Hello folks. I'm trying out an operating scheme, in hopes of pitching it to the NWR club. Right now, the club is using a "swap" system, but it feels too much like free-run night, we want soul, and prurpose. Since I had the loudest mouth, it's my project, and I need some experts in the sounding board. The problem we have, is that the NWR is an open club. At any time, day or night, members are allowed to run trains, so we can't track cars, because they may move twelve times betweeen Ops sessions. So instead of making some huge deal about tracking car loactions, I want to take the Swap System that;s in place, and whack off the physical swap part for a true switch list. In the process, I also want to cut out some extranious paperwork, but at the same time, I'm re-usung what was already made. First post, I'm going to address the Yardmasters. Ideallt, I want to square them away before we get to the road guys in a separate post/thread. Since you are all new to the layout, you'll be perfect, because you'll ask the questions new yardies will ask as well. What I know to give you, is as follows: Max train length: 12 cars, plus engine caboose I'm giving you a timetable of trains and train numbers, of trains going from your yard. You as a yardmaster must fill those trains. Some trains have a specific time, others are left blank. All the blank trains may be run multiple tiems as locals, using the same number (but obviously not consecutively). There are two times on the timetable, because we may start at 5 on Saturdays, or 7 on the weekdays. If we start at 5, we CAN re-run the train on the 7 times, but it's not a requirement. Obviously, if we start at 7, we can't run the 5:30 train. There are also additional floating numbers we can use, that will be assigned by the Dispatcher in that case. since he's using a magnet on a board. (Note, I plan on just giving the yards the trains they care about, but the sheet is what I copied, so you guys will see the whole thing.) I'm giving you a list of Industries that your yard is responsible for. (The train that serves them orginiates from you) It also will tell you how many of each car it needs, and how many cars at a time it can actually handle (some combination 4 cars, of up to 4 boxcars, up to two reefers, up to one open hopper, up to two covered hoppers. A cut of cars could be two boxcars, or two boxcars and two reefers, or one of each, etc.) (again, you guys are seeing the majority of the whole layout, but the yardmasters will only get what they are serving. When building the Yard TRANSFER trians (no stops, but not a through neccarily) Yardmasters will have to talk to each other to see what they need. Radios Switch lists, where you make with the trains to give the road crews. (This is half-sheet Landscape, everything else is a full sheet in width) If you want it, a blank car count industry list, so you can write down the number of cars that are actually in that siding. That gives you a running total without having to walk over there and check on what you've sent over there. Pencil a gooder idea. So, my questions for you: (I'm starting to sound like JWhitten) What other information do you want to know? How's the timetable look? My goal, is t rely on the latter half of the ops sessions on Locals and extraboard unscheduled trains. That way, we are only as busy as we have the manpower for. A few scheduled trains will be thrown in though, so the Yardies don't get complacent buildign trains and the road guys have nothing to do.
