Other than the Operations Special Interest Group (OPSig) and its book “19 East, Copy Three,” what are your favorite places to learn about car forwarding, dispatching, and ways to apply prototype systems them to model railroading?
I’m also interested in some of the “invented” systems that may not be rooted in prototype practice but still provide a way to run trains in a realistic way.
I’m mostly interested in North American railroading but dabble in '70s UK trains and Swiss and Austrian narrow gauge.
I was lucky enough to become part of a round-robin operating group that operates several home layouts and one large club layout. Most of what I’ve learned about operations has come from hands-on experience rather than reading. I often find that the available operations how-to literature raises more questions than it answers. Fortunately, most of my questions raised by the text formats are answered during an actual ops session. At the last session I attended on the large club layout, I was assigned to a station operator position (relaying train orders and clearances from the dispatcher to the train crews), a job with which I had absolutely zero experience. The morning session was a little confusing at times as this position demanded a fairly steep learning curve. Fortunately, I started to get the hang of things during the afternoon session. The best part of operating with such a group is that there are various jobs at all skill levels and there are usually several “old hats” itching to coach you through any problems. Start with an easy job or two and move up as you gain experience. You’ll meet some great people, too!
I have created a tonnage rating chart (Excel spreadsheet) that is based on the actual tonnage ratings of the reapective locomotives for each of the grades on my railroad. For example, the maximum grade on my railroad is 2.65 percent. In order to hasul a 600 ton (gram) consist up the grade I would need two locomotives rated at over 200 grams leading and one DPU on the rear pushing or the equivelant tonnage ratings of more than 600 grams. It works perfectly and allows me to operate in a protypical manner.
It seems that operations can get quite complex fast. I too have a tough time finding a solid central place for intformation. Armstrong’s book is a great start but I’ve not found valuable web pages for easily explaining how car cards, etc. operate.
First each car needs a pocket card label with its reporting mark (B&O 236574)) This stays close to the car at all times. Either in the conductors possesion or in a box on the side of a layout, close to an indusrty siding.
Then you need a bunch of cards sized to fit in the pocket. The card say what type of car (60’ box) is desired, the next line says where it is going (Gen Electic docks) and town. This shoud be visible when in the pouch. The CAR is sorted into a train that goes toward its destination, or to it. When the car is spotted at the industry, the card goes in the box.
Between sessions, the card is changed to a new destination, preferably by rotating the card to provide new in formation. (60’ box, loaded with refrigerators to Sears Roebuck, Chicago) The car is picked up, and is moved toward Chicago. This could be off line staging.
I use a unique car card system developed by Jim Vail that uses a commodity based approach - the cards signify car type and specific move but not car numbers. Jim published an article on the system in the April 1991 RMC, entitled “A commodity-based card operation system”.
Route of LION keeps it simple. (Yeah, Right… need to buy a bridge in Brooklyn?)
LION dispatches over 400 trains a day from his 242nd Street Station, plus another 400 daily trains runing on the express tracks (under the control of the Lenox Avenue Tower, or the Nevins Street Tower which the LION does not need to concern himself with)
Train numbering of LION does not exactly match that of NYCT, but here is a copy of the train register for the number (1) Local trains (out of 242nd Street). The tower operator must mark in all arriving thrains and recort all departing trains in the log.
Once dispatched from 242nd street, the trains run automatically, making stops and observing automatic signals. Trains must be mannually advanced (via signal indications) from Botanic Garden to Dyckmann Street and into 242nd Street.
[8o|]Thanks for the explanation, Dave. I need to do some reasearch about car cards once I get the layout more complete. Running an operating session sounds so enjoyable and even asking family to participate is interesting and something I can do better than my brothers, hehe! [<:o)]
Car cards and waybills (CC&WB) is probably the most common method of car forwarding in model railroading. On the prototype there is a document called a “waybill” that is more or less the “ticket” for the car to move. It gives among other things the car the shipment is in, origin, destination, shipper, consignee, commodity, quantity and billing information for the shipment. It is for each unique loading of a car (or shipment).
At the dawn of time somebody figured out that if you separted the car information from the shipment information you could mix and match the two so you could match up a car with many different shipments or a shipment with many different cars and not have to rewrite anything. It would allow the paperwork to be “recycled” endlessly with minimum effort. The part with the car information became the “car card” and the part with the shipment info became the “waybill”.
What confuses many people is that it is the combination of the two that represents the real waybill.
The beauty of the system is its simplicity and its flexibility. While the basics are the same, you will find that most modelers have done some sort of customization about the format of the car cards or waybills or has some sort of unique rule about how they are used. There are also all different levels of detail and richness of information.
As you get closer to operating, feel free to pose questions. I have planned, built or used many different forms of car forwarding or track authority systems and there are lots of other people with similar or greater experience on the list.
One of the best things about CC&WB is that one can start simply and easily and add detail and challenge later. And it’s self-correcting, unlike most computer-based systems.
As others have mentioned, the OpSIG is a great (and inexpensive) investment in learning more about operations and gaining access to some local layouts that are open to hosting visitors.
I learn mine through my family of railroaders and employment… Having boots on the ground really open your eyes to railroading and how we can never really emulate it even in its simplest form…
CC/WB are nice and I have used them for years but,I worked with a simple switch list and all I was concern about was the cars number and where it went.
Now since I had a small ISL (I recently moved) I used a simple switch list examples:
This is how I run the operations on my layout, either alone, or with some friends. It´s a somewhat downsized system to make it conprehensible for “normal people”, but still has realism enough to make it “descent” for the more “hard-core” Model Railroaders…
