Model Railroad Consist

How do I sync my data between Windows and my phone or tablet?

From the Windows app: Go to the Backup & Restore tab in Settings. If you have an active OneDrive account and also have the OneDrive app installed on your phone, select the Upload to OneDrive option to upload the database to OneDrive. This will upload to a folder called /Apps/Model Railroad Consist. If you use a different cloud storage provider such as Dropbox or Google Drive, select the Save To Local option to save a copy of your database to the shared folder on your Windows device.

From your mobile device, on the Settings page tap Restore Database File and select the file you saved. If you're using OneDrive, you can either save to the /Apps/Model Railroad Consist folder, or to a folder of your choosing. Make note of the save location.

From your mobile device: From Settings, select the Backup Database File option to save the database to a cloud storage location. Then from the Windows app, go to the Backup & Restore tab in Settings. If you saved to the /Apps/Model Railroad Consist folder on OneDrive, select the Restore From OneDrive option. Otherwise, select the Restore From Local option to browse to your synced database file.

Database files can grow large depending on how many photos you save, which can affect syncing time.

In the Windows app, what's the difference between OneDrive Backup/Restore and Local Save/Open?

OneDrive backup and restore uses the OneDrive sync service to manage your database file. What this means is the file is directly uploaded to and downloaded from OneDrive in the cloud, which can be useful if you use the online-only file option of OneDrive so that your database is only stored online and not on your Windows device.

Local save and open, on the other hand, saves your file to a folder of your choosing on your Windows device. This can be a synced storage folder such as Dropbox or Google Drive, or even OneDrive if you don't wish to save to the default location the sync service uses.

What's the difference between the .db file extension and the .consist file extension?

Convenience. .db is the internal file format used by Consist. The .consist file extension is simply a visual indicator that the file can be opened by Consist. When backing up, the choice is yours.

What's the difference between Collections and Rosters?

Collections and rosters are similar in that both are a grouping of items that share a common denominator. However, collections are a higher-level grouping that only allows one collection per item. For instance, you might place all of your Amtrak passenger cars in a collection. Rosters, on the other hand, are more loosely defined, and items can be assigned to multiple rosters. For instance, you might have a roster composed of items whose prototypes were manufacturered prior to 1900 (e.g., "vintage"). You might also have a roster of just vintage passenger cars, where there may be some overlap with the previous roster.

How you comprise your collections and rosters is completely up to you, and each offers differing views of subsets of your inventory.