I'm working on some articles based on dispatchers sheets. It would be much easier for the reader to follow the plot if they could have a visual of the train movements. Is there a computer program out there a senior could use to create such charts?

When you said "string lining" I thought you were referring to the phenomena that happens to a train when it has too much tonnage on the rear for very light cars (like intermodal) up front going into a sharp curve. Placement-in-train rules are in-part written from the real world experience of doing things like that. That happened in Fostoria, OH earlier this year on the connection from the C&O line to Columbus to the B&O Chicago main towards Willard, right after Harrison took over and started implementing massively long trains. It also happened about 40 years ago in Akron, which, I'm guessing, might have led to the original rule about trailing tonnage behind intermodal cars.

You can draw stringlines in Excel using the xy scatterplot chart type. You need your data in columns of distance and time. We do it all the time.

They had one on the NE transfer about 10-15 years ago as well. That time it was autoracks.