Easy to see and keep up with, that is. For about a year now I’ve been using a photo on my car cards for easy identification of rolling stock. Craig, at Dallas Model Works, made this available on his website for anyone to use. Yes it took a little while to photograph my rolling stock but the guys in our modular club that come here once a month (sometimes more) to have a meeting and participate in operations on my home layout think it was worth it. I also made up a light weight cardboard 3 shelf unit to aid the ‘yardmaster/engineer’ in making up outgoing trains. The top shelf is for cars coming in from the interchange, the second for the west bound train and the bottom for the eastbound. It is clipped to the backdrop right over the yard area for convenience, then taken down after the session.
The cards, with their waybills, are then placed in a holder like this and given to the appropriate engineer and his conductor. The conductor has the job of keeping up with the car cards/way bills and uncoupling the cars. The engineer gets to drive the train. Guess which job most of the guys want!
The waybills are the folded type containing 4 different destinations for easy rotation.
The conductors like the cards with photos, it makes their job a little easier.
There is a letter/number on each waybill showing what stop a particular ‘industry’ is on their route. Often when the train is picking up a car as well as setting one out at an industry, the letter/number tells the crew if that car goes to an industry that is ahead of them on their route, or if they’ve already passed it and the car is to be taken to the yard. This is a big help to crews that are not that familiar with my layout. On my layout, in an operating session, the
I must admit, before going to the card car/waybill system I didn’t think too much about running ops, but now that I’ve been doing it for about a year the railroad seems to have more purpose other than simply running trains in a loop.
But, that’s fun too! [:)]
If you don’t want to get fancy with photos on the cards you can simply down load the car card from Craigs website and leave the photo area blank, then simply write a description of the car. I’ve done that a couple of times. The best thing, to me, about the car car/waybill system is the layout is always ready for operations simply by flipping the waybills over.
That was an excellent tutorial/primer Jarrell ! Very sequenced, step by step, pic by pic.>P>This is the system the guys in our operations round robin group uses.
It would be great to see similar posts from folks using other systems such as time/schedule, fast clock, etc.
Even though I’ve been using car card for several sessions, now, your post really down/broke it down for me. It’s hard to soak up everything during busy sessions when your a new operator.
I know the feeling. The first couple of times I used the system I was pretty lost! Then it dawned on my thick head was a simple system it was… [:)] I too would like to see posts on things like working with fast clocks and time/schedules. I’ve not done that yet either.
Lee, being in HO I had not thought of the advantage in N scale. You’re right, it would be a BIG help there. When I started the project I did only the cars that I would use in an operating session. My yard has three tracks, the inbound plus two more. They’ll hold about 8 40 footers each and I run two trains, the east and the westbound, so that’s about 16 cars. Then I had the cars that were sitting on industrial sidings and such which is around 12 to 15 more. It varies. So I started by making car cards for about 30 to 35 cars and doing the rest when I was in the mood. But, you’re right… 400 cars is a LOT!!
Jarrell, it is a great idea for a layout with a smaller inventory of rolling stock. I can’t use it myself because with a layout my size, and with (according to my computer) around 1700 cars on the layout or in staging areas, the photo part would be mind boggling. Also my operating plan is more complex (has evolved over several years), but your plan is great for your layout. When we quit planning for the future, when we quit dreaming about what might be in the future, then we lose the modeling desire. Keep it up.
Would you use a waybill system if its just one person? I’m the only one that moves cars around. I don’t know if it would be worth it thou, just for myself.
I’ve thought about it a few times, but I wouldn’t even know where to start.
Most time I operate my layout by myself. I use the 4-position waybills. One session goes over weeks.
Start with a few cars (with car cards and waybills) and one local to a few industries. Läter add more industries from your layout, more cars, … and trains.
Bob, I think you’re right and I should have stated in my post that if a person has a huge number of cars, going the photo route might be a little bit expensive to say the least… , unless they just did the ones they use in ops. Still, on a large layout like yours, that might not be best.
Most definitely, Robby. I often do this by myself. As I mentioned earlier, one of the best things about the waybill method is the layout is always ready to run another session, if only by yourself. All you do, when you finish a session, with or without other participants, is go around the layout to where you just dropped off cars and flip the 4 sided waybill to the next page which shows a different destination. You also get to go back to your yard and, using the waybills from the train you just brought in, be the yardmaster/engineer and make up the outgoing train. It’s always changing, different industries will get different cars… or maybe no car at all, or it may get several cars at one time. Got other cars you want to run that aren’t on the layout? Just change them out, with THEIR accompanying carcard and waybill, for cars you have currently on the layout and you’re good to go. When you take a car OFF the layout you take its waybill/carcard OFF with it.
It can be a little confusing at first but it’s really very simple and it makes your railroad have a purpose and makes the entire thing into a big… hmmmm… board game of sorts.
Just do a google search on car cards and waybills and you’ll find a tutorial or two on it.
One of the things I learned about ‘Operations’ early on was that if a layout, any layout whether large or small, is over crowded with cars, both in the yard and sitting on industry spur/sidings etc., it is very hard and sometimes frustrating to do a successful operating session. The modular club I’m in recently visited a layout of a non-member that was interested in setting up his layout for operations. I’d call his layout a mid-size layout with numerous industrial spurs. The first thing we noticed was EVERY spur was nearly loaded to capacity with cars. His yard size permitted him to run trains of about a dozen cars. In order to drop off those 12 cars it would have taken him days… [:)] By the time he pulled out cars from sidings, found somewhere on the tracks to shove them, dropped off car(s) from his train and then tried to get the cars that HAD been sitting there back in the spur, the sun would’ve been coming up. Our members have come to the conclusion that you should have cars at about half your industries for pickup. Don’t be concerned that the other half of your industries have nothing sitting at them, they soon will…, the rotating waybill system will see to that. Also, if your yard is packed full of cars it makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for you to make up an outgoing train. On my midsized layout I have a yard with 3 tracks plus a run around track. Each track will hold about eight 40 foot cars. At any one time there are only two trains sitting there ready to go. That leaves a couple of tracks open for the yardmaster/engineer to use for making up more trains when those two have made their setouts/pickups. If those extra tracks are jammed with cars everything comes to a standstill.
So, for me at least, a good rule of thumb is to have cars waiting to be picked up on about half your industries OR what can be handled in your yard when the train returns. Every layout is a little di
I’m the only one who runs my layout since none of my friends outside of work are into trains and don’t even come by since they don’t want to get bored. Since adding operations to my layout, it has been a blast to operate trains. I feel like everything is running with a purpose, and each train is different since the cars are put in order according to their waybills.
Not too long ago, I created a webpage on how I developed the operations on my layout.
Trust me. Give operations a try. You can get as elaborate or as simple as you want. You’ll have fun! [tup]
Wow! You put some work into that webpage, Kevin, including passenger service also. That’s a part of ops I haven’t gotten into so I’m going to have to read that section closely.
