There have been several questions on operations and small layouts posted over the last six months. After playing around with my camera this past weekend, I thought I might post how I do my operations with home-made car cards.
To start with, each of my cars has an assigned card. The card is made from a 3 by 5 note card printed off my computer. The card has the car’s information and a logo or picture to make it easy to match up. The card is small enough to fit in the box with the car when stored. The lower right corner has a small square of plastic stapled to it. The small plastic square (made from a transparency sheet) is where the cars destination is inserted. The destination is on a small folded piece of paper which is inserted in the square.
Any number of items can be put on the inserted destination. You can fold a paper insert so that it can flipped several times to make multiple moves. I use a small arrow —> to mean to flip the insert on arrival at the shown destination. The next side shows where the car goes from there. An “0” means pull the insert out at the destination. “Return to Home Road” usually shows up permanently printed on the card underneath. It could also be blank, meaning no particular destination is next. The top of the destination insert shows a code I use for the type of car, i.e., S for stock car, T for Tanker, BOX for box car, etc. Not exactly AAR designations, but simple enough to figure out. [:D]
The card pictured below is for one of Model Railroad’s Turtle Creek Central box cars. A typical destination insert lays below the card.
Below is an example of the card in use. This stock car was directed to its destination at Kilmihil’s stock yard by the destination slip, inserted lower right.
Inserts can help identify problems, make tracking eas
Hmmm, no comments yet. I was hoping this would be of use to some of the other small layout modelers here on the forum. Your thoughts, tips and input are welcome!
I have a fairly small layout and live in the Florida Keys so getting help down here is not going to happen. So I run solo. I like your system. It is similar to mine but simpler and easier. I use the Micromark carcard/waybill system. I tend to make it harder than it has to be I think, being new to it. I think I will try to tone it down and make it simpler. Less sime setting up and more time running trains. Thanks for the info.
Terry[8D]
Hi There;
The system I use is very simple & easy to use. I don’t use car numbers because so many are duplicates. When I get around to changing car numbers I will make new cards. I randomly select how many cars I want for a train & make it up. As can be seen in the photo each industry has a pocket to put cards in. The cards tell the crew where the car spotted there goes next. eg. An empty boxcar is sent to IR Knotty Sawmill when loaded it moves to factory & then to dock for unloading the card is then turned over & MT Return to Yard is displayed.
Tom
Hi There;
Thanx for the compliments & interest. First of all a confession–the real reason for not using car numbers— they are too *** small to see! To set up at square one I made a list of all my locations & what kind of cars they would use. For the sawmill I did not include loaded log cars . But I listed flat cars & boxcars for finished lumber. Then I figured out which industries would need finished lumber—Norm’s Boatworks–Sawdust Woodworking & the Dock for shipment off layout& made cards to suit. I did this for every industry.
I Have:
Norm’s Boatworks
Kell’s Cannery
Frieght House
Grist Mill & Feed SAles
Fruit Packer
Sawdust Woodworking
Logging Supply Co.(Factory
Bett’s Brewery
Stockyard
Every industry has a place to send & or recieve cars from somewhere else on the RR. Because my RR is on an Island that is why the dock is used to send & recieve off Island shipments. I also have a logging branch to feed the sawmill & a coal branch that ships coal in small ore cars to a dump to transfer coal to hopper cars for distrubition to industries that need it & also to the dock for off Island deatinations.
Sorry for being so long winded
Tom
dragenrider and tommyr, thanks for sharing your operating schemes. I’m still far from being ready to operate my first layout (I’m moving at a snail’s pace --I’m currently laying the cork roadbed and will work on elevations before laying the track back down) but I’ve already been thinking about how I’ll solo operate this small layout and reading other people’s approaches, especially when they share the nitty-gritty, is great food for thought (I’ve found some articles/books on operations to vague/general). I already have some rough ideas and mechanics sort of worked out --for car pockets, I’m creating them myself using my inkjet to print on cardstock (including a photo of the car which was an idea in MRR magazine), which, when folded will be just the right size to hold a standard business card. I have a template created already that lets me get four pockets from one sheet of cardstock --I’ve already created some of the pockets and I’m pretty happy with them. You can buy sheets of business cards that can printed on using an inkjet, so I will print routing/destination information on the both ends, front and back, to give me four cycles akin to the MicroMark waybills. Of course, that could all change as I think and learn more about operations.
I like you system, but on another note I am glad to see someone modeling MoPac. I am an old MoPac fan myself and always enjoy seeing someone keeping it alive.
I use a “wheel report” system. I use a stack of sheets set up in a two-dimensional grid, with types of cars on the Y axis and car destinations on the X axis. Where X and Y meet, there is a number–when spelled out, a wheel report card might say “2 boxcars to cannery, 1 refrigerator car to dairy, 2 gondolas to Western Pacific interchange” or any of several pre-made combinations that I shuffle before selection. I select the appropriate outbound cars from cars available in the yard, and head out from there–at each stop, if there are cars already in the siding I pick up a number of cars equal to the number of set-outs.
I currently run all operations southbound–only the north half of the layout is built! Once I get things finished, I will have both northbound and southbound wheel reports. If I’m feeling particularly fancy I write up a switch list of the actual cars selected, but it’s not necessary to do so.
One of my Christmas presents was Tony Koester’s book Realistic Model Railroad Operation (Kalmbach) - I got a lot of great ideas from reading that. Been thru it twice already, I pickup something new each time!
dragenrider - The MicroMark set is just a set of Carcards and waybills. It also comes with three wooden compartments for mounting. You fill in the carcards and waybills and run the RR what ever way you want. I am still working on getting all of my T/O’s hooked up to my stationary decoders and mounting Pushbuttons for control. Once I get that all done I can start “operating” in earnest. Like you I want to keep it simple at least until I know what the heck I am doing.
terry[8D]
I like it. Finally looked at this thread, timing is right. Some friends and I are in the initial stages of setting up operating sessions for a modular group we belong to. Since the layout can change, it makes more sense to do a “demand based” car forwarding system rather than the typical closed loop car cycle.
To jfallon: Since you are just getting started and modules can be arranged in different patterns, I suggest you start with a simple “destination” system which would use tommyr’s concept. Each car type in the yard would be assigned a specific siding. Each road engineer would take some cards from the top of the stack, make up the train based on car type required by each card and head out. If you do not have a yard, then select half of the industry sidings and assign destination cards to those cars.
Upon spotting a car, if a pick-up is necessary, then that car goes to the yard. If the siding has an open spot, then picking up one or more existing cars is optional. As cars are returned to the yard, you can double assign cars to the same industrial siding … just keep the destination cards separated in the deck.
I presently use Excel to plan to movement of 100 cars on my layout. But early on when I had a smaller layout, the destination system was a simple way to start.
