Here I will share my adventures into a Tab on Car system used to forward my freight on my Esquimalt and Naniamo layout.
In terms of car forwarding I have tried 2 other methods…
JMRI Ops. The reason I didnt stick with JMRI Ops is 2 fold. Firstly it didnt tend to service ALL my industries (even after 8 hours of OPs). Secondly it didnt allow for a staging yard that is shuntable (a whole other topic).
Hand written switch lists. Tried it…sounded like a good idea and it was…however it involved WAY too much work to get going. Also found it stressful to keep the action going…too much pressure.
Mark Dance uses a Tab On Car system for his N scale empire for different reasons than what I have noted. I decided to borrow from him and also try and allow myself to have more control of what goes where…rather than a computer like he does. Perhaps I may find that a randomly generated demand is warranted…
So the way my system works is as follows.
Tabs are made for each spur and customer on the layout. The number of Tabs per customer depends on the capacity of the customer plus 1 or 2 extra Tabs. This allows for off-spotting of cars when the customer is full.
Tabs are placed on cars when they are meant to be moved. For example, in staging, a Tab will be placed on a car when a demand is noted by the railroad Agent. A car without a Tab is not meant to be moved and, if need be, has to be replaced to allow for access to buried cars. I have a bead box that is sectioned off for each customer. All that is needed to generate a car movement is to either eyeball the customer via the physical place on the layout …or blindly by looking into the bead box…then place a Tab.
That is a very interesting system and I can’t see a reason why it won’t work brilliantly for operations, not that I’m any expert.
The only thing I don’t really care for is having the tabs stuck on top of the cars. I think I would find that too distracting, kind of like using Hot Wheels vehicles that are not HO scale.
I wonder if the tabs couldn’t be downsized a bit. You really only need a very small dot of colour to indentify the destination, and if the nomenclature was done on a printer so that it is smaller but still large enough to read then the tabs wouldn’t stand out quite so much. Perhaps a different background colour could be used too.
Tab is only there for Ops…nothing more. Outside of ops they come off. They could be smaller, but I find that with the operators I have, bigger is better as eye sight is at a premium. The alternative is paper work, however this means that you need to keep track of every car on the layout…which sucks…all it takes is for one car to be not where it is supposed to be…with this system there is no paper work as the waybill (tab) follows the car and the operators are free to focus on switching. I added Sergent couplers last op session and my crews commented that because of the increased complexity of coupling it became overwhelming getting the switching list completed. A 15 car switch list took over an hour. I’ll give this system a go and see how my crews like it. Thanks for the comments…perhaps the next generation of tabs will change. They don’t cost much…I’m in for 20 bucks including the sharpies, tape, styrene and cases. David B
Andy Sperandeo described a version of tab-on-car operation in the December, 1984, issue. He showed various types of tabs to be used on different types of cars. Each tab was double sided, and each side had two different colors. An example had stripes, a wide one and a narrow one. The colors represented destinations. The process was that the car went to the “wide” color, then the “narrow” color location, then got turned over to go to two more destinations before getting turned over to repeat the process.
I’ve used CCT in the past and plan to again. Over the years tried a couple of alternatives, including a fully coded up BASIC version of the “Cargo Operation” described in the Mar 1974 MR (way back when I had an Apple II if that tells you anything). In the end I like the CCT and tab systems for their pure simplicity and ease of use.
But to be honest, I think with your use of the sealing spray to hold them on cars and inclusion of some AAR car types for specific industries, you’ve managed to merge tab and card into one easy concept. Perhaps you should do an article in MR. Seems like we’re due for an alternative to a full up card order operating system.
Tab on car systems are some of the oldest systems used for operation. they date back to the 1940’s and 1950’s.
You can use thumbtacks and paint colored dots or letters on the thumbtacks and drill a small hole in the top of the car. There is a famous kalmbach photo fo two women holding a "prototype’ sized thumbtack on top of a real rail car. Others have put a small pin sticking out of the car and used a washer that was color coded (small advantage, you can "lift’ the washers off of car with a magnet.) Then there are the various forms of plastic and paper tabs or tags that sit on top of the car. Some O Scale modelers have mounted magnets inside the cars and then stick small tin or sheet metal tags onto the sides of the car. An N scale modeler used self adhesive “dots” labels on top of N scale cars, applying and removing them with a pair of tweezers.
The irony is that CC&WB was the “improvement” over tab on car.
The late Bob H used a system like Ed Ravenscroft’s tack system, just cutting the pin off the tacks and skipping putting holes in his cars. A little ball of fun-tack type material kept the tacks from falling off while in motion. Same basic concept as the tabs, really. Industries and destinations are color coded so the right kind of car gets delivered to the right kind of industry, just by matching up the colors.
The very first layout I did “serious” operations on had this sort of system. The destination tabs had wings on them (so they were more like “I” beams") to prevent them from shaking off the cars as all the cars had roof walks. Each tab had 4 destinations. Deliver the car to the “large” color, then the “small color” then flip the tab and repeat. When the cars got to a destination yard the tabs would be shuffled into bucket and randomly replaced by car type for the next trip.
Very easy and effective for new operators, and not hours of preparation for the person hosting the session.
Being one of the visually challenged operators and since I’m also trying to develop an operating system for my own layout, I’ll be very interested to hear how your upcoming ops session goes. I tend to find I need three hands to juggle all the paperwork, car cards, uncoupling pick and throttle during an op session. I often find it very difficult to read the car numbers and car owner markings on the beautifully weathered cars I’ve seen on the layouts I’ve operated. The printing/writing on the car cards and waybills can get awfully small, too. I recently caused a cornfield meet during a large club operating session simply because I couldn’t read the tiny print on the timetable.
I also like Texas Zepher’s suggestion of the “I Beam” type of tabs as these would provide a more secure means of positioning on each car. It is possible that a combination of the rubber sealer paint on the edges of the “I Beam” flanges plus the mechanical hold of the “I Beam” flanges would work for virtually any car type. We’d certainly not want a tab to fall off in a tunnel or hidden track section.
No reason I beams wouldt work just fine…they are a pain to cut though. I did testing before I went I to production and on a box car roof I can tilt the at at 45 degrees before the rubber starts to slip.
Tab-on-car systems work - but I will never implement one on the Chrysanthemum Empire.
My waybills include information on dwell time and special handling (the anhydrous ammonia car doesn’t run in the same train with the tank of diesel #2…)
My car cards include the car’s entire history, including maintenance, modifications and repairs.
My freight stock is (mostly) flat black with minimal white stenciling. The railfan in me would be deeply offended by multicolored ‘things’ on the car tops.
So I will never use them - but YOU are welcome to, if you wish.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with bare black car tops)