Paperwork/ whats really in the car!

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hello, i am currently, thinking about getting into some of the detailed paperwork such as waybills, frieight lists, and ive never had any running, or operating sessions yet, but my biggest question, is if you have a way bill set to send a loaded gondola to a scrap yard, then schedule a local empty frieght run to pick it up from the scrap yard, which suppositivley unloaded all of the scrap that day or night, the cars dont really empty or unload, and i know that model railroading is basically one particular day repeated over and over several times, but to an extent, so heres my question, what do you do when you run a running session and suppositivley have a car being emptyed out, or cleaned out when theres always a permanent load being shown or in the car, box cars are easy because you can simply say yeah its loaded or no it has electronics in it.

okay, hope to hear from pplz soon,

Tim

2

I’d suggest using removable loads that can be taken out of the gondola or hopper at the destination, so that it returns ‘unloaded’. You’d put the same removable loads back in the car at their originating business.

Regards

Ed

3

Model ‘removable’ loads. When I get my layout up and running, I’m going to incur basicaly the same problem as you but with a coal mine. Prototypically, most loads won’t get emptied the same day they’re delivered, so the problem is easy to deal with by emptying the car after the session. In your scenario of an open gondola with a scrap load, they may start working on unloading it asap, but it’ll still take them a while, and by that time, they probably won’t have called the RR back to schedule the pickup of the empty car.

The way I solve this problem is, after you’ve delivered the car, at the end of the operating session, simply pick the car up by hand, remove the load, and replace the car on the layout. For instance, with scrap metal, one easy way to model it is with crumpled bits of aluminum foil, browned in the oven or painted to resemble scrap metal. When your car is loaded, dump a handful of the aluminum foil pieces in the car and set it on your layout wherever it’s staged or loaded first. When the car is delivered to it’s unloading destination, dump out the foil and replace the car on the layout.

Some model manufacturers even offer one piece ‘open car loads’ to go with their hoppers and gondolas. That way, you simply slide the load in place, deliver the car, and pull out the load when the car is supposed to be picked up empty. For instance, Walther’s offers coal, aggregate, and container loads for their hoppers and gondola’s. Alot easier than dealing with dumping out an whole carful of loose coal, ballast, gravel, scrap metal, etc each time you need to empty the car, not to mention the mess loose loads would make if they derailed and toppled the car.

Also, check out the article in the Feb MRR (p.40) regarding the waybills and car cards for starting your operations paperwork. MicroMark sells the preprinted waybills, car cards, locomotive cards, and bad order slips, plus the card boxes for a very reasonable price if you don’t want to bother with printing you

4

Just model a lot of stackers and pigs. They never let ya know what is inside. C&NW waybills used to say plan 75 on em I think. Problem solved

5

It doesn’t have to be the same day repeated over and over again, unless you want it to be. You can choose how to model the passage of time and use it to add variety to your operation, so I’m going to use your comment to take off on this topic which doesn’t get discussed very much. Hopefully I won’t completely hijack this thread…

On several of the layouts I operate on, the days progress as we have more sessions. We use fast time clocks (usually set at a 3:1 ratio, so a full modeled day takes real eight hours of operating), so we know when a day has ended. We track the days on a calendar, and on some of these layouts there are significant variations in how things are run, depending on what day of the week it is on the layout. SOme of the thigns that can be set up based on the modeled day of the week are:

  • A milk train might run every day but Sunday, with another train handling the milk traffic in addition to its own regular traffic that day.

  • A passenger train might have more sleepers on Friday and Sunday, and would have a longer consist on days before and after a major holiday or holiday weekend. Perhaps a passenger train carries an express reefer of fresh fish on Thursday nights.

  • A local might only run on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

  • Special traffic might be seasonal, such as shipping loads of Christmas trees in or out between Thanskgiving and New Year.

One layout I run on starts its sessions at midnight on November 1, 1959 and continues to advance the calendar until it gets to March 1, 1960. This can take many months or several years of operating sessions. Once he ends the session for March 1, 1960, he sets the clocks and calendars back to midnight on November 1, 1959.

In this case,

6

An easy way to remove loads from gondolas, open hoppers , flatcars and bulkhead flatcars without removing the car from the track is to hide a piece of iron or a magnetstrip just under the surface of the load and use a magnet on a stick to pull the load out of the car. Of course this only works if the load is not to tight in the car. It works for me.