switch list?

In the September 2023 MR page 28 Eric White inclunded a picture of Gordy Spiering holding a switch list. Starting on page 52 in the same issure Jack Burgess talks about prototypical operation using switch lists (page 55). I am computer illiterate esp. when it comes to using Excel. We can buy printed car cards, waybills, bad order slips, etc. but as far as I have been able to find out switch lists are not available. WHY???

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aren’t car cards printed once. Other things are just forms. We’re using switch lists that need to track car movements and need to be printed with car numbers each op session. Or are you just looking for a blank form that you write up manually?

The longest runaround on my road can take 10 40’ cars, so I don’t need a long list. I would like to have my road name on the top and hand write car info in by hand. Again I don’t play with excel. If I could just get a preprinted form I would be happy.

Did you check Google for a template to specify? I completely understand the fear factor of using Excel. To make things easier, I found two Google docs. While not perfect, it’s a start:

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/new-free-switch-list-generator-v-1-1-12204822

I have downloadable switch list blanks on my website in the operations, operating documents section: Operating Documents – Wilmington & Northern Branch (wnbranch.com)

They are in an Excel format and can be customized for your railroad.

I have used Microsoft Office or LibreOffice to make my forms for my Trewsville Southern, they are easy to make since I only have to deal with 7 spots on my small layout. First thing I do is fill out the cars that have already been spotted and then have the cars staged for dropping off, once you get the hang of it, it’s easy to learn (unless you want to try JMRI and that is a nightmare, I just use it for railcar recording)

In the world of 1:1 railroading - up until the lat3 1970’s when yard computer system started appearing at the larger terminals on many properties, Switch Lists were hand written affairs on a dedicated ‘hard’ card form. On Chessie System it was known as Form CF-62 - the form being made of hard card stock about 4.25 inches wide and 11 inches long and contained the car initials and numbers of the cars that were on a specific track in car standing order. Yard Clerks would walk the tracks of the yard after switching was completed for the trick. Switch lists would be written up in duplicate - the Yardmaster would mark up the list with the switching he wanted the crew whom he assigned to track to switch. The Conductor got one copy and the Yardmaster retained on copy.

In most Yard Offices there was a PICL (Perpetual Inventory of Car Location) rack where each track in the yard was identified. The slot for each track would contain the switch list for the cars on that track as well as the waybills for those cars. As the cars would be switched, the waybills would also be switched by the yard clerk to correspond with the switching instructions there were issued to the crews.

Switch Lists were the heart and soul of yard operations.

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If you’re just looking for a convenient paper size to make lists on, you might try a reporters notebook, like these:
https://www.amazon.com/Portage-Reporters-Notebook-Professional-Spiral/dp/B007IJC4PA?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=A33MSDAMGWT0AO&gQT=1


Here’s a copy of a switch list used by Western Pacific, but you should be able to adapt it to any railroad–just save a copy of this image (right click it and save the picture) and print some out!

So that’s what they meant!

Back in the 70’s or 80’s when I was working on computers, MOPAC was one of our customers. They had printers in shacks out in the yard, and while I never worked on them, I remember some of the guys that did talk about “pickle” lists. Apparently, it was a rough environment. They talked about rats, and one of them reported finding a brick in one of the printers.

When I was a first level field supervisor on the B&O each yard office was equipped with Burroughs equipment that receive, print, cut corresponding IBM cards for reports of train standing for trains to arrive in the future. Those machines were also capable of sending such transmissions with the IBM cards being the data being sent.

When trains arrived, the IBM cars from the advace notice of the trains consist would have the corresponding IBM cards matched with the trains actual Waybills and then the Waybills and a hand prepared Switch List would be placed in the track in the PICL rack for that track(s) that the train was yarded.

During switching the Waybills containing the IBM cards would be moved around the PICL rack in order defined by the Yardmasters marked up Switch List.

When dispatching a train the contents of the PICL rack for the track(s) the Waybills would be given to the train’s Conductor and the IBM cards extracted from the Waybills and used to create the data for the new outbound train to be sent to destination yard(s) for the train. In the act of sending the outbound train’s data - the headquarters computer in facilitating the data network also got and retained the data for the headquarters use of the data.

Yard offices in the field were not the most pristine of environments for the data processing equipment place in them.