I have a number of questions regarding specific points about car card operation setup. To make things easy I am going to write one post per question. My layout is very small and what I am modeling is not. The Norfolk Portsmouth Belt Line in 1965 - 1975 served 8 railroads as a bridge line from one to the other and served a large number of very large industries. So my layout is small with small short yards that will have to also double as interchanges. Link to track plan
Question 1:
After reading about car card operations both in publications and in this forum I am confused about where/how cars should be routed when empty, “return light”. Would this be to the interchange yard for the connecting railroad? Or would it be to the connecting railroad.
I hope I phased this correctly. I do not want to start off on the wrong foot.
Specifically, the car card is imprinted, “Return to JNR, Tomikawa,” or, “Return to TTT, Tomikawa.” When there is a waybill in the pocket, it covers that imprint and routing is determined by the waybill. Empty cars are delivered to the interchange yard (Tomikawa) and picked up by the owning railroad. Once the car is on home rails, a new waybill is inserted in the card, sending it empty in a specific direction to a specific destination for loading. Many of those are ‘phantom’ destinations, existing only as reasons to route a car to hidden staging.
My other interchanges are both narrow(er) gauge, so their cars never leave home rails.
to the home location of the pool to which they are assigned
to where the applicable movement directive routes them
to the railroad that handled the car on the loaded move
On a CC&WB system that can be very simplified. The cars technically will go the connecting railroad via the interchange yard. Real railroad specify a route which typically consists of the list of carriers and the junction points where they interchange. So a car going from LA to Norfolk might be routed:
UP, Kansas City MP, St Louis B&O, Cincinnatti N&W, Norfolk PBL
So if the car was reverse routed it would be sent to each of those junction points and be given to each of those railroads.
If its a UP car, the REAL destination of the car is back on the UP, but the destination for YOUR railroad is the railroad and junction point with the railroad that will carry it away from your railroad.
So you can specify the final destination and let the switch crews figure it out, you can specify the final destination and the route or you can just specify the junction point and carrier and not worry about the final destination. Any option is valid, depends on how much control and haow much detail you want to get involved with. Personally I would start by saying the return destination is the station (yard) and interchange carrier.
It may depend on the era, but as I model GN circa '47-'50 in the pacific Northwest When the waybill is finished its cycles my car cards mostly say, “return to GN Agent-Wenatchee, WA” or “NP Agent-Auburn, WA” or whatever the car’s RR at an Interchange/division point yard on that line. John
Ideally of course the RR would find a way to send a load both directions in the car. A car from the east would be switched to an industry where it would be unloaded. The RR might take the car across town to a manufacturer who could use the car to ship it’s product back towards the east for example.
On my layout, I use 4-cycle waybills in my car cards, and I’ve made one or two of the four cycles empty for each car. I then use the empty car request cards to capture an empty car, send it to where it needs to go for the empty request, and then return it back to the routing on the normal waybill.
My railroad uses four cycle waybills sliding half way into the car card pocket. I operate similar to the Southern Pacific (Pacific Coast) of the 50’s & 60’s, empty foreign cars fitting the needs of forest industries are routed to the northwest for loading to the car’s home road. Other cars, except those with special instructions, or loads are routed empty via the reverse route. BTW I’ve noticed four cycle waybills with each cycle leading from the last destination to the new one etc. I don’t have need to change waybills. Age helps too, after four cycles per car and a hundred of so cars I don’t remember a car movement sequence; every operation is new.
I try not to get too hung up on returning empties, although in some circumstances it’s not too difficult to figure out. For instance, my layout features the Western Maryland around Hagerstown, Maryland, which featured interchanges with the B&O, N&W, and PRR/Penn Central, as well as being a division point between the WM’s East and West Subdivisions, plus the Hanover Sub and Lurgan Sub.
On the layout, I only have the PRR interchange modeled, so cars that arrive on the layout from there, are simply routed to go back the same way. My N&W cars work similarly, but they go in and out of staging, and also have two potential destinations (Connellsville to the West, and Roanoke to the south). This creates an additional opportunity for N&W cars to move through from Connellsville to Roanoke, requiring them to be switched from one train to another in the yard.
To mix things up a little, I use 4-cycle cards, too. So typically, a car enters via an interchange, and heads to an on-line industry. Once loaded, it will go back via the same interchange. When it appears again for cycle 3, it is a through movement, carrying it’s load across my layout without stopping. Cycle 4 has it return via the same route, putting it back in the position it started in. At this point, I can either pull the waybill and insert a new one for a new series of movements, or just turn the card and start all over.
Again, the key is to understand where your model railroad fits into the grander scheme of the transportation network it’s a part of.
Thanks for all the suggestions and comments. Somewhere in there is something I can and will use. I have completed filling out the car cards though I have left the “Empty Car Return To” section. I need to define the industries, the yards and how the exchange will work. Thats the next step, industries.