Documentation for newbies?

Hi folks,
I’ve been thinking for a while about my experience in SRS, from first joining until now. When I joined SRS, I had a decent idea of how to drive trains; one can easily enough learn that by just playing Run8 in single player, combined with various non-SRS-specific resources. However, I found it much harder to learn everything that’s unique to SRS, which I seem to have picked up mostly from a mix of ephemeral forum posts, random comments in-game, and just plain guessing and not getting told I did something wrong

I’ve written out, below, something which I think I would have found really useful. Hopefully everything I wrote is correct. Would it be helpful for this information to make its way into a pinned post, and perhaps extra information added to it as things come up, to serve as reference material, sort of an “SRS driver’s manual”?

The registry
The registry keeps track of everything that’s going on that involves yards. The only thing that doesn’t involve the registry is mainline trains that come from and go to locations outside the simulated area. The registry is divided into two main areas—the work list and the yard pages—plus a few others, such as schedules and timetables, which are mainly used for dispatching and are not very important for drivers. The work list and the yard pages are mostly independent, but both need to be consulted for many driving operations.

The work list
The work list shows what jobs are available to do. Hostling (adding and removing road locomotives on trains), humping, trimming, building trains for departure, and running locals are all included in the work list. Mainline trains are not shown on the work list. Some jobs can be done at any time while others can only be done while a dispatcher is on duty. Claim a job by putting your username in the Assigned column. When you finish the job, put the current real-world time (in Pacific time) in the Date/Time column. If you don’t finish the job, add a comment explaining what you did and remove your name from the Assigned column.

Sometimes a work list item will include instructions to update the registry (specifically the yard pages). If the work item doesn’t mention updating the registry but you do something where a registry yard-page update is appropriate, make the update anyway.

The yard pages
The yard pages keep a record of what the different yard tracks in a yard are being used for. The sequence of operations for manifest freight at a hump yard (Barstow or West Colton) is generally as follows, but always follow the instructions in a work list entry if they differ from below:

1. A mainline train destined for the yard arrives. In the case of large manifest yards, you will go into a receiving track. Check the yard page in the registry. If a track is Assigned for your train, go there; if not, choose any Open receiving track. Even if the yard switches are power-operated, they are generally unlocked so you must set your own route. Once stopped, for a human-driven train, the driver makes a registry entry on the appropriate track with status Arrived; for an AI-driven train, the dispatcher makes the same entry. The time in the registry entry is the in-game time.
   [li]An admin or yardmaster creates a work item for a hostler to remove the locomotives from the arrived train.
2. A hostler removes the locomotives. They should generally be taken to the fuel pads and refuelled, if space is available, otherwise stored nearby until they can be refuelled. Once locomotives are refuelled, they should be tagged with the name Ready at XX:YY, where XX:YY is the in-game time four hours in the future. Once that time has passed the locomotives can be moved from the fuel pads to storage. Remember that the work list entries are completed with real-world time even though the locomotives are tagged with in-game time.
3. An admin or yardmaster creates a work item for the train to be humped and changes the yard track status to Clear to Hump.
4. The hump crew humps the train into the bowl tracks. Once the receiving track is empty, the hump crew makes a registry entry changing the track status to Hump Complete (remember that the registry entry time is in-game time). At some point an admin or yardmaster will change the track status back to Open or Assigned to be reused by another arriving train. Registry entries are not used for the bowl tracks; they are shown in the yard pages of the registry only for reference.
5. An admin or yardmaster creates a work item for cars to be trimmed from the bowl into a departure track to form a new mainline train. Alternatively, cars for mainline destinations may be trimmed if needed during humping because a bowl track is completely full (“trim as needed”).
6. The trim crew moves the indicated cars from the bowl into a departure track. Sometimes a track will already be Assigned for the destination, in which case the cars should be coupled to the ones already in that track if space allows; otherwise, choose an Open departure track. The trim crew makes a registry entry setting the track status to Assigned, updating the length and weight, and selecting the destination tag (not the train tag!) for the cars. If the cars don’t fit on an already-assigned track, put as many as possible in the existing track, put the rest in an open track, and make two registry entries to update both tracks.
7. The trimming step may happen more than once, bringing multiple cuts of cars from the bowl to departure tracks to build a larger train.
8. An admin or yardmaster creates a work item for a hostler to add locomotives to the train.
9. A hostler brings locomotives from storage (which should already have been serviced and refuelled) and attaches them to the new train. The hostler sets the lead locomotive tag to the train tag, sets the other locomotive tags to None, and does not touch the car tags. The hostler completes the work list entry. The work list entry may instruct the hostler to make a registry entry changing the track status to Released.
10. If not already changed, an admin or yardmaster changes the track status to Released and may or may not create a work list item to depart the train from the yard.
11. A driver drives the train out of the yard. Just like arrivals, the yard switches must generally be moved by hand. The driver should check with the dispatcher that they are ready for the departure before moving their train, to avoid blocking a ladder that may be needed for other purposes. As the train leaves the yard, for a human-driven train, the driver makes a registry entry on the departure track with status Departed and completes the work item, if any (remembering that the work list item completion time is real-world time but the departure track registry entry is in-game time); for an AI-driven train, the dispatcher does the same paperwork. At some point an admin or yardmaster will change the track status back to Open to be reused by another departing train.

Things I haven’t included here because I don’t know!

• Anything about blocking, whether blocking locals or blocking mainline trains that have set-outs.
• Anything about intermodal yards.
• How does running a local, once built, work? At time of this writing, L-CAL0611 in Barstow local yard 3 is marked as Released. Does this mean the local is ready to go? I thought usually locals had work list items when they were ready to run. How does power for locals work? My understanding was that hostling jobs generally weren’t used for locals, rather the local crew would grab some power and attach it themselves. What power are they supposed to use? Is this information always included in the work list item?
• What are the Cancelled, Build, and Hold status codes used for?

Cheers, and see you this evening!