The
railroad will utilize computer generated waybills for traffic movement.
Waybills are created by matching "shippers orders" with
matching
car selections. The software to be used is currently under
development by myself, and is based on an earlier DOS based program I
wrote back in the early 90's. That system was used with
reasonable success on the previous incarnation of the Louisiana
Central. The program is about 75% complete, with the only
timetable being to reach completion by the time trains are ready to
roll.
This new Windows based software will hopefully overcome a few
limitations of the original program, as well as significantly increase
the flexibility and ease-of-use of the program.
Essentially the program utilizes pre-built "shippers" templates (the
orders). Each template contains the name and location of the
shipper, the commodity to be shipped, the frequency and volume (number
of cars) of the shipments, and the required (and acceptable) car
type(s). The template also contains information for the
shipment
destination and eventual return of the car to whence it came.
A
total of four moves can be set up, which will handle all the various
scenarios of car movement on my railroad.
There are also templates for shipments that originate off line for
delivery to local industries, and templates that will generate bridge
traffic across the railroad.
The program will select an appropriate car to match the template from a
database of available cars using an "ordered" search.
Once
the match is made, the completed waybill is generated. Search
criteria include:
- Car must match shippers criteria (type, size and
configuration).
- The location of the available car, with priority being a
home road car, otherwise a car from the nearest interchange.
- "First in/first out: if more than one suitable
car is
found, then the one that has the longest time since last use will be
selected.
Naturally, the car selection criteria for cars originating off line is
a bit different:
- Car must match shippers criteria (type, size and
configuration).
- The program will attempt to find a car from the railroad
serving the shipper.
- If none is found, then it will search for a car from a
railroad in the same region of the country as the shipper.
- If all else fails, it will pick any available off line car.
- "First in/first out: if more than one suitable
car is found, then the
one that has the longest time since last use will be selected.
The waybills are printed at the beginning of each session.
Each
waybill will show the pickup point of the car, and the destination.
If the waybill has several destinations (most do), only the
first
destination shows. Successive operating sessions will again
see
the waybill generated, each time with its next movement (destination)
shown. The waybill is retired after a car reaches the final
destination listed on the template (its Home destination).
This
can be on the system, or at an interchange point (staging) as
appropriate.
The program has the ability to generate a one-time waybill manually,
with either manual or automatic car selection. The program
also
keeps track of whether a car is in service or "bad ordered", in which
case the car won't be selected for a waybill until it is returned to
service.
I'm currently working on the last (and most difficult) part of the
program; the code required to have waybills automatically generated
based on the criteria contained in all the templates. The
goal is
to simply walk up to the computer and tell it to generate the waybills
required for that days session. Someday when I get the thing
completed, debugged and working in a reasonable manner, I may share
more details on the makeup, including screen shots. I may
eventually expand the program to include switch list generation, though
that isn't a high priority. "Why don't you just use one of
the
commercial car-forwarding programs available?", you ask. I
dunno..... I guess because I enjoy trying to "roll my own".
