I had the capability in my car card & waybill system to do something like Darnaby proposed in MR many years ago, to have a “waybill” that would give the passenger “demand” and you would add cars to meet that demand. But the more I thought about passenger service, the more I decided that it ran more or less on fixed consists. You can buy books that tell you what individual cars rode on which trains. So i decided there was less variation in passenger trains.
My new system would just use an “activity” card that would say something like “Set out this car at Birdsboro”, or “#6 pick up this car”.
[quote user=“wm3798”]
With the extra time I find myself having, I have undertaken the task of organizing my operations a little… well a LOT more…
After the recent influx of hopper cars, I sat down and worked out the different sources and destinations of coal traffic that can be reasonably represented on my layout, and set about the task of writing waybills to establish the flow of that traffic.
I set up a business card format on the computer that allows me to print out 4-cycle waybills, then typed up the different possible moves, I then copied and pasted those moves into the format, and started printing.
Each sheet nets 10 cards, so it didn’t take long to print out the 100 or so waybills I need.
So now, instead of having a string of empties that runs obliquely west, and loads that run eternally east, I have blocks of cars that are destined for Baltimore, some headed to the export pier at Port Covington, some to Bethlehem Steel at Sparrows Point. Other blocks will run northeast to Bethlehem Steel at Allentown. It turns coal ops into an elaborate game of chess…
Coal comes from the Thomas Sub, where my two on-line mines are modeled, plus from Elkins, which currently exists as staging. Another source is the Laurel Valley, my fictitious operator of the B&O Johnstown Branch from Rockwood, over which the prototype WM had trackage rights to the coal fields around Somerset, PA. Likewise, empties have been sorted to return to these destinations.
And like the real deal, some of the empties returning from Port Covington aren’t empty at all, but rather partially loaded with manganese ore imported from Venezuela and shipped to the hungry furnaces of Pittsburgh. (They are partially loaded since the ore reaches the weight capacity of the car before it fills the available
Absolutely. Following the Western Maryland’s coal traffic is an ops session unto itself! Coal came from every which way, and went every which way. No simple “Loads east, Empties west” for them!
In my case, a lot of passenger consists either pick up or drop cars at Tomikawa. While the car types and order might be the same every day, the exact car pulled out of passenger storage probably won’t be.
Depending on the time of day and day of the month, there may be anywhere from none to four ordinary coaches parked at Tomikawa. When it comes to train assignment, they are interchangeable parts.
A really great software package for Carcards/Waybills is available from Shenandoah Software at http://members.aol.com/Shenware/index.html Allows creating and printing 4-sided waybills and carcards in various formats.
I’ve used the software for (5) years creating approx 1000 waybills and am very pleased with the product. There are (2) programs available. MiTrains for inventory and carcards; and Waybills for waybills. Many extra features are built-in such as including 6000+ actual U.S. industries using 600+ commodities to choose from. Print programs allow easy printing and can include rolling stock photos.
There is a 30-day free download available for trial.
By switchlist I meant that I wouldn’t want to have to fill out where every car on the layout is going and such. (or on every train, anyway) With waybills and car cards all I have to do is flip the waybills after every session. That’s it. It spares me a lot of work.
With my old layout I used car cards, but on my new layout. I bought a computer program that picks the cars and builds trains and routes the cars to industrial tracks that they belong on. The computer does all (There is a manual over ride, in case I want it.) and prints a manifest or switch list for every train. Each siding has a list of car types that it should accept in the computer. Once the data for every town, route and train has been entered, the computer does the rest. I just print up a switch list for each train and go to work. The computer decides how long the car will stay at each industry and where it will go next. There are not just four sides to a card; the car can go to as many possible sidings as I have designated. The computer keeps track of where each car is and won’t overfill sidings, etc. I love the program. It is called Rail-Op.
Some years ago a company in South Bend sold pre-printed car cards etc. I bought two sets in mid 80’s, wish I could find more. They came pre-printed with car type (4x6) and attachable waybill(2x4). The cards etc were patterned after the Bruce Chubb design. MR showed them as a new product. Don’t know if they are still around.
If, by, “The pin system,” you’re referring to Ed Ravenscroft’s thumbtack routing system, the fact that I’m NOT just running trains in circles makes it totally unsuitable for my needs. Japanese freight cars are usually black, and I’ve never seen a single one with a multi-colored manhole cover on the roof.
