Page 28 - NMRA Roundhouse September October 2020

Using JMRI for Operations
Part 3 - Locations Brian Clark
Photos by Brian Clark
OPERATIONS ARTICLE
I n this part we will start x 50’ = 108’, round to 110’. Click
“Add Spur Track” to complete each spur.
What is ideal is to get industries that feed each other, such as Grain Silo > Flour Mill > Bak- ery > Distribution Warehouse > Staging. In that way cars will move around the layout.
Carry on in this vein for all your industries. If an industry has more than one track then just add 1 or 2 to the industry name. Leave all the other entries on the screen as they are. Save your work and you should then have the Location screen showing as follows - Photo 3.
Now it gets interesting.You will recall from part 2 that all cars were entered even though they were not on the layout. Remem- ber that JMRI Operations is not connected to your layout and therefore has no actual knowl- edge of what does and does not physically exist.The next step therefore is to create a virtual location.This is done in exactly the same way as above. For my own purposes I have two virtual locations (which are actually boxes), one for “cold” storage (stock unlikely to appear on the layout in the short term) and
one for “warm” storage (stock which may appear on the layout shortly).These are classed as yards, so amend the button to “Yard” when entering. If you keep your stock in trays then each can have a separate name, e.g.,Tray 1, Tray 2 and so on.This will help you know where all your stock is
building the database of locations, i.e. towns, indus- tries and yards.You may
find it helpful to mimic your own layout as you read all this so you can follow it through easier.
From the JMRI start screen, choose
Operations=>Locations (or Tools=>Operations=>Locations). Click “Add Location” at the
foot of the screen and the “Add Location” screen will be present- ed - Photo 1.
Enter the Location name, amend the direction boxes to North/ South or East/West depending on your layout direction. As
we are entering industries the “Spur” button should be high- lighted as above. Leave all the boxes for rolling stock ticked at this stage, we will amend later. Save Location.
Next, to enter the first indus- try click “Add Spur Track” and the appropriate window will be presented - Photo 2.
Enter the industry name and amend direction of use as before. The length should be calculated according to how many cars
each spur can accommodate. JMRI adds 4 feet to each car to allow for couplers at each end, so a 40’ car has a length of 44’,
a 50’ car 54’ and so on.There- fore a spur holding 2 x 40’ cars needs a length of 88’ which can be rounded up to 90’. 1x 40’ + 1x50’ = 98’, round up to 100’. 2
Photo 1
Photo 2
ROUNDHOUSE - September/October 2020 - 75th Anniversary Issue
28