Spotting a car or cars

[gtrtroger]

I’m scenario writing and I had a real world question.... A warehouse on a siding has 5 doors so these are identified as spots 1-5. What if it’s a siding without any buildings, like say, a 5 car team track, or a grain silo spur that can hold up to 20 cars. Is these also subdivided into spots?

[BNSFdude]

If the industry to be spotted doesn't have specific spots, they just go into the track wherever. They typically have their own car mover of some sort to move them to the loading/unloading position.

[wacampbell]

The train crew would use their discretion when dropping cars at a team track. It would be based on the content of the car and what unload facilities were at the team track location.

But for customer spurs, they would coordinate with the customer - actually walk into the building and ask where they wanted it. Sometimes they work that customer enough to just know where he wants it or sometimes there are instructions on the waybill or switchlist. Otherwise they check. There was usually friendly interaction between the shippers and railcrews. And in the 'good old days' that often included the crew receiving a case of beer or some JD at christmas time.

In a scenario you could easily simulate this interaction with some dialog boxes etc. Maybe even script and randomize the response so you have to drop the car at a different location each time you run the scenario.

[GreatNortherner]

...In a scenario you could easily simulate this interaction with some dialog boxes etc. Maybe even script and randomize the response so you have to drop the car at a different location each time you run the scenario.

That is a great idea, Wayne! I can imagine the following setup might work for this so that there's also corresponding data on the F1 task list:
1) let's assume the siding has three markers or stopping points (one for each spot / loading bay)
2) the scenario gets three "drop off" instructions, one for each of the three markers
3) each of the drop-off instruction includes the same rail vehicle number(s) and all are set to hidden
4) the script rolls a random number and makes one of the three hidden instructions visible via SysCall( "ScenarioManager:UnhideDriverInstruction", [# of instruction] )

This won't lead to a "successful" outcome of the scenario (no green check mark at the end) because there would still be two incomplete instructions (the two remaining hidden ones). So it definitely won't work with a Career type scenario, but in a standard type scenario it ought to be fine -- if the player is willing to overlook the "unsuccessful" outcome.

[gtrtroger]

Great ideas and makes me ponder more questions. I’ve also been looking at “Switch List Generator v 1.1 Instructions By MIchael Rosenberg”. I think I can get this to work. I’m setting something up for “ACR Adriana County by Mark Howarth (Handbrake)” using this method and a Freeroam scenario. Though, it may be necessary to modify the existing track destination markers to identify individual car spot locations.....

[harryadkins]

I use Switch List Generator and have made some mods to streamline it. Will be glad to share ideas.

Harry