Dave, you're absolutely right! I just don't understand why people want to make more paperwork than run trains.
Its like a really large museum layout in Colorado. Shall we turn up all of the sound on locomotives so that the moment you enter, you hear people blowing horns and ringing bells for no other reason than to hear them.
One would think k that when have engines with all of the bells and whistles, that they'd dim their lights when meeting or holding the main. NOPE, they just blow the horns just to hear them. I'm truly suprised that 90% of sound decoders are so loud on model railroads.
Try reducing the volume down so it fits your scale.After all, one can't hear most diesels idling from a mile away unless you areally at someone's layout.
Just something to think about.
Just remember, whatever floats your boat.
Sounds as if you handle a carload of containers the way I handle a carload of logs, prestressed concrete barricades, scrap machinery or something under a tarp or in a big crate - the waybill has an accompanying 'thing' that goes in a suitable open-top freight car. The 'thing' stays with the waybill, either in a car card ("thing' loaded aboard) or in a box adjacent to the 'pending' waybills. In your case, the 'thing' is a block of containers and the suitable car is a five well articulated snake.
My system works for me, but the origin or destination of such a load is always somewhere in the rest of Japan - with one exception. About twice a month the sawmill at Haruyama ships a load of pit props (mine timbers) to the colliery at the far end of the Tomikawa Tani Tetsudo. That's the only shipment that originates and terminates at two modeled points.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
So to make this a little more clear. Each of my rolling stock including container cars have a car card. Each card has a pocket for a waybill. Containers do not have car cards. Containers are the load. There is a waybill for each container. Actually each waybill represents a block of containers. I’m not going to try to cram ten waybills into the pocket of an articulated five car unit so I made waybills that represent blocks of ten containers. I have blocks of 1, 2, 6, and 10 containers plus blocks of 2-20’ containers.
There is a difference in types of containers. You can tell the shipping containers because they have an extra number inside a box. This is a checksum number to make sure the other numbers were read correctly. Trucking company containers do not have theses.
When the waybill says load ten 40’ shipping container in Long Beach (located in a staging yard) I put that actual containers in the car and turn the way bill. It routes the container car to a city or hub somewhere to the EAST which is beyond they basement. The container came from Asia but the waybill says Load in: Long Beach because that is where the train picks it up. Where it is going (most likely Chicago) doesn’t matter. It is leaving my layout by heading east so the waybill just says To: East
When the waybill says load ten 48’ trucking containers in San Bernardino, an empty container car is sent to the intermodal facility on my layout. The containers is loaded onto the car and the waybill is turned. It is then sent to the East, or sometimes west but mostly east.
I model what Dave H described in prototype. A couple of my freight cars are JNR standard container carriers, designed to carry three or five standard JNR containers. There is no container handling facility modeled on the visible track of my layout, so the cars are waybilled from staging to staging - and spend a lot of time in a cassette in off-layout storage. Needless to say, the individual boxes don't have waybills.
Dave H, is correct......
Take Care!
Frank
The way the prototype works is there is a waybill for the car that drives the movement of the car. There are also waybills on the containers, but they really don't matter that much from the standpoint ot the train operations. Because a container or piggyback can be grounded and rubber tired, the destination of the box isn't that important, its where the car is going that counts.
For example if I bill a container in China to a Walmart in Little Rock Arkansas, the waybill will have a destination of Little Rock. But the box will be put on a car with a waybill to Marion, AR, near Memphis. So the car (and the containers on it) is going to go to Memphis. Even though the train will most likely drive right through Little Rock on its way to Memphis/Marion, the car and the container aren't billed there and won't be set out.
Why?
Because the ramp is at Marion, the container will be grounded and drayed back to Little Rock.
Because of that, its the waybill on the CAR, not the BOX that drive the railroad's handling of the CAR.
I don't model intermodal (not my era) but if I did I wouldn't bother with billing the boxes, only the cars. The crews never see the box bills, all they do is look at the billing on the car.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
What my containers represent are waybills. They have their container name and destination to their location, cargo being carried, which train their supposed to be on, and placed on a well car.
On the bottom of the container is a piece of paper with a specific number for that locomotive's destination. Each container has a different color dot next to that number.
It makes operating more fun like the real thing. I haven't done trailers yet, but I believe it be the same.
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.
I have way bills representing my containers and trailers. The containers are categorized by length and if they are ‘shipping containers’ or ‘trucking containers’. Shipping containers are loaded onto container cars in Long Beach California while trucking containers are loaded onto cars in San Bernardino. Both are headed east. Shipping containers tend to be more colorful while trucking containers are mostly white. I do have some traffic going the other way but mostly it’s stuff from Asia and California heading to the mid west and east coast.
Here is a thought I have had for quite sometime. Is there anyone who utilizes waybills for their intermodal movements(meaning the containers) as well as their freight cars? In going over pdfs on the subject from some of the Class Is websites I notice that much of it could be useful in utilizing how to move containters and add variety to the types and colors of containers, trailers, etc.
The labelling would also say something about the era one is modelling. The reason for this is that the labels on them have become much more descriptive since 9/11. They now have listings for routing, vessel, and of course the warning labels should their loads be hazardous materials. Prior to terrorism rising, it was not uncommon to see FAK on loads that were not harmful at all.
I guess I am just curious to know if I am not alone in my method of thinking.
Have a good weekend.