Scott attended a clinic on Introduction to JMRI Operations Pro and wanted to pass along these notes to the division.
Why Operations?
- Rule 1 – It’s your railroad!
- Helps you design a better railroad!
- Operating Jobs
- Engineer
- Conductor
- Dispatcher
- Yardmaster
- Towerman
- Station Agent
- Hostler
- Clerk
- Operating schemes
- Switch List
- Train Manifest / Menu
- Car Cards
- Spread Sheet Switch lists,
- Commercial Programs
- JMRI Operations Pro
JMRI Operations PRO
- Where do you get it?
- www.jmri.org
- Requires Java
My operation philosophy?
- Not a fan of car cards
- Prefer crews to use reasonably close facsimiles of actual railroad documents.
- Don’t want this to become about paperwork.
- Want movements to simulate actual rail movements (i.e., I don’t want the crew to always swap
the three yellow tank cars for the three red tank cars, nor do I want Santa Fe boxcar 12389 to
always be switched to the warehouse siding every other operating session).
Configuration and Early Testing
Some early decisions:
- Descriptive verses AAR
- Direction of operation
- Etc.
Load the Demo Files and get a feel for how Operations Pro runs.
Where to you start?
- Location, location, location
- Spurs (sidings)
- Yards
- Interchanges
- Staging
- Cars (Decide on AAR verses common name)
- Routes (can’t have a train until you have a route)
- Trains
You are ready! Build your first train.
- Options
- Build Report
- Manifest
Useful links & References
- JMRI Users Group: https://groups.io/g/jmriusers
- For more information, please visit http://jmri.org
- Report an issue, submit a patch, or request an enhancement at https://github.com/JMR1/JMRI/issues
- Operations Special Interest Group: Periodic Magazine, Books Ops Sig https://www.opsig.org
Books
- A Compendium of Model Railroad Operations – Excellent resource a little pricy (Op Sig)
- 19 East, Copy Three – The Bible on Timetable and Train Order Operations (Op Sig)
- How to Operate Your Model Railroad – Bruce Chubb – Kalmbach – Out of Print, update coming – available on eBay
- Track Planning for Realistic Operation – Third Edition – Kalmbach – John Armstrong