SwitchWithIt is a freeware shipments based operations program. It costs nothing to try or use. Donations are encouraged to help pay for improvements. It is available on SourceForge.net. Just do a search for SwitchWithIt. SwitchWithIt uses shipments that you define to move empty rolling stock from where they are to where they need to be loaded. Once loaded, the car is routed to where it needs to be unloaded. This could involve 1 train or multiple trains, just like the real trains operate. When a train is generated, a switchlist is built that looks for cars that need to be moved. Trains supported by the program include: 1. Freight 2. Mixed (Freight and Passenger) 3. Unit 4. Passenger 5. Empty Transfer (Move empty cars between yards) With a few exceptions, trains can start and terminate at towns, yards (regular or staging), or industries. Regular yards (non-staging) have numerous classification sorting options. Tired of the same car always moving while some cars never move? With SwitchWithIt, if more than one car meets a shipment's requirement, the car that has been assigned the least number of shipments will be assigned the new shipment. Home road (if defined) will have priority over off-road cars. The program includes built in help including complete examples of the 4 main types of trains. Email support is available at SwitchWithIt@zoho.com There are too many features to list here so please go to SourceForge.net and search for SwitchWithIt. Try it and see if you like it. NOTE: You may receive a warning when trying to download the program or install the program on your computer. This is because I have not purchased a signature certificate. This is due to the prohibitive cost to obtain one. If I get enough donations, I will purchase a certificate. I have submitted the program to several anti-malware companies (Norton, Webroot, etc) and ask them to 'Whitelist' the program. If you have a problem downloading or installing the program, please request that your anti-malware company 'Whitelists' the program. SourceForge.net always scans files that are uploaded to its site. David Bond
SwitchWithIt Version 1.7.1 is now available for download on SourceForge.net. Just do a search on SourceForge for SwitchWithIt. This version adds a printer dialog to for switchlist reprints. The user can now select which printer to sent the switchlist. The program now support multiple screen sizes and better resizing of the window. A new Inventory function has been added. This is accessed from the Rolling Stock tab, Freight Car sub-tab. David Bond
Without getting into the details is there a way to import the inventory from, say MS Access, Excel or the Open Office versions? Thanks Gary
Sorry, No. I had never planned to add an inventory function because I wanted the program to be focused only on switchlists. Against my better judgement, I was convinced to add the inventory function by one of my beta testers. He had ask the JMRI operations guru to add inventory to that program and got a big NO. I wanted to be the nice guy so I said OK. The reason I decided not to add an import function was because of all the data fields that would be required to be imported, validated, and sorted to the appropriate data files. It would just take too much work for something that doesn't support switchlists. The program does support exporting the other way. All of the data entered can be exported in a CSV (comma separated variable) format. I have tested it with MS Excel and Libre Office. I have been working on the program non-stop for eleven months and now it is time to get back to model railroading. Thanks for asking the question. David
Thanks for the reply. I'm a bit confuse at this point, without inventory (rolling stock) how can a switch list be generated? Gary
I am defining inventory in this case to be information about a car that has nothing to do with its functionality on the model railroad. The information required to be entered (or default) for a piece of rolling stock is shown in the first screen capture. The data displayed is from one of my beta tester's layout. The information that can be saved in the Inventory is shown below. The top row of information is Read Only and is derived from the main rolling stock entry. The picture displayed is there just for illustration. If desired, a picture of the piece of rolling stock can be saved in the inventory. The grid on the right contains only default data since my beta tester has not supplied me with his latest data files.
