In Nov/Dec 2008 and Jan/Feb 2009 N Scale magazine. Did anyone gain any helpful information from these articles? Did it raise more questions or seem confusing to anyone? By the way, my yard actually has a capacity of 1000 cars. I guess I didn't calculate things quite right.
I thought it was vague. I've been trying to figure out some sort of system for a long time, but the one piece of the puzzle that always seems to be missing is the FIRST part. How the heck do you start? I can see operational interest due to various "special" scenarios, having different operators (even though my layout will be run solo since nobody else lives in my state), waybills, switch lists, train classes... The problem I seem to be having is just getting "set up" to do SOMETHING! I've joined a few yahoo groups on operation and car cards, but even though I can see how the details work, the overall flow is what I'm just not grasping... I must have a brain-shoe dragging... :tb-confused: Anyone have a suggestion?
Bob,Here's the simple system I use and its a easy start and is loosely base on Doug Smiths car card/waybill introduce in the early 60s.. First the waybill. Each car has 10 waybills from various off layout industries to various model industry.This gives each car 10 possible industry "spots".. Now on my C&HV,HR and the new CB&T 90% of the cars are inbound loads while 10% is outbound loads.. Outbound load example: Routing would start with the home road and ending terminating road. Example: FROM:General Plastic Corp Wellston Ohio. TO: DJK Plastics Huston Tx.. LOAD: Plastic Pellets. VIA:C&HV NS BNSF. The waybill is attached to the car card..I use paper clips. =========================================== The car card is rather basic and straight forward. Home road cars say: When Empty return to C&HV Columbus,Ohio. ============================================ I use 3x5 ruled index cards.. Micro Mark makes blank Car Cards(100/$3.95) and blank 4 way Waybills at 100/$3.95. More Model Railroad Items I hope this helps.
What type of set up do you have to represent "the rest of the world"? This would be where your cars come from and go to, such as a staging track or yard. Determine what types of cars your industries will need. Does that industry generate loads to go elsewhere or does it receive loads from elsewhere? How often will cars need to be placed at those industries? A train comes into your yard from elsewhere. That could be one job. The train gets switched to build locals to take cars to your industries or for forwarding on to another location (modeled or not). That's another job. A local leaves the yard and goes out to switch the industries. That's a third job. The local gets back and the cars get switched into trains to connect with the rest of the world. There's job #4. The train leaves and goes off layout. Job # 5. It all grows from there, depending on if more than one thing is going on at once. Dispatchers handle movements on the main if there's more than one train. A yardmaster coordinates multiple movements in the yard. Hope this helps.
Bob, I belong to the car card yahoo group also and downloaded Dave Husman's program many years ago when I started operations on the old layout. I recently put together a powerpoint presentation on using car cards that I did at our last NMRA division meeting. It shows how I use the car card system and it follows a car through the 4 cycle waybill for that car. You can go to our division web page http://tulsanmra.org/ and click on the Resources (locally hosted content on the left side) and it will take it to the presentation which has been converted to a PDF so it isn't as large. It may answer some questions. I'm continuously refining how it works on my layout for my operations. I'm always looking for feedback and suggestions. I was planning on putting an article very similar to this to be published, not sure how many would be interested in it though. Thanks, Dave Salamon N scale - Deep River Southern http://www.picturetrail.com/salamon
B&O Man-sorry couldn't resist some old railroad speak. My cars will come though a "working" interchange which will be stage before each ops or will already be in the yard.
Hi Larry & Dave, I have 491 revenue cars, based on the above statement I need 4910 waybills. This is the first time I have seen any number suggested as to the ratio of waybills & car cards. The 200 waybills that my daughters gave me for Christmas a couple years ago are not going to be enough. That is a lot of writing and/or typing. I know what I'll be doing for the next couple years. I too am confused on how to get things started. Different things that I have read say different things. One was to fill the customers to the max then assign each car on the layout a waybill then make up a train in the yard that contains about 1/2 for the cars that are at the customers trying to switch out 1/2 of the cars at each customer take the cars in the new train and move them to the proper customers pickup the same number of cars that are being spotted. The problem I see with the above is that the customers are always full. In the real world there are times when customers don't have any cars. Another was very similar but only fill the customers to about 1/2 full. Many of the customers on my layout have multiple tracks, some are just for holding overflow and others have a function. How do the waybills address the issue for moving between the tracks within a customer? Are there special instruction cards for the movement between the 'holding" tracks and the "functional" tracks? Furthermore only about 1/4 of the customers ship to or receive from other customers on the layout. I can see the following is how a car may move through my layout. The car comes onto the layout from the outside world at the interchange (staging) is moved to the yard is moved to the customer for loading of emptying and placed on one of the customers "holding" tracks is moved to the "functional" track is moved to the yard moved to the interchange (staging) using the above, is that counted as 6 moves? I plan to look at the file that Dave suggested and hopefully it will answer some of my questions. Any and all input will be appreciated. Thank you, Gary
Holy cow, Dave! 69 pages! Looks awesome! I'm sure this will answer my questions. I'm going to download the software you mention tomorrow and see what the wife and I can come up with. Thanks for the advice! :thumbs_up:
Moves within a customer's plant are "intra-plant" moves. The customer can either catch the local crew as they are doing their work or can leave instructions in a mailbox for what the local crew needs to do. On the big railroads, the crew is supposed to keep track of this special work because it's re-billable to the customer as extra work. 1. enters the railroad from interchange 2. car is moved to yard 3. car is switched into next train that handles the car, like a local (or in a through freight to go to another yard elsewhere on the railroad) 4. car moves in local to the customer 5. car is picked up from the customer by a local and moves to the yard 6. car is switched into train that takes it to interchange (or a through freight to another yard) 7. car gets moved to interchange.
