Why is this off topic? Is the topic so narrow that we can’t talk about other aspects of operation which is all about simulating railroad operations?
You learn enough about how freight moves in the real world make up switch lists and train movements that simulate real life.
You don’t do silly parlor games like odd and even car numbers.
I will have an auto assembly plant on my layout. It will actually have two different sets of sidings - one for incoming parts, the other for finished cars outbound (having actually spent time in a real auto assembly plant, this is how they generally work). I have flat cars with loads of auto frames, and general box cars bringing other parts. And have automobile double door 50’ box cars commonly used to ship finished autos before the 1960’s, as well as few “experiential” open 50’ auto racks.
Auto assembly plants are big operations, you don’t service them car by car. Whole strings of freight cars are delivered to, and then leave the two areas. Six, eight, ten or more cars at a time, similar to real life for that kind of industry. Whole cuts of cars can be identified on a switch list by the first and last car in the cut, etc.
Yes, you have to think this out for each industry. You have to decide where they come from and where they go to based on the design and features of your layout.
In my case most traffic comes and goes from the staging, there will be very little on line origin to destination traffic.
The 40 car piggy train pulls into the yard, then the yard master, or one of his crews, moves it to the piggy yard for unloading. This is not done with a switch list that details all 40 cars - they are all inbound piggys that need to be unloaded. It is done with a train order.
All trains have a train number and manifest. Sometimes that manifest is a detailed list of different destinations (switch list), sometimes it contains whole blocks of cars for the auto plant, the boat yard, the lumber yard, etc.
Don’t let “rules” get in the way of providing just the necessary information to complete the task.
It is the yardmasters job to coordinate the connection between the mainline trains and the local/belt line/yard work trains. When a mainline train arrives, or needs to be made up to depart, he coordinates the crews.
Because these trains are “created” by you in advance, him and the crews have paperwork that is appropriate to that train - all the paperwork is not exactly the same format. Paperwork for trains that will be arriving and for trains that need to be made up and depart.
And tasks that don’t get done can often be incorporated into the next session.
But the yard master decides when each task is best done and knows what tasks need to be done 1st, 2nd, etc.
Yard master is one of my favorite jobs… Second is being the dispatcher.
Side bar, off topic - unlike what many modelers are doing, my dispatcher is not locked in a closet somewhere. He will actually have a good view of 70% of the layout. And his panel will not look like a prototype panel except for its linear design.
You make up plausible stories. My layout is in the Mid Atlantic, so the auto parts come mostly from the west, from the manufacturing belt of the upper Midwest. Finished cars move mostly west, but a few move east to the Atlantic coast to move north and south.
Create more work than can be done in one session, use the unfinished work as the starting point for the next session. Does not seem that hard to me, many of my friends do just that.
But it is all integrated, mainline and switching operations.
Just my view, but car card systems are for guys modeling little short lines or ISL’s. I like that aspect of operations, but not enough for it to be my whole layout focus.
I have my two belt line industrial areas to give me a taste of that.
Sheldon
