Operations Manual

Please read the following information contained in this online manual. It should answer most of your questions.

Pacific & American Railroad - (P&A)

url: http://www.vparr.com
P&A email: hrd@vparr.com

P&A Management

Operations Director: Keith Hobson
Human Resources Director: Buddy Ramstetter
Operations Director Emeritus: Bob Artim
 

P&A's
operations manual v1.3
September 14th, 2004
compiled by Bob Artim & Rick Foss

CONTENTS

1. The Story behind Pacific & American Railroad
2. Requirements for membership
3. Downloading engines, rolling stock and activities
4. Regulations on driving trains in activities
5. Code sharing with other VR's
6. Reporting system
7. Engineer's ranks & salary
8. Contacting Headquarters

1. The story behind the Pacific & American Railroad

The Operations Director and founder of the Pacific & American Railroad is Bob Artim. In addition to being the Owner of North Eastern Railroad, Bob is also the 1st Honorary Lifetime Member and former Human Resources Director of Atlantic Coastal Railway and designer of the Great Northern Railway which are both now Fallen Flags of the VR world.

Bob obtained Microsoft Train Simulator in July of 2001. He immediately wrote an activity for the NEC route which was uploaded to Train-Sim.com and received 2,200 downloads in the first week. One year later the activity had been downloaded 3,560 times. This was just the first of many activities he created.

In October of 2001, while creating activities for the ACR, it occurred to him that it would be interesting to create shorter activities that spanned a route. Working with freight trains can be time consuming. By breaking a long activity into parts that run in sequence each activity can be kept shorter and more fun since each part of the activity can be completed in a reasonable amount of time. Today we are putting this theory to use at Pacific & American Railroad, but we have expanded the concept by running a series of activities across more than one route. 

Members of P&A will be expected to already be proficient running trains & completing tasks is an MSTS environment. They will be Elite engineers if you will. The focus will be on Real World Operations that are as real as we can make it in MSTS. The only fantasy will be limited to a few P&A livery engines. Everything else will come from the real world. This means that if you do not already know how to use Microsoft Train Simulator and how to deal with all its’ quirks then P&A is not for you. This will be a place for serious players, free from all the questions from newbies to MSTS.

2. Requirements for membership

Anyone can become a member if you are proficient with MSTS.  P&A engineers will have free access to P&A add-on engines, rolling stock, activities, and the non commercial routes we use. You will have to purchase the commercial routes and pay ware add-ons from 3D Trainstuff or Maple Leaf Tracks. If you are considering applying to become an engineer at P&A you need to read the Staff Guidelines. The Staff Guidelines contain more information and provides greater detail about what is expected of you as a Pacific & American engineer.

3. Downloading engines, rolling stock and activities

P&A's motive power includes some modern era engines and several sets of custom painted rolling stock. We use mostly photo realistic textures on our equipment. Downloads are available from the membership Roster page. Only logged in members will be able to download our equipment and activities. If your status is INACTIVE you will be unable to download any equipment or activities until you enter a new time slip or request a change in your status. 

All equipment contained in the commercial routes will be utilized as well as many add-ons that you may wish to purchase. All P&A equipment is thoroughly tested prior to being made available for download and includes an executable installer. All Work Orders are tested by a Feasibility Team provided by North Eastern Railroad. 

4. Regulations on driving trains in activities

Pacific & American's work orders (activities) are written with the real world in mind. It is assumed that you are operating your equipment in accordance with the way a real engineer would drive his train. This means that you should:

• Not break the speed limits

• Not fail to stop before passing a red light even though
                you have received permission to do so

• Not exceed restricted speeds in reverse

• Not use things like /timeacceleration

• Not edit an activity or eng file to complete a work order

• Not try to peel out in a locomotive

• Drive with common sense

• Operate your equipment in a manner that is consistent with the real world

5. Code sharing with other VR's

Pacific & American engineers are free to work for other VR’s as time permits. However, you will not be permitted to record work performed on other VR’s here at P&A. When you work here you get to log your hours here. When you work elsewhere you should log your hours there. Each VR has its’ own record keeping.

The only exception to this rule is when you run the default activities that come with the pay ware routes and have already reported the activities elsewhere. Many people like to keep records. In essence that is what the NETS program does, keeps records of how many times you ran a work order.

6. Reporting system

P&A requires all engineers to file a trip report after running an activity. This is accomplished by filling out the trip report form online through NETS. Trip report forms are automated and require you to input your ID#, the activity you ran, a start & finish time, total time, route and engine. To get your hours posted on the Engineer's Roster, advance in rank and to get paid, you must file your trip reports. To stay active you must post 2 trips a month.

NOTE: You may record any work order more than once. Many engineers have a favorite work order that they enjoy. It is permissable to record work orders each time that they are completed.

When reporting your work order, we would like you keep the virtual world in mind. Many work orders are sets that should be run in sequence to maintain continuity. You should also report them one at a time as they are completed. If you decide to run the third work order in a series then we expect you to refrain from reporting that time until you have completed and reported the first and second work order. In this way your location in our virtual world can always be determined.

Even though you have an assigned "Home" division you can still drive where ever you want and do what ever you want in our virtual world. Work Orders are not assigned to you. You choose them.

7. Engineer's ranks & salary

As a new engineer with P&A, you will start On Probation. The ranking is based on hours driven. In other words your experience as an engineer determines your rank. For promotions and salaries see the chart below:

8. Contacting Headquarters

All P&A staff can be contacted via the email addresses listed at the beginning of this document.

come join us at Pacific & American Railroad

any comments and/or ideas - email us

This is a Virtual Railroad. It's not real.
It's just for fun.
Only fun.
Let's have fun.