Operational software

[CP5170]

I have purchased ShipIt! and have had difficulty in setting it up. After reviewing their discussion group, I realize that I am not alone. I like it's premise of consignee orders to generate car movements but I am not sure it is worth the time and effort to set up.

I am interested in others' experience with other software programs e.g. Railops and how they compare to ShipIt!.

Thanks for your help........Ken

[ShaunCN]

I tried the Shipit program once. It took to long to fill al of your rolling stock and numbers.
It wasa big wast of time.

ShaunCN

[CBQ_Guy]

Ken,

I like Rail-Op, too. By the way, they have a very informative and helpful support group on Yahoo groups.com and I have been extremely with the help and support they give users and prospectives ones as well on that site.

Actually, I haven't decided yet if I will be using a computer program or car cards yet when I get the layout built. I have rheumatoid arthritis disease, with my hands being the worst, and I'm not looking forward to playing 52 card pickup, so the idea of having a single sheet of paper with all my work in each town (this is what RailOp gives you compared to Ship-IT (which locally we call S**t-Fit) which prints out scores of paperwork for an entire session, even if you only want to just run one train) is appealing.

The one thing I don't like about the computer based programs is all the apparent tweaking that has to be done to get them to operate they way YOU want them to for your layout. I am constantly reading about different ways one can "trick" a program into doing what you want, no matter which one it is. This assumes you can even get it to work, at all, the way you want.

Realize there are also levels of complexity or adherance to prototype methods among the various software programs - and you will pay a little or a lot depending on how much of it you want. I can't rate all the programs using this criteria, since I haven't USED all of them. But to give you some idea, and also names you can search on and read up on each to make up your own mind concerning how much complexity you want, and want to (or not) pay for, here are MY opinions on the ratings starting with the MOST prototypical (complicated?) and descending towards the least:

Pro-Track
Interchange
Ship-It
RailOp

I know there are some others but either can't recall the names or have NO experience or familiarity with them personally.

Finally, DAve Husman has a fine card based program he has put together using MS Access format. If I come down on the "using car cards" method of ops, Dave's will probably be the one I would want to go with.

Hope this helps.

[CP5170]

Paul, thank you for taking the time to respond and your comments are appreciated. I had ued a simple program before Ship-It but have spend too many hours trying to get it going. I will look into the others.

Again, thanks......Ken