Simplified Car Cards and Waybills

Model Railroader
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As I mentioned a few days ago in the Diner I have been working on updating my Micro Mark card cards and waybills. Originally I hand wrote them and included the consignee, the shipper, the contents, the railroad assigned, etc. In my world, way too much information and consequently hard to read waybills, not to mention my atrocious penmanship. So I was watching a video and saw someone had the same idea and really simplified his as well. So I bought some 1.5"x2" labels that come ready to print on any ink jet printer from SheetLabels.com. I was looking for Avery labels but couldn’t find the exact size I needed so I went with SheetLabels. They shipped out the next day at which time I also received an email with a link to a template that would work with Microsoft Word, which I’m familiar with. You can see the results in the pics., the original chicken scratch and the new version. Much easier to read, no extraneous information. The logos will be the waybill entry to send it off layout after delivering the laden. I no longer really care what mythical company its returning to. I know this isn’t very prototypical but it works much better in my world on my layout.

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Regards, Chris

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there’s another approach for car cards that lists as many destinations as needed. The boxes are marked when the card reaches that destination. there are separate columns for multiple cycles. the marks can be erased after all have been marked

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Greg, that certainly is a valid approach, but as I mentioned, I am looking for something very graphically simple. I want to run trains and move cars with a purpose for sure, but in as simple a format as possible. I’m probably very much in the minority with my approach, but as a lone wolf operator, I can be happy with it and no one will be critical, because no one operates with me.

Regards, Chris

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guess i don’t understand what you’re trying to do. i don’t see any destinations

the card a posted lists car RR, # and type and the destinations on the layout.

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Hey Tophias, I was at a loss when I tried to understand all the lingo that goes into prototypical operations, so I borrowed bits and pieces from other modelers who’ve simplified operations considerably. The system I use works well for me, but would be too basic for the experts. I made two car card boxes and created (5) separate industry boxes in each. Also, each industry box has a divider in the middle (as you can see in the photo). Each car card has a photo of the car because quite often the graffiti covers the car numbers. The section in the front of the box are “Incoming” and the section behind the divider are “Outgoing”. Look at the photo at the far left, it shows Northwest Coal. In this photo there is one Railgon coal car that is empty and it is expected to come in to the coal mine (Northwest Coal”. You can’t see the card behind it, only the photo of the car, but the Rock coal hopper card says it is full of coal and its next destination is the Power & Light company. On the other side of my layout I have another one of these boxes with (4) more industries listed on it. So, when I do operations, I build my trains in the yard, then shuffle the car cards around to find out where they are going. It’s challenging because I have a 24 car freight train running around the layout too. It takes 4 minutes for to go around the layout. So I have to wait for that to go by before blocking the mainline to spot cars in some of the industries. It’s fun and gives me more to do with my layout other than trying to run 4 - 24 cars trains on the same track.

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And some layouts use systems that don’t involve separate car cards at all, but simply rely on a switch list for a specific train.

The list shows cars in the train to be set out at which locations, and cars to be picked up at the various locations.

I know 40-50 guys who host operating sessions and I have seen at least that many variations on the various systems to control the movement of freight cars.

Pretty sure I will use a “switch list” approach on my new layout.

Sheldon

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Greg, the car card indicates type, rr, car number and description (size and color). The way bills show the consigned destination on one end, then flip it to indicate it’s now going off layout. My bad, I failed to mention all cars come onto the layout from under layout staging, get classified in the central yard, go out to customers via locals, return to central classification yard to be resorted to leave to go to the under yard staging. Then rinse, repeat.

Regards, Chris

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KHolbrook, nice looking cards and racks. I like how you incorporated a picture of the car. That must have been a lot of work.

Regards, Chris

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It actually wasn’t hard at all to put photos on the cards. All I did was take pictures of all the cars I’d be using for operations. I don’t use all of my rolling stock. Only hoppers, reefers, oil tankers, coal cars and a few 40’ boxcars. Then I copied them into a blank Word Document. After I had three car pictures lined up on the top of the page, I printed it out (in black & white) and measured each pic to see if it was the right size for my car cards. Once I got the size right, I added 25-30 more pictures. And printed them (in full color) on a piece of sticker paper. After I printed it, I just cut them out with some sharp scissors. It didn’t take long at all. I also placed a sticker of the train car in the back of each freight load that I made. That way I would know which load went into which car. I make pretty much all of my own loads too!

