Railworks America

I'm looking for an article from Model Railroader or Railroad Model Craftsman about creating authentic consists. It talked about railroads that were primary (physical) connections; secondary connections that connected to primary connections; and random non-connecting railroads. The author of the article used percentages from each type of connection to build accurate manifest consists.

Does anyone have a copy of this article?

Harry

I am unfamiliar with the article but have a lot of period data for several railroads and their train symbols.

Is there a specific RR, region or time period you're looking for? PM me if you would like.

Thanks BoostedFrige. I also have a lot of RR research, but this article was very helpful.

I follow Southern Pacific Notable Published Author and Railroad Modeler Anthony W. Thompson. I would need to dig to find the Names of the two producers of the Realistic Consist Formula. It can get quite complex for the hobbyist. But in a nutshell you can begin using the easiest part right now. Reporting Marks Formula 1/3 of a consist should be Home Road. ie: NS General Manifest Freight 1 out of every 3 cars would be NS reporting marks. 2/3 would be seamless service interchange cars that can be broken down by region. I would put Reporting Marks of Roads that interchange in the East North and South, 3-1 Ratio to a Western Road. This Formula gets complex when using the Historical ORERs of various years in history.
then using the AAR car Type. ( Boxcar=XM ) then breaking down Reporting Marks and Car Types based on the Numbers owned by various roads. I'm only giving small examples here. Example year 1953 Train on the NYC with 12 Gondolas of scrap steel in its consist. The ORER of that year like many years tells us that the PRR had the most Gondolas of any Road in the US, and NYC is in the top 5 i'm going to give 3 to NYC, 3 to PRR, and divide the remaining 6 between Rust Belt Reporting marks. I will look around to find the names of the two that devised the formula and see if the article is available online. Also you can dig through Tony's Articles here where he goes into incredible detail through the years for realistic operations. http://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/

Thanks Mikey, I follow Anthony's blog also and it is excellent. Thanks also for the breakdown of the Freight Consist Formula. It helped me remember my system pre-Train Sim. When I modeled the Southern Railway Mobile Division in HO scale, I created a chart based on (1) my home road, (2) primary connecting roads, and (3) distant railroads. Each of the three categories made up 1/3 of my active roster and freight car consists. It was effective and created a more realistic operating scenario. I also created a passenger train chart based on 2/3 home road and 1/3 primary connecting roads.

Harry

I am a bit late to this discussion having missed it. Wanting to create authentic looking consists, I read a magazine article many years ago which resulted in me purchasing (now free) a piece of software called Protrak which helps with the creation of authentic consists and operations in general for model railroads which I adapted to VScale. The software had been in development for 30+ years and I believe is the most advanced type of software available for operations with the goal of making your model railroad run like a real railroad. It is now offered for free as the developer unfortunately passed away a few years ago, a really nice guy who was keen to see how well his software could actually be adapted to run with our simulator which really replicates full size prototype and fictional railroads. This is a piece of software that a lot of clubs and larger private layouts utilized. All I can say, is the program is amazing and takes so much into consideration beyond your interchanges. It looks, at grades, power required for a grade, industry requirements, line restrictions such as rail weight, 220,000lbs for branchlines up to 315,000lb for mainline which affects the interchange of cars and use of locomotives on lighter rail. This program can easily replicate the 1980s prototype movements of my favorite railroad, CP's Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railroad on Vancouver Island. The best part is you can build a scenario based on what each operating session presents which presents some curve balls every now and then. I found this program so useful, I run it on it's own computer, an older 32bit touch screen tablet in this case which I plunk down in front of me while I am building a scenario so I am not switching between programs. Compiling a database can take a while but is quicker if you can compile a excel database like the below image with the basic information shown for the whole line you want to represent.

If anyone is interested in having a go at this software it can be downloaded here. https://protrak.org/wpt/

One quick note, it will not run on a 64bit Windows 10 computer now that Microsoft has disabled support for Microsoft Virtual Machine which originally allowed it to run. If you have dual boot system or a spare computer like myself, you are good to go otherwise don't waste your time. For those who want to try the software and run into trouble send me a PM and I will see what I can do to assist.

I go to train cams on you tube. I watch when they run by and note the power, number and types of stock in a consist. Most have archives of past movements.

Good suggestions - thanks.