operations
Operations
Operations is where Rail Ops turns your roster and layout into something you can actually run a session on. Locations and industries describe the railroad itself: the towns, tracks, and customers. Waybills describe the traffic moving over it.
The pieces
- Locations — the towns, yards, and staging areas on your layout. Each one has tracks.
- Tracks — the individual sidings, yard tracks, and staging tracks at a location. A track can be restricted to certain car types, or belong to a specific railroad.
- Industries — the customers at a location: a grain elevator, a team track, a distributor. Industries generate and receive traffic, and they're what waybills route cars to and from.
- Waybill cards — reusable shipment definitions. A card holds up to 4 cycles (an origin, a destination, a load state, and what's being hauled) and gets assigned to a car.
Where to start
1Set up for operations2Create waybills3Generate waybill cards
Add your locations, tracks, and industries.
Build waybill cards, add cycles, and assign them to cars.
Turn your waybill cards into printed cards for the layout.
That's enough to get waybills moving. Trains, routes, and operating sessions build on the same locations and industries, and get their own guides as those features settle.