Tab-on Car Operation

[Anonymous]

Is anyone operating their railroad using this system?It seems to me that car card and switch lists are the rage but both take up so much prep. time...
John Allen's book [The Gorre & Defeated Railroad} implied an easy to use and exciting system for minimal effort .
I see this system as very usable on small and/or one person railroads-any thoughts out there?
Charles.[8)]

[dinwitty]

MR had some article on colored tacks on cars, whatever floats your boat, but I wouldnt want to handle the cars on the layout or put unrealistic things on them, except the TTC color computer read tags put on cars in the mid 70's.

I tend to like routing cards as you can identify what the car is and then tell which way its going to go. Somewhat prototypical and works, and you wont be hadling physically the cars, which for operating in my style, hands off!!

[cmrproducts]

Charles

I use the Modified pin system (tab-on-car) on my 25 x 75 layout. With over 800 cars and can run 45 to 50 plus trains in an all day session it still takes a lot of time to reset the system for the next session.

But it is the most forgiving in terms of new operators learning. If they make mistakes no one knows or they can be easily corrected (misplaced cars) as the next train can pick up the misplaced cars and move them. No losing cards, no dropped cards and adding new cars to the layout is easy, just pin them. No need to make a new card. This works out great when visiting operators want to see their equipment run on the layout.

I use plastic covered colored tacks with the center pin removed. I then fill in the center with poster putty. This is what holds the tack on the car and does not affect the finish. A center color dot indicates the industry and the base color is the town.

I also make a list of the cars (boxcars, gons, flats) and it lists all of the industries that each car can go. It also lists the pin colors so you don’t get a stock car at a refinery. This is my pin board and I use it to go around and repin the cars.

BOB H – Clarion, PA

[Big_Boy_4005]

I've operated on a layout using the tab system. It was fun and worked well. It didn't have the level of complexity offered by cards, but it got the job done.

[cuyama]

I've operated on tab-on-car layouts and they work fine. The appearance is the biggest factor.

Personally, I don't think it takes much more time to prep car cards and waybills than it does to make the tacks, come up with the coding scheme, reproduce copies of the coding scheme around the layout, etc. Either of these is something you only do once.

Some people find the tab on car method more toylike, others find it not a problem. One nice thing about the car cards and waybills method is that it can provide some additional information about routing and ultimate destination ("route via SP to Los Angeles") that helps create the atmosphere of real rairlroading. That's optional and not everyone chooses to add that to the cards, I find it interesting to think about the railroad network beyond the train room.

Both tab on car and car card and waybill have self-correcting properties. If a car is mis-routed and spotted in the wrong place, the tab or waybill contains all the information needed to get it back to the right place. And if a car and its paperwork become separated with car card and waybill, it's easy to have a rule that send the car to a Repair-In-Place or designated yard track somewhere to wait for the paperwork to catch up. It always does!

Especially for a small layout as you describe, the car card and waybill method would not take a lot of time to set up in the first place. I've set up a few layouts for car card and waybill and it goes pretty quickly once you get started. I happen to use a low-cost program called "Waybills" to print the waybills because it allows quick printing of common destinations and allows for easier-to-read waybills, but I've also done many hand-written waybills and they work fine.

Information on the Waybills program may be found at:
http://members.aol.com/Shenware/index.html

Bottom line, tab on car and car card and waybill systems both work and get you to operating pretty quickly.

Have fun!

Byron
May / June Newsletter on line
http://www.modelrail.us/news

[dinwitty]

you don't run around resetting the cards, or tabs, you let that happen during the run session, let the train crews work it out.

I've done car cards on the the club layout, checking where cars and cards are all the time, getting setup for the runsession...? eh? its already set...

[Anonymous]

Wow!Thanks for the input!
Bob,I Iike the simplicity of your system,it keeps you running things and I'm sure you can see the impact of what you set out when the crew runs the railroad....
Byron,I'm intrigued by the waybills offered at the Shenandoah website.They offer the 4-cycle pattern which I think will give the ebb and flow feel which I read about in the book on John Allen's railroad.I'm not too keen on renumbering my cars though,so I'll keep pursuing Tab on Car a bit longer.
I did afew card tabs some years ago,but never really had the layout done to the point of really putting the whole thing together.Yes,the tabs are conspicuous,but I'm not really into the modeling side of railroading as I am of running it.
Any other thoughts out there?
Regards to all,Charles.