Nor have I ever seen a thumbtack with the weight of lading or special operating instructions on it - things which are standard entries on my paper waybills.
If you like the totally unprototypical and unrealistic appearance of thumbtack routing markers, by all means use them. Just don’t be disappointed when I (and a bunch of other folks) don’t follow suite.
(My favorite thumbtack photo was a composite in MR, two young ladies in bib overalls and engineer caps standing on a boxcar roof holding a four foot diameter ‘thumbtack.’)
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with paper car cards and waybills)
I don’t mind the tab/tack on car system. I also don’t mind car cards/waybills.
One thing I don’t like about the four cycle waybills is the “rigidity” of the basic system. Generally, most people cycle the waybill every session, which generates lots of action, but doesn’t really simulate the customer’s interaction with the RR’s agent.
I modified my card car system to use demand or scenario cards, that give instructions for each customer: no work; pull car at spot A, spot inbound at A; pull spots A and B, no cars to spot; etc.
That’s not a limitation of the 4 move waybill, that’s just how the owner sets up his waybills and manages the process. If there is no work then don’t turn any of the waybills. If you want to pull spot A, then turn the waybill on spot A. If you want a car to go to spot A then put the spots on the waybill. It can be done with just the 4 move waybill.
You are correct, a demand/activity/scenario card can be very useful for adding activities or diverting a car from its normal route or destination. I use them a lot for hold for agent "empty’ cars. Empties going towards the steel mill all get a “hold for agent” card. When the industry “orders” a car for loading, the hold card is pulled and the regular empty move of the cycle is used.
And that is a joy most model railroaders will never understand or partake in because they don’t have the discipline to do this sort of thing. This is my first thought when someone says they have become “bored” with their trains, they aren’t operating them.
You’ve noticed that too? I started pondering on this issue last June at an operating session as I moved a car through the same circuit as the operating session before. I developed an 8-cycle waybill but it really has the same issues, just a longer cycle. I’ve put together some real modifications and written an article I hope to get published. The hard part is not assuming the customer’s demands are identical year to year or month to month.
That would seem to me that if you moved through an entire 4 sided waybill in one session then the waybill wasn’t set up right, the waybill just had through train moves, a single session simulated 3 or 4 days worth of scale time or the owner is serving WAAAAAY too many caffenated beverages. I have seen waybills where it might take 2 or 3 sessions just to make it through one side. A car is interchanged, the local carries it to the division point, the division point classifies it and puts it on a train to the branch junction, the branch junction local takes it to the industry and spots it. Easily 2 or 3 session on just one side of a waybill.
Cool post Lee. I looked at what to do for operations a while back, and since it’s jsut a small branch line, I decided on just having a switchlist. Dang, your layout handles a lot of coal!
My answer to that is dead simple. While I do have some four-cycle waybills, they are used only when a shipper can ‘capture’ an unloaded car from the same town for an outbound load. Once that outbound load has been delivered (usually to a track in staging) that waybill is removed from that car and put in the back of a stack of waybills for that type of car. It is replaced by a waybill from the front of the stack, which may involve a completely different routing and destination. When the first waybill migrates to the front of the stack, the car which delivered it is very unlikely to be in line to get it back. More likely it will be spotted somewhere, half way through the cycle of another waybill.
I can get away with this because I spent a railroadless tour in a combat zone generating waybills for use with the car cards of cars I didn’t yet own, for use on a railroad that would finally be built four decades later! (It’s still under construction.)
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with waybills created in 1972)
Actually the card & waybill system can be very flexible, it depends on how you actually use the system.
At our club layout, we have a spreadsheet that we print off when setting up trains for staging. In between the sessions, you remove the waybills from cars that are in staging and have completed the last move on the waybill. Not just rotate them back to move #1. Then the spreadsheet can say for example “assign 2 waybills for this type, 3 of this type, 1 of this type, 0 of this type etc.” and you take a number of waybills based on the spreadsheet list and assign them to appropriate cars in staging. This spreadsheet acts as our customer demand simulator. (In our case, we have set up pools of waybills, so the various “types” of waybills can vary from “boxcars for loading paper at XYZ Paper Mill” to “misc. through boxcars from the west” this allows the traffic for each industry and through traffic to be finely balanced)
It adds a little complexity to the staging activity between sessions, but does a really good job of simulating both the different types of traffic and the small variances in demand.