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here’s a switch list we’ve used on the club layout indicating which cars to drop-off, pick-up and location

the problem with this approach is it requires new switch lists to be generated each cycle and a new cycle can’t be started before the previous cycle completes unless cars returning to the yard are updated as they return

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Agreed, every system has it pluses and minuses.

I have 1000 freights that will be on a 1500 sq ft layout. Switch lists are easier than 1000 little cards - just my view.

As I said, there are lots of approaches to this.

Other point, not all switching needs to be individual cars. Many guys also switch blocks of cars to larger industries or in/out of mainline trains.

Sheldon

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so how do you generate your switch lists?
when do you generate a new set of switch lists?

i’d like to hear what they are. The appoach i described was presented by Chuck Kover in the July 2024 Op-Sig Dispatcher’s Office

others, besides 4 position car cards i’ve heard of seem too simplistic are

  • swap cars of like type, for example a tank with a tank
  • swap odd # cars if westbound, even # cars if eastbound
  • color coded tags, each car has a colored marker on roof (or somewhere), each industry is color code. swap cars at destinations with same color
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I’m busy working today, this evening I may have time to offer some thoughts and provide some references from the past.

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Just a few more thoughts while I have a minute.

Over the last 10-20 years there have been a number of software programs for this task. Some have proven better than others so my buddies tell me.

Generally these programs generate waybills, switch lists, and/or train manifests and can often generate a new set on the assumption that the last set was completed correctly.

Complexity and user friendlyness varies…,

Layout design and desired goals also factor into this. Some layouts are nothing but switching while others include both mainline and switchjng operations.

These considerations effect which sort of system will work best.

Sheldon

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of course. but its hard to know what method/feature might work well for a particular layout without knowing the method/feature.

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OK, I did not have time last night to look up some of the old magazines with various types of systems described. But over the years there have been a lot.

Some people want these systems to be self resetting, or “continuous” in flow so they can stop and restart at any point.

But generally speaking that requires car cards and a pattern that is just endlessly repeated. - Ultimately boring in my view and a lot of work to set up.

Here is my basic problems with car card systems:

Handling all the separate cards is cumbersome, and it requires that you leave everything alone when not “operating”. I’m not doing that, if I want to randomly run a train and move cars around between formal operating sessions I’m going to. They are my toys.

Switch lists do require “reset” work, but allow constant change.

Also my mainline trains are typically big, 35-40 cars, 50 cars at times - mainline trains come into the freight yard, then get switched directly to the industries on my belt line connected to the yard, or they get set up into local freights for the industries out on the mainline.

So 50 separate cards for that incoming train is just not practical to me.

Yes switch lists require “setup” both on the paper side and in staging the layout. I don’t mind doing that. And if a session does not get completed it does not matter, the layout will get restaged for the next session.

My layout does not exist solely for formal operating sessions, so switch lists and prestaging works best for me.

Example, I have a large separate piggyback terminal planned for the layout. A switch list does not need to identify each car. Each of four tracks in the piggy yard will hold about 22 50’ flat cars.

The yard work “train manifest” can just say “Build train 456 - move the piggy cars on track 1 and 2 in the piggy yard onto track 4 of the freight yard and setup a caboose for westbound departure”.

Then a mainline train order can say “Train 456 with loco set 321 departs westbound from track #4 at 6:45am for points west (staging track C2)”.

And yes, I will likely use a fast clock, have passenger schedules, and approximate regularly scheduled freights. The mainline will be CTC controlled, especially for operating sessions.

There will be some “handling” of individual cars to small industries, but not all car movements will be handled that way.

Other operations will include power changes on thru freight trains, they pull in the yard, the power gets switched, they depart. There will be hidden staging for about 30 trains on the mainline.

