Tutorial 3 - Unit Coal at Gallup NM
While Tutorial 1 - Switching at Rolla CO and Tutorial 2 - Local Work at Bowling Green KY covered "manifest" traffic, where trains carry a mix of cars for different origins and destinations, this tutorial covers the concept of unit trains, which carry a single type of traffic from origin to destination, without any need for switching at classification yards. It will also cover how and when to fuel locomotives, repair cars, and how Virtual Map IDs (vIDs) (also known as virtual IDs or vIDs) work.
Setup
The second tutorial will take place on the NM:Gallup 1252 map. As before, you will need to download the relevant map by selecting it in the Maps and Trains window and pressing the Download Map button - see Tutorial 1 if you need a refresher on this.
There is a single train for this tutorial. If you have not yet been registered, you will find it listed as a file beginning with Y1252 with Tutorial3. Alternatively, all tutorial trains can be downloaded by unregistered or registered players by selecting "Download Tutorial Trains" in the "Tutorial" menu on the toolbar.
An overview of Gallup
Gallup, NM is located on BNSF's Southern Transcon, their mainline between Chicago and Southern California, seeing around 100 trains a day. Gallup is located in western New Mexico, near the border with Arizona, with the yard serving as a base for local traffic in this remote corner of the state.
As with Bowling Green KY in Tutorial 2, Gallup NM is assigned multiple map identities in FYM: Gallup itself, Carbon Mine NM, the Lee Ranch Subdivision NM, and Zuni NM. Only Gallup NM is represented in game with playable track; the other three map identities are Virtual Map IDs (vIDs). Virtual maps are used in FYM to represent parts of the network that are not directly mapped for one of several reasons:
- No good aerial imagery exists from which an FYM map can be created - even in the modern day, many remote areas still only have poor resolution imagery
- The industries along a line are too spread out or few in number to make a good, interesting map from
- Virtual maps require less player time to operate; we only have a limited number of players to operate maps
A virtual ID is indicated in FYM by an additional set of light blue labels near to a map exit. At Gallup, the label for Carbon Mine is at the left end, below exits 1 and 2, while those for Zuni and the Lee Ranch Subdivision are at the right end, above exits 3 and 4. The labels indicate the name of the virtual ID, the phrase "Local Delivery" to indicate that they refer to a virtual ID where cars must be sent off the map for delivery, and either one or both of "Load" and "Unload". These latter two labels can be clicked on to bring up the list of cars handled by the virtual ID, just like a normal siding.
