The definition of a route is a series of towns that trains will visit during their runs. They will start at mile post 0 and run up a series of towns terminating at the furthest town. You can have as many trains run a route as you need. However, a train cannot run across routes - they can only run within a route. The only exceptions are four extra trains that will be noted later. You can have routes that cross other routes, or share towns with other routes. In fact, branch lines must have their routes intersect with another route. Routes are also used to create the schedules. Routes must start at a town that contains a yard, and routes can start from staging yards (more on this in the page on staging yards. To create a new route, you will need to provide the:
o route name
o a 2-4 character code for the route name
o branch line indicator (select if the route is a branch line)
o route’s home yard
o If the route is a looped route, that is it leaves a town, visits other towns, and returns to the originating town again in a loop, then you must check that indicator
o route’s connecting town (The connecting town is important for branch lines as they need to know the town shared with other routes where cars are to be exchanged. Thus a branch line needs only one connecting town. Just make sure you have other routes that use that town too!). For all other routes, the connecting town is any other town that shares with another route where you will have exchanging of cars between routes. If there is more than one yard in the connecting town, you will need to select the yard where cars are exchanged between the routes.
o towns that the route traverses. They must be entered in the order that the route runs. Don’t worry about trains that run up a route then back again, as this is an attribute of a train, not a route. If you elect to use the scheduler you will be asked for mile posts for all towns on each route.
You can also add other information about running trains on a route. This information will show up on the bottom of both the switchlist and schedule reports. You can add as many of each of these extra items as you deem needed. They include:
o Footnotes. This is general information and instructions that you want train crews to know about the route.
o Crossings and Junctions. Given a route mileage, indicate any special instructions needed for train crews at crossings and junctions.
o Speed Restrictions. Given a route mileage and mandated speed limit, indicate any special instructions needed for train crews.
o Permanent Slow Orders. Given a route mileage and speed, indicate any special instructions for train crews.
o Engine Restrictions. Special instructions for given engine sizes or capacities for the route, or part of the route.
Press the Create button to generate your route.
If you have a modular layout, and you have indicated so on the first tab, then a route for you is each modular configuration. This allows you to set up modular configurations prior to physically setting up the layout. You could call these routes by the location or show where you will set up.
For some examples of route configurations, see here.