Can someone explain what a presistant ro

It remains in the routing table regardless of how many times a computer is rebooted

route add manipulates network routing tables.

ROUTE [-f] [-p] [command [destination]
[MASK netmask] [gateway] [METRIC metric] [IF interface]

-f Clears the routing tables of all gateway entries. If this is used in conjunction with one of the commands, the tables are cleared prior to running the command.
-p When used with the ADD command, makes a route persistent across boots of the system. By default, routes are not preserved when the system is restarted. Ignored for all other commands,which always affect the appropriate persistent routes. This option is not supported in Windows 95.
command One of these:PRINT Prints a route
ADD Adds a route
DELETE Deletes a route
CHANGE Modifies an existing route
destination Specifies the host
MASK Specifies that the next parameter is the 'netmask' value.
netmask Specifies a subnet mask value for this route entry.
If not specified, it defaults to 255.255.255.255.
gateway Specifies gateway.
interface the interface number for the specified route.
METRIC specifies the metric, ie. cost forthe destination.

Examples:

> route PRINT
> route ADD 157.0.0.0 MASK 255.0.0.0 157.55.80.1 METRIC 3 IF 2
destination^ ^mask ^gateway metric^ ^ Interface^
If IF is not given, it tries to find the best interface for a given gateway.

I had used a persistant route to enable the local users to access resources (printer) in another location that is in another city. The default gateway (which is an internet connection) was not able to determine where the other location was without me telling it where to look.

Today we no longer use a persistant route except in special circumstances, and use the Internet router to handle all of our persistant routes.

route /?
This is the command which will give you all the information that you may need.