I’ve seen all this stuff about car card, and waybill stuff but is it still used on the prototype? I dont mean like for a big yard or anything i mean for locals and potentially small interchanges. Any help is appreciated![8D][Y]
Car cards and waybills represent the eqivalent of real waybills. By separating the car information (on a car card) from the routing/shipment information (the model waybill) it allows the paperwork to be reshuffled withou having to re-write everything all the time. On the real railroads they wrote out all the info everytime, both car and shipment on a waybill.
The real railroads didn’t use waybills to switch with, even the locals. The waybills were used to create lists, switch lists and the cars were switched with switch lists.
In the modern era waybills exist as “virtual” documents. There are waybills, but they are normally not hardcopy. Computers generate all the track lists, train lists, switch lists and work orders.
So unless its a very small shortline that has no computer capability virtually everything would be in the computer now.
Dave is correct…
I will add this as a fun fact for older operation with a 5 men crew…
The engineer and head brakeman also had a copy of the switch list…You see the head brakeman would make the needed cuts and man the industrial switch.The rear brakeman would open the gate,open the derail and the other work involved with the switchout of cars.
Ahh. Now I see, however, i still think I will use Car Cards and Waybills but im thinking about switch lists. Also, any trainmen who work on locals or in switching duties. I love to learn about some modern practices.![8D]
I did ask some time ago in a forum what the IHB is using their caboose for these days. An IHB conductor answered to do the paperwork while servicing the local industry (switching). I wondered and asked back if that stuff is not all in the computer and may be in a laptop he carries with him. The answer was flat no, all paper like it has been in the past.
That made me wonder because I did not consider the IHB such a small RR,
Clarification. The INFORMATION is in the computer. The switchmen still use a list (computer generated). I seriously doubt the IHB uses paper waybills since I know they do EDI.
It would also be interesting to know what time frame he considers “the past.” Over the last 30 years there have been huge changes in how railroad paperwork was generated, especially from a behind the scenes point of view. I rather doubt the IHB has hundreds of clerks banging out waybills on typewriters and handwriting switchlists on cardstock forms (which is how it was done 35+ years ago).
Dave, I think your interpretation is correct. I did not have a conversation how the information is managed in the company in general. Subject of the conversation was limited to the way how the information is kept on the train/locomotive/caboose etc.
I assumed also that operation would be paperless today. At least a laptop could be loaded with the information at the yard when the crew gets out or even more appropriate for today the laptop would pull the information wireless and receives up to date information while on route.
Having information on the central computers and print lists is not state of the art in computer business. There are very robust small hand held devices to be carried by the switchman in his pocket with all information he might need. That device could also get updates wireless. They might be smaller than the device carried by UPS couriers.
The term “the past” is correct in that sense that the switchman has a paper list “as in the past”. However, it is printed from the information in the computer.
Cool, its on the laptop. Now I have to walk 25 car lengths down the track and switch the cars which will entail me riding on the side of the car. How to I carry the laptop with me?
Using only a laptop, how do I keep track of what cars go in what track on a 50 car cut I’m switching while standing on a lead in the rain?
Sometimes there is a place for paper.
UPS guys deal in one package at a time and get to ride in the truck on a seat. The switchmen spend a lot of time handling multiple cars at a time and are walking out in the weather. Another thing that people forget is that while wireless coverage is getting better, its not universal and its designed to support cities and highways, not railroads.
Cell phones roam. Data services don’t roam. If you are subscribed to one provider and you leave their service area, you aren’t wireless anymore. And you don’t get coverage until you go back into that service’s coverage area. With a UPS truck serving a city, that’s not a problem. Its a fairly big problem on a railroad where a crew can cover 300 miles through some very desolate areas.
The railroad environment is one of the toughest out there. Its on par with the military environment. Heat cold, win
Dave, thank you for the explanations. I see the problems and all devices must be at least within MIL specs. That would raise the hardware cost considerable. The lack of full wireless coverage would limit the market and drive the single unit cost again (I did not see a key problem in that area for the IHB).
But most of all I miss an enthusiastic “yes, please. I would like to…”. There might be simply no “compelling reason to act” because the paper lists do their job and there is no adequate advantage in sight to balance the possible cost.
As you wrote, the time will come when other applications make their way into the engine cab and into the hand of the switchman. Electronic switch lists might find their way into the cabs and switchman hands together with that business justified applications.
Thank you again for taking the time to explain the real thing
We have started having laptops in the cab, using mCrew. No printers in the cabs, though, so we use paper lists as well.
Still need to have a hard copy of hazardous paperwork available at all times, so at times the laptop isn’t that much of a help.
It does help the dispatcher-clerk-crew caller, as we can get the stuff moved around in the computer for them.