[Jetrock]

I haven't used tab-on-car, since I am more into the modeling and don't like the look of ugly tabs. I use a switch list/wheel report scheme: I use wheel reports, which assign cars based on type of car and destination, to figure out where I have to spot cars, and assemble trains in the yard based on the wheel report. I make a switch list by copying the information of the cars I'll use on a switch list form. After making up the train, I drop off cars as assigned and pick up an equal number of cars (if there are cars to pick up) at the locations where I drop off cars, creating a flow of cars. I found some switch list forms used by the railroad I model online, and made the wheel reports in Excel. I keep a clipboard with a stack of switch-list forms and pre-made wheel reports stuck to it, with a couple of pencils.

For me, the action of assigning cars and copying down the numbers on a form adds a bit of "roleplaying" to the session that is more realistic than dropping a tab onto the car.

So, as an example: I pull a wheel report that orders two reefers to the cannery, a boxcar to the almond plant, and a tank car to the team track. I peruse the yard and spot two reefers, copy down their numbers on my switch list, and then find a boxcar and a tank car. I pull out of the yard with four cars in tow. At the cannery, there are two boxcars already on the siding so I pull those boxcars and replace them with the two reefers. The almond plant is empty so I spot the boxcar I brought from the yard and move on. The team track has a gondola car in it, which I grab and replace with the tank car. I then return to the yard with two boxcars and a gondola. I move the wheel report to the bottom of the stack, and either discard the switch list or erase it so I can use it again.

No need to track cars, no unsightly tabs on the cars, and if I'm in a hurry I don't even have to fill out the switch list, just use the wheel report as a whole-train dispatch card (as mentioned above, the switch list is roleplaying--just a sophisticated way of going "choo-choo!" while I'm playing with my trains!)

[cmrproducts]

Charles

The Pin system is about the easiest system to use when you are running 40 plus trains during a session.

Now with my layout I have 6 live interchanges with other railroads that run on their own schedule. Wheel reports and switch lists will work on a single railroad but with my system it won’t as I would have to be making up the switch lists in real time. And then each railroad would have its own set of rules to run their trains and now I would be making a list for each of them.

I don’t like paperwork. That is for smaller layouts that need to keep busy. My layout is never that slow.

I also can run my layout myself and what you do is just run each of the shortlines and then run the mainline to do cleanup.

The layout is based on the CR Lowgrade line from Dubois to East Brady, PA. I used the 1984 CR ZTS maps and set up each of the towns as close as I could to the ZTS maps.

I must have a very unique situation on my layout as I have never found any other layout set up similar to mine (active shortlines for interchange vs. staging tracks representing interchange) well maybe one active line but not 6! I have 1000 ft of mainline and 2600 feet total, so this gives you some idea of the degree of OPs we can get into.

I pretty much have blown all of the rules in the current state of OPs and methods. If I was running just one railroad then the other methods might work.

BOB H – Clarion, PA

[BR60103]

Charles:
You can experiment with tab-on-car by making tabs out of plastic H girders and painting them as required. They should be wide enough to sit over the catwalks. You might be able to make plastic washer shapes for tank cars. This will give you enough stuff to see how you like it without defiling your cars. John Allen had to take his markers off before photographing the layout.
I've seen cars with thumbtacks (end up with holes in the roof) and other with clear plastic strips on the roof to hold paper tags. My only actual operating experience has been with switch lists.

[SpaceMouse]

I've been to Bob's place and been part of an op session. I operated a yard for about an hour and a half. Cars came in and out of that yards so fast--often 3 trains waiting on the main to get into the yard and two of us sorting cars so fast we couldn't breathe. Believe me if we had to find paper work on every car that came in, the system would have collapsed. The colored tabs allowed us to make quick decisions on how to break down the trains.

[rrinker]

Interestingly enough, I have in front of me the issue of MR where Ed Ravenscroft introduced the tab concept. Complete with a picture of Ed himself on the cover.

--Randy

[pnig]

I have been using John Allen's system since whenever the magazine was printed. It works beautifully and since before that I went through all the card and switch list flavor of the month schemes, I have stuck with this since then (20 years or more). Since my railroad is a shelf switching layout I added a tracking system. I put a double throw stitch not hooked up to anything in the top left corner of the control panel; up is the large color, down is the small color. I have a large (1" dia) red fiber washer I put on top of the last car I switch this way when I come back to operate the railroad again I can tell what color (large or small) and which car I last switched.

[bearman]

I use switch lists which identify each car in a train and the lists are given to each operator.  I only run two trains and a switcher in the yard.  Takes a little bit of work up front.

[davidmurray]

At home I use c carcard system with four sided waybills.

Our club uses carcards and eight sided waybills.  Four waybill on each side of the paper, and fold in the middle.  Getting to step five requires reversing the fold.

We use a " push" system where a car sits at an industry until a new car arrives, "pushing"  a spotted car out, at which time the operator advances the waybill to the next location,

No maintenance required.

Dave