Graham Line Instead of paper clips, he used a brass-and-celluloid clip to slide down the list of destinations -- probably a thoroughly obsolete item in office supply stores now.
Instead of paper clips, he used a brass-and-celluloid clip to slide down the list of destinations -- probably a thoroughly obsolete item in office supply stores now.
I've actually seen some of these recently. No idea what they'd actually be called to track them down.
I GOT IT ! well not really, I did gain a basic understanding, and quite a few ideas.
I started to design my own simple, system based on your input, looks workable on paper, we'll see if it pans out, but its a start.I can see right off I need a yard or someplace for the cars to come from and go to.
Thank you all
I print my own car cards and way bills using the NMRA's links.
http://www.nmra.org.au/sigs/waybills4.html
Here's a link to supplies for car cards.
http://www.micromark.com/SearchResult.aspx?deptIdFilter=0&searchPhrase=car+cards
Also our local Division of the NMRA sells starter kits and supplies for the car card system. Your's may also.
Nice on starting this thread. I'm quite interested in using car cards since that copies real life operations.
Thanks to all for providng a dummy version for many to more easily replicate. I read that making a set of cubes to hold the car cards is quite simple. Of course nothing is simple until actually done.
Tony Koester's operations book is a very good starting point and is pretty well grounded in prototype practices.
Dave Nelson's comment interested me:
"Another car forwarding idea in MR but I can't seem to find the article, which a buddy used for a long time on his layout, was a card with a sequence of destinations for a given car, showing loads to industries where approprite, and routings back to the home road afterwards, and a tight paper clip would be moved down in each operation session to identify the next movement, or not, of that car (and it had a space for an "off the layout" idea from staging which kept the layout fresh and not routing the same cars month after month)"
I have heard this described as the "Omaha system" and used it for several years on the layout of a Union Pacific claims agent who ended up in Oregon after starting his career in Omaha. Instead of paper clips, he used a brass-and-celluloid clip to slide down the list of destinations -- probably a thoroughly obsolete item in office supply stores now.
After searching quite a bit, I've never been able to find an article describing this system. With the traffic patterns on his L-shaped railroad, we were able to move quite a bit of traffic without any special set-up.
If the car was not at the point named on the card, the routine procedures on the railroad dictated what train picked up the car, and where it was sent. There could be two or three intermediate stops before the car reached its destination -- at which point the tab would be slid down to the next one.
fieryturbo How are intermodal waybills handled?
How are intermodal waybills handled?
I have a car card for each car. If the intermodal car has 3 or 5 units permanently attached I consider it one car. The railroads usually number them that way and add A, B, or C etc.
The waybills represent the loads, which are either containers or trailers. I have the number of waybills for how many containers I wish to load that day, not an exact count of how many containers or trailers I actually own. Waybills do not match actual containers, only the demand.
j....
UNCLEBUTCHCould someone explane the ''basic'' card system for switching ?
I presented a forum clinic here many years ago that may go into more depth than you want at this stage, but at least the first page or so deals with some of the basics.http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/46614.aspx
One can start very simply and add detail over time (or never) -- that's one of the things I really like about car card and waybill. And it's self-correcting!
I encourage you to try it -- I think it adds purpose to running the layout.
Byron
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
fieryturboHow are intermodal waybills handled?
Model railroaders typically only route the car, not the individual containers or trailers. Since we don't actually separately move the containers or trailers to any other locations on a layout, that's all the detail you need.
you might be interested in Tony Koester's Realistic Model Railroad Operation.
He has a getting started section, just switch cars by odd or even numbers. And he has a chapter on car cards.
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
charlie9 Back when I worked with intermodal, and that was a long time ago, each car had 3 waybills. 1 was a car movement bill that showed which ramp the car went to and there was a separate waybill for each trailer showing untimate distination and consignee for that trailer. In the event of an overhead movement, the waybill showed the connecting road, route and junction point at which the car would be interchanged along with final ramp distination while the trailer waybills were still separate for each trailer. Charlie
Back when I worked with intermodal, and that was a long time ago, each car had 3 waybills. 1 was a car movement bill that showed which ramp the car went to and there was a separate waybill for each trailer showing untimate distination and consignee for that trailer. In the event of an overhead movement, the waybill showed the connecting road, route and junction point at which the car would be interchanged along with final ramp distination while the trailer waybills were still separate for each trailer.
Charlie
Julian
Modeling Pre-WP merger UP (1974-81)
The basic concept is to simulate the shipment of goods and the movement of cars so your railroad has a purpose.
