Has anyone ever used the RailOp Computer program for operations on their railroad? I’m thinking about getting this program once my road is operational. I was wondering what you thought about it? Thanks for the help everyone.
Dave
At one time (before my massive layout re-build project started), I was looking at the various car routing packages, and RailOP was at the top of the list. It seemed to be the best choice because it was quite comprehensive, and at the same time you didn’t have to buy another “balancer” program to get it to work right. It also has a fairly active users group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RailOp/
I requested and installed the limited-function demo. It worked fine, but I had a couple of questions so I decided to join the Yahoo! RailOP users group.
That’s where the spit hit the fan. The owner/moderator of the RailOp group apparently didn’t like my Yahoo user name, which is my nickname. He apparently also didn’t like the fact that I choose to keep my personal information in my Yahoo! profile marked as “private” to avoid spam/scams/etc.
I should also note that I belong to about a dozen other railroad-related Yahoo! groups, all with the same Yahoo! userid/profile, and it’s never been an issue. Actually, looking at the profiles in those groups, many have either nicknames for user names or profiles that are marked as private, if not both.
Anyway, he was rather nasty about the whole thing, even to the point that he accused me of “hiding behind” a phony e-mail address. I guess it didn’t dawn on him that he was sending his accusations to, and getting replies from, the very address he was claiming to be phony!
But it was water under the bridge. I sent him a very civil rebuttal that my e-mail address couldn’t possibly be phony since I received his accusations and replied to them from that very same address. I also told him, again in a very civil manner, that I was withdrawing my request to join his Yahoo! group.
Of course, he can run his Yahoo! group however he wants. Unfortunately, that Yahoo! group is apparently the best (only?) way to get user support for RailOP. So if I can’t join, I can’t get decent support. And i
The short answer is yes. It is OK. It is getting better each release. It forces one into “their” way of operating the trains. There is no easy way to create a nice operating scheme, save it, and then develop another. Without manipulating files outside the program it is impossible to have “two” operating schemes. If I was in the market today, I would not buy it.
Thread on topic.
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=57680
My long answer from a while back:
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=-1&TOPIC_ID=57680&REPLY_ID=644858#644858
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=-1&TOPIC_ID=57680&REPLY_ID=645447#645447
hey texas zepher what program would you pick now
jeff
I would have to study the others again, but that isn’t going to happen because I am writing my own. My main requirement is that it will be able to switch instantly between various operating paradigms by the selection of a couple radio buttons. It will also do metrics on each session for rating purposes (this is the really hard part).