Rick, Well first, I was surprised to see your mug in that article! As to content, it was good but a lot to digest. I really don't know how you would cover it otherwise. It was of interest to me, because I am trying to get my layout up and opping. I am using my own excel spreadsheet and a simpler, numberless session that replaces empties with the same number of loads. I do have some special instructions on the sheet - like the oil refinery I always put 4 new cars on one track, as if its a ready track, and move the 4 there to the loading track, and the 4 on the loading track back to the yard. In my "BIDS" yard (modeled after that well known former engine/repair yard now paved over that is called Rossford) I move the cars that have just unloaded to a clean out track. I use an excel random generator (must download, doesn't come loaded) to tell me where the outbound cars go to. The random gen usually comes out close to even, but I can't help but tweak it. If my outbound transfer yard has tracks of 6, 9, 12 and 13 cars, I tweak the numbers proportionally to the transfer capacity of each yard. The one thing I haven't figured out is how to generate the inbound traffic. I figure I will just have to restage to get the cars I need for the next session out of interchange without cherry picking way back in the train. In any system, I recommend trying it and refining it. I sincerely doubt anyone ever got it rignt the first time so don't even bother. When you run what you think is your perfect system, you will gradually find improvements as you go, or tweak the layout or just get bored and want to change ops. I also recommend going with simpler systems to start. At least for me, the real hard stuff a lot of people seem to like isn't really required to have fun operating. Just my 2 cents. BTW, Rick, I am in T Town this coming weekend. Let me know if you have any RR activities going on!
Gary said:I have 491 revenue cars, based on the above statement I need 4910 waybills. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gary,I agree..If I had that many revenue cars I wouldn't have waybills for all of 'em just a select few that matches my industries needs-match the cars to the industry.The other cars would be used in through trains.
Jeff, I'm probably going to be out of town this weekend coming up, but the Claremore and Southern a very large Operation orientated layout is having it's operating session on Saturday the 21st from 1-4pm. Here is the web page http://www.csrailclub.com/, disregard the date of the 14th, it was changed to the 21st. They are always looking for operators... Dave
Hi, I guess I should get nine more to have an even 500 . Let me throw in some more variables. This is a short, short line serving customers in and around one city All the car types that I have are used by the customers on the layout. Only a few customers have business with the others on the layput. Most incoming and outgoing loads are from/to off line business. No run through trains. All trains are locals, other then the Amtrak (enters at the staging and makes its way to the end of the line and turns around to head back to the staging). I do have an operation (car card / waybill) question here some place. Ok I found it. Since this is a short line with only locals working it, would the cars that are to be moved from one online customer to another online customer be taken back to the yard before spotting it at the receiving customer? Since 4910 waybills is a lot I may take the advice from brakie and cut the list. I may select an arbitrary percent of my 491 cars say 10% of each car type and then make 491 ± waybills and use the same waybills for different cars within the car type. Not sure if that would be enough for the car types that have a limited count. Any one have thoughts on this. Thanks Gary
Don't make it complicated. In real life, cars appear and disappear in the yard, and the local switching crews could care less how they got there as long as they get done by quitting time! :tb-tongue: Create a spread sheet on a piece of paper with the industry name and the number of cars that can be spotted on their tracks. If an industry has more than one car spot, then use a random number generator (dice work well! ) to determine the number of cars needed due to economic conditions. Place cars by hand at those spots, then use your trusty random number generator to see if they are done with the car that day. Finished cars are always at the end of the track, so you have to remove the last car on the siding before you leave the new car. Place appropriate numbers of cars to service your industries in the yard (companies KNOW when cars are arriving, since they get computer updates from the railroad!) Write out an order sheet in long hand, then allow your "crews" to "block" (order) the cars in the yard for efficient switching (this is the part I like best since it's a puzzle!) before they start out for the day's switching. TADA! Up and operating in under 10 minutes, and you should have about 2 hours of fun! :tb-biggrin:
Gary,Lets see if I can help.. 1.This is a short, short line serving customers in and around one city. ---------------------------- That's what I am planing for my new Columbus Belt & Terminal-a large name for a 14 mile urban industrial branch line railroad that serves 10 customers...Each modeled industry will be use as 2 different industries so I can switch all 10 industries on a rotated base..As a example..Today I will switch Midland Grocery Warehouse..Tomorrow Midland will be switched as Columbus Distribution Incorporated...Sound confusing? Its not..All I will do is pull the waybill and the car is ready for pickup---at Midland the next "day". That was the only way I found to switch all 10 industries since my 14 mile CB&T will be built on a 36"X80" door. -------------------------- 2.All the car types that I have are used by the customers on the layout. -------------------------- Great! I had a bad case of "I gotta have it" in HO and in the end it came back to haunt me and my planned C&HV went South..Now my C&HV and what few cars I have left in HO is used at the club.I WILL NOT make the same mistake with my CB&T or the equipment needed at the N Scale club.. ------------------------ As for your question..No..The cars would be switched enroute..No need to drag these cars to the yard..The railroads hates "short hauls". Why is that? When I worked on the Chessie a scrap dealer in Ashland Ky would ship scrap to a steel mill in Huntington,WVa-about 10 mile.These cars was picked up by the Ashland-Huntington transfer and delivered to the huntington yard and then to the mill-a 24 hour move..You see the Huntington local worked out of the Huntington yard and not Russell. It was cheaper to use rail instead of trucks but,costly to Chessie because of the "short haul" which included at least 3 engines and two 4 man crews to move that scrap 10 miles plus the Huntington yard crew that made up the Huntington local... Now if that scrap was going to ARMCO Steel(Ashland Works) at Ashland,Ky and could be switched enroute then that was a "good" short haul since one crew handled the scrap.
