What else does a beginner need to know about operations?

[jhugart]

I have the book by Tony Koester. It covers a lot of stuff, but I'd still like some clarification:

1. If using waybills, you pretty much have a separate little folder for each car or string of cars you treat as a unit, correct? So what happens to these? Does the operator in charge of a train walk around holding a dozen little envelopes with cards? Or does he only take the switch list and the waybill stuff is left with the dispatcher?

2. The distinction between different control methods (timetable and train order, CTC, ABS, etc.) seems understandable, but I'm not clear on the eras when such things were used. Did larger railroads like C&NW start with one and progress through others? Do smaller roads today still practice some 'older' methods? Or are there general periods we can label as "the CTC era" or "the train order era"?

3. A lot of train control seems to assume one-track mainline. When does a prototype add tracks to a mainline? Does the nature of signalling and control change with multi-track mains?

I want to model a road set in the UP of Michigan from the 1920s to the 1940s, but I don't want to kick off with some complicated process.

[jfugate]

Jacob:

About the waybills ... we use car cards on my HO Siskiyou Line with the four-cycle waybills and we've had 7 years of formal operations now. The yardmaster clips the car cards for a train together with one of those large binder clips and hands it to the conductor for the train.

We use two-person crews: engineer and conductor. The conductor is in charge of the train; the engineer runs the locomotive and takes orders from the conductor. The conductor will take the car cards pack he gets from the yardmaster and check that all cars are accounted for in the train and that all the waybills have destinations as expected.

Depending on what the waybills say for destination, the conductor will know what he needs to do with the cars in his train.

We also use train procedure sheets, with one for each train. The train procedure sheet tells the conductor what the train is expected to do, what towns it picks up or drops off cars in, and so on.

The conductor gets a clipboard with a train procedure sheet on it, and he typically clips one end of the binder clip handle to the clipboard as well. The conductor communicates with the dispatcher and gets his orders (Track Warrants on the Siskiyou Line) so he can move his train.

Hope that helps waybills and car cards make some more sense to you.

There's more information here on my web site:
http://siskiyou.railfan.net/ops_ds.html
http://siskiyou.railfan.net/ops_cc.html

[orsonroy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jhugart

I have the book by Tony Koester. It covers a lot of stuff, but I'd still like some clarification:

1. If using waybills, you pretty much have a separate little folder for each car or string of cars you treat as a unit, correct? So what happens to these? Does the operator in charge of a train walk around holding a dozen little envelopes with cards? Or does he only take the switch list and the waybill stuff is left with the dispatcher?

I've always operated (on my own layouts and at others) by carrying around all the car cards and their pockets. Ususally, they're all binder clipped together, so you don't make a mess when you drop them. Most modelers preblock trains so all cars for a specific town are clustered together. In the steam era, that only happened some of the time, so I suspect that this modelling practice is to keep car card handeling to a minimum.

QUOTE:
2. The distinction between different control methods (timetable and train order, CTC, ABS, etc.) seems understandable, but I'm not clear on the eras when such things were used. Did larger railroads like C&NW start with one and progress through others? Do smaller roads today still practice some 'older' methods? Or are there general periods we can label as "the CTC era" or "the train order era"?

TT/TO, CTC, PTC, and all other period signalling are nominally concurrent. The first basic signals came out in the 1850s, and the first CTC system came out before 1910 (although most CTC was added during and after WWII). Some roads just added CTC to a particularly busy part of a mainline, leaving the rest as "dark" territory. It usually requires a full understanding of the road's history to figure out WHY different parts of the road used different operating procedures, but it's usually pretty simple to squirrel up where those operating types were used (and when).

QUOTE:
3. A lot of train control seems to assume one-track mainline. When does a prototype add tracks to a mainline? Does the nature of signalling and control change with multi-track mains?

RR's will add a second main for all sorts of reasons. Usually, increased traffic, conjestion and a positive cash flow has the most to do with the decision to multi-track, but don't forget ego as a HUGELY powerful influence, especially in the good old days (why else would the NYC and PRR each have parallel four track mains heading into Chicago?). But remember that more mainlines don't necessarily mean faster schedules. The Nickel Plate was always a single track road, but ran the fastest freight schedules in the East (mostly due to better organization at terminals). As for signalling multitrack mains, the signals themselves usually change, but the operations are about the same. There are more route indications and the signals are usually closer together (more signalling = more and more frequent messages to train crews = faster schedules)

QUOTE:
I want to model a road set in the UP of Michigan from the 1920s to the 1940s, but I don't want to kick off with some complicated process.

Starting operations is nowhere near complicated. True it CAN be, but so long as you start out with car cards, waybills and some sort of schedule, you've got all you need to run successful OP sessions. Once you're comfortable with the basics, adding a real timetable, signalling, train orders, and CTC can all be worked in later.

[AntonioFP45]

Thanks for the info guys. I definitly will use a simplified prototypical style approach on my layout.

A long while back someone posted a website where there were free downloadable samples of Waybills and/or Track Warrants.

Any of you remember it?

[Anonymous]

Wow, yes, thank you for the very useful information in the replies.