CMTM/Planning Tasks
Car Movement and Traffic Management System (CMTM)
Planning Tasks
There are several planning tasks that are done independent of Trainz. The first is to create a method or system to identify industries and portals so that locations to which cars will be moved can be quickly and intuitively found by the Driver. Keep in mind that some industries have multiple tracks and multiple spots on those tracks at which a freight car might be placed.
Your method will depend on the size of your route. CMTM has been adapted to a one baseboard route with two thru traffic portals, one interchange portal and 10 industries. On a route this small, only the industry names were used to identify car destinations.
CMTM has also been adapted to the Huron Central, with 20 towns (stations), three thru traffic portals, two interchange portals, 65 industries and nearly 100 different places to deliver a freight car. On this route, destinations were identified by a letter-number code and the industry name with a spot location letter if needed. This route has a central station (Huron) as the division point. All other stations are noted E(east), W(west), or N(north) from Huron followed by a number that denotes the order from Huron. Tracy is the 4th station east of Huron thus, the designator for that station is E4. This notation makes it easy to get the cars blocked and in proper order for efficient delivery when making up trains. Example: a car of pig iron destined for Quinn Foundry in Tracy will have a destination of E4 Quinn Foundry A1 (pig iron and scrap metal go on track A, spot 1, coke, sand and other foundry supplies go to track A, spot2, finished goods are shipped from track B).
There is no right or wrong way to identify your destinations, just do what works for you. If you intend to share your route with others, make sure it is easy to understand.
