Fictitious Industries

Guys,What are your thoughts on having industries labeled in a fictitious manner. Personally, I am not opposed to labeling buildings fictitiously with such names as 'Wisman Lumber Co', 'Honan Grain Supply, or 'Garrett Petroleum Products', since it seems impractical to find the actual names of most industries on a map. I guess I would prefer to switch a map with fictitious labels than a map with just a bunch of siding numbers.
Jim

Yard Duty, The National Freight Yard Simulation - http://groups.msn.com/YardDuty

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RE: Fictitious Industries, DaveHonan, Jan-17-03, 08:34 PM, (1) RE: Fictitious Industries, KingJPW, Jan-17-03, 08:49 PM, (2) RE: Fictitious Industries, pwm33, Jan-17-03, 10:10 PM, (3) RE: Fictitious Industries, KingJPW, Jan-17-03, 10:35 PM, (4) RE: Fictitious Industries, romanrails, Jan-18-03, 00:39 AM, (5) RE: Fictitious Industries, Davecr0, Jan-18-03, 12:16 PM, (6) RE: Fictitious Industries, pwm33, Jan-18-03, 01:00 PM, (7)

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Not a bad idea, actually. And of course, it's sparked yet another outlandish thought: any chance you can tie those names into the history of a car so that people can see where it was delievered? Maybe reference the map's unique siding numbers to the industry name.(Quickie question: Is there a limit to how many siding numbers can be assigned to a map? I haven't played with 1.1.7's design functions beyond laying track.)One caution I'll note is to take a careful look at the industries and try to name them appropriately... before receiving a schematic of the Port of Albany, I'd mistakenly set up the Goodyear warehouse as a scrap yard!As has been previously noted, maps such as Conrail's Zone Track Spot volumes are invaluable for naming industries. I have these maps covering 3/4 of Conrail's Albany Division: all of New England, New York City to Albany to Syracuse (Hudson/Chicago Lines), Syracuse to Montreal (Montreal Branch/Secondary), and Suffern to Buffalo (Southern Tier Line). The maps are generally from the vicinity in which the satellite photos were taken. Anyways, my whole point in saying all that is if you choose to do a map of an ex-CR line in these areas, let me know and I'll try to look up industry names for you.-Dave
QG 14.32, CSXT Selkirk Sub
http://www.davehonan.gcdranet.com/

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"...any chance you can tie those names into the history of a car so that people can see where it was delievered?"
No, but I could easily add the siding number, if it has one."...how many siding numbers can be assigned to a map?"
50, but I could increase the list, if necessary."...take a careful look at the industries and try to name them appropriately."
It would be a matter of good map design to name the industry based on it's appearance from space. For example, if it looks like a refinery, name it as such. Also, if the true name is known, using it would be preferable to a fictitious name.Jim

Yard Duty, The National Freight Yard Simulation - http://groups.msn.com/YardDuty

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I personally don't like fictitious names. If we don't know the actual name, I would rather have just an industry type label, like Warehouse or Refinery or some similar label.Paul Metzger
NS Team
Northern Region

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Well, you really wouldn't know if it was real or not, unless you lived in that city or something. The industry name helps for communication purposes and also makes it easier to remember what kind of cars go where.Jim

Yard Duty, The National Freight Yard Simulation - http://groups.msn.com/YardDuty

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How funny that you posted this just now. I have just finished uploading the new industry siding data to the Yahoo site for Richmond. Dave graciously supplied me with a map which actually listed the names for almost all the industries on that map. So we know the real name for those and they are available on Yahoo. I was tempted when I was numbering those industries to make a label with the names but didn't know how important that was to everyone else. I like the idea of having names, but would prefer the real names. Ficticious names don't bother me as long as we can change them should the real name become known to us. I can get the name of most of the industries on all the Forrestville and Krannert maps. Any name is going to help the believability of car routing and give a sense of real purpose to the make-up of trains. We have sidings now that are appropriate for individual shipments to each other. On that note, the one thing that I think would really help the game would be for the random train generator to only generate appropriate cars for each yard/destination and even distribute the cars according to the size of the city or yards. That way a yard like Avondale or Allentown will get a bigger share of an autogenerated train than say, Big Sandy. Geez, while I am wishing, it would be super spectacular if a player could adjust or tweak how he wanted his auto-generated train to create. Adjustments like which yards to use or which states or what percentage to send where. This of course can be done manually, but would be easier if automated. The auto-generate feature is actually very 'tweakable' as is aside from those two things. I know a lot of this is planned in future versions and has been mentioned before, but so many guys seem to be just auto-generating trains and not going back and removing inappropriate cars. I always delete cars when sorting at DeButts that are obviously not realistic for the destination (no autoracks going to coal mines). And I don't auto-generate. I will generate particular blocks of cars for certain destinations that I know will be appropriate. I think it would help the reality of things if everyone would take a look at their auto-generated trains.My $.02

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There is an Earles Cement Co in UK. Could always transpose it across the Atlantic BTW could anyone tell me in which areas UP, Conrail, BNSF etc actually operate? Would help when posting trains to teams. Thanks.

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In reality, UP and BNSF compete in most of the same markets in the Western US, while NS and CSX do the same in the Eastern US. For game purposes, UP is basically serving the SW and BNSF the NW. For now, NS is handling the East, except for Albany and Chinook (CSX) until more CSX maps are posted (which should be soon). Download the us_rr_map.pdf from the Yahoo group files http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yardduty/ to see where the real rr's run.Paul Metzger
NS Team
Northern Region

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