For me “operation” is not just switching freight cars in and out of industries. It is simulating all the different types of train movements of the prototype.

Some trains will be “run thrus”, bridge traffic that does not stop at the yard, but rather just comes out of the staging, runs the whole mainline, and returns to staging.

The layout was carefully designed to provide a balance of all these different operating possibilities, including passenger train building/switching, commuter service with RDC’s and doodle bugs, local freights, mainline freights, and belt line switching in two separate areas.

And, if I can figure out a space, I would like to build a small stand alone waterfront industrial switching layout.

Sheldon

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guess there really aren’t many approahes besides the ones i enumerated

after ~20 years, the club finally had an operating session (it has numerous open houses during the year, where it runs multiple trains around 2 mainlines). I wrote some code that gnerated switch lists. That code knows where a car is, decides if it should move and where its next destination is depending on car and destination types.

the problem i found is that each set of switch lists depends on all previous switch lists being completed, that those cars that were picked-up were now in the yard or at their destination available for the next train.

So our op-sessions were to do the switch-lists for that session and call it a day. There isn’t an opportunity for some operator who got done early to run another train.

of course we could try re-generating new switch lists after trains completed its run and knowing which cars were sitting in the yard.

on the other hand, using cards of some sort, cars can constantly be classified in yards as trains come in. trains of varying length are always available to leave the yard. Presumably the next most complete train would leave next (unless the session is schedule driven).

for variety, the waybill cards that sit in the car card pocket can be swapped every few sessions to change the routing of cars.

i also found passenger ops interesting on a friends layout modeling the New Haven RR which had to swap diesel for electric locos running thru New York City. The other interesting part was handling commuter trains that terminated at the station, where locos were moved to an engine terminal and car moved to coach yards. Those commuter trains returned later in the day/session. Never got a chance to operate with both passenger and freight trains on that layout

still interested in ideas.

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Ok, to state different idas separately.

Switch blocks of cars to/from larger industies/desinations without identifing each car.

Create multi step precesses where cars are gathered from industries, sorted into different outbound trains, and mainline trains move them to staging.

Create individual car switch lists for small industries.

Schedule mail, express, consist changes and power changes for passenger trains in the terminal.

Personally I have no interest in having some specialized software to do this. I can make organized lists of equipment, and pre structured list of trains to be run, and then generate train orders, manifests, and switch lists as needed by “copy and paste” in Word.

Again, I have no interest a system that will control me, I control the system.

When I get a minute, I will look up some of the old articles on the various approaches that have been used and published over the decades.

The methods and practices I decribed for my layout are a mixture of systems I learned from others while operating on their layouts.

Our local group operates at a different layout every week. Generally cycling around to the same layout every 4 to 6 weeks right now. Several of us like myself have layouts under construction and will be added to the rotation for both construction and ops session as progress allows.

So my needs will only require an planned ops session once a month or less.

But I do have plans for less intense “standard ops” that can be run with little or no setup/planning.

How are switch lists generated? By looking at the available industies and using my imagination and a piece of paper.

Then the layout is staged so the right equipment is in the correct starting point.

How often is it reset? Between each major ops session.

But if you just look at the layout, and have the previous switch lists, it is not that hard to create the next one.

Just my view.

Disclaimer: These are all private layouts I operate on, each owner runs his ops as he sees fit, they are all different, yet nearly all use some sort of switch list system and many have CTC dispatching of mainline trains as well as industry switching.

So while nearly all use switch lists, the design and info on the switch list varies, and their method of generating the switch list varies.

Many call them “train orders”, as that covers all types of train movements, and they may include other info like the written instructions I described rather than just a list of cars with pickups/set outs.

Sheldon

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One other thought. One member of our group used a software called “Switch It!” years ago, I know he had a lot of challenges with it. It may be better now. I will ask him about it.

Sheldon

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“this” being what to use during an op-session to determine what to do with a car

once again

  • switch-list (most likely software to match car and destination types)
  • car-card (done by hand to match car/destination types)
  • color-coded tags on cars and industries
  • swap cars of same type
  • swap even #'d car westbound, odd #s eastbound
  • ???