yard) or a junction with one piece of track (as the Walkerton branch does at Saugeen Junction). The terminating town of a branch should also contain a "yard". This will be required if a train starts from that town. For example, you will see in the demo that the Elora branch line does not contain a yard at Elora, as trains never start there. It's an up and back operation. However, both the Teeswater and Walkerton branch lines have yards at each end town as trains originate from there.
· You will also note that there is an option to have shipments come and go from any yard (except staging yards, they automatically perform this task by definition). This is if you want to indicate that a yard will double as an "interchange". Thus you will be able to make shipments to and from this yard as if the yard was an "industry" or "interchange". Any full cars arriving destined for this yard will become empties, and you will be able to make full shipments from this yard to any industry on the layout.
· There is also an option on there to indicate if a yard stores empties. This will be used to automatically move any empties that arrive at non-empty storage yards to empty storage yards.
· If you have more than one yard in a town (which may or may not be different physical yards), you should indicate which yard is the common yard for the others. The common yard is where locomotives will be stored. For example, you could have one physical yard, but divided up into different classification yards for running trains. You could have West Yard, East Yard, North Yard and South Yard. But since these are only for classifying cars, none of those would store locomotives. Thus a fifth yard, Master Yard, would be created for that purpose, it would be the common yard for the other four.