At the lowest level it just tells you where to put the cars.
At the higher levels it simulates a variety of prototype pieces of paper used to more cars and shipments around.
Lowest level, get some 3x5 cards and on each car write down the name of a place you can spot a car at industry to be loaded or unloaded. Shuffle the cards and draw the number of cards you want in your train, then put that many cars in your train and spot one car at each place you have a card for. If there is already a car at that spot, pull that car and take it back to the yard with you.
Next you can indicate which type of car each spot uses, so you don't end up spotting hopper cars at the creamery. Then you can either draw cards and switch out the right mix of cars to match the cards or you can pick cards to match the cars in your train.
The classic version is called "car cards and waybills" (CCWB). A waybill is the prototype document that railroads use to direct the movement of the cars, it is the "ticket" for the car. It has the car number, information about the shipper, the consignee (the reciever) and the commodity (plus billing information). In the 1960's modelers realized that if you separated the car info from the shipment information (origin, destination, commodity), you could make a reusable document so you wouldn't have to rewrite the information over and over. So they put the car information on a "car card" and the shipment information on a "waybill" and when you put the two together you get the equivalent of a real waybill document.
Most CC&WB systems have a card card that is made of heavy paper or card stock with the bottom half folded up to make a pocket. The waybills are slips of the same paper that are sized to fit in the pocket of the car card and have about half the waybill visible sticking up out of the pocket.
Since you only see one half of one side of the waybill, people realized that you could put 4 different destinations on the waybill. Not everybody uses the 4 move system (most of my waybills are 2 move).
For every shipment there are 2 parts, one loaded, one empty. If an industry loads cars (a coal mine), the cars have and empty move in and a loaded move out. If an industry unloads cars (a power plant) then it will have a loaded move in and an empty move out.
You can make the system as simple or complex as you want. You can have the minimal information and one move waybills. All you really need is a destination, where to send the car. Next up the car type, then maybe the origin, where the car came from and lastly what's in the car, the commodity.
I am helping a friend of mine build a version of a CC&WB system based on actual ATSF paperwork that uses 4 different forms for empty car orders and returns (slip bill, meat slip bill, assigned car slip bill, and reverse route waybill) and three different waybill forms (car load, perishable and livestock). His CC&WB system will be used to support a handwritten list system. Definitely the graduate level of complexity.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Some good info above so far, but since you asked for the "for dummies" version, let's really strip it down to the bare minimum concept:
- A real railcar has a shipping document indicating the car, its contents, and where it's going. (A bit more detail, but that's the basic requirements. This doc might be electronic today, but technically exists)
- On the model we represent this but make the paperwork infinitely reusable by separating the car info and load info into separate pieces (the "car card" and "waybill"). Both together represent the info on a prototype shipping waybill
So, the absolute minimum, basic car card/waybill system is as follows:
1. The car card minimally has the car initials and number. Anything else descriptive is a bonus.
2. The car card is folded to make a pocket into which the "waybill" (shipment info) will be inserted
3. The "waybill" minimally includes the "To" destination (receiver) of the car. Shipper, contents, routing or other information is optional but helps add to the feel we're actually moving cargo.
4. With the "waybill" inserted into the "car card", the two together will tell you where to move that car.
Everything else is improvements or variations on this.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
To keep things simple for the model railroad though, I would just bill the car itself with a load of Containers.
The "classic" article by Doug Smith on car cards and operation is in the December 1961 issue. Quite apart from computer generated switch lists and other higher tech ideas which have come out, there have been other refinements on the "analog" Doug Smith system such as the 4 cycle waybill idea that MicroMark offers as a package but which of course you could do yourself.
But the Doug Smith system certainly still works and may be a good way to get your feet wet into the whole idea of disciplined car forwarding and switching. Indeed in my view you might get more out of Doug Smith's article on car cards if you also read his older article on operations in general in the October 1957 issue of MR.
Another car forwarding idea in MR but I can't seem to find the article, which a buddy used for a long time on his layout, was a card with a sequence of destinations for a given car, showing loads to industries where approprite, and routings back to the home road afterwards, and a tight paper clip would be moved down in each operation session to identify the next movement, or not, of that car (and it had a space for an "off the layout" idea from staging which kept the layout fresh and not routing the same cars month after month)
Thanks to the all-time digital archives these citations to old articles are no longer an academic or useless bit of trivia.
Dave Nelson
I use a simplified version of the car card system I first read about in the V&O Story. I made it easy enough that my elementary school age kids can operate and switch trains or I can have solo operating sessions, operating one train at a time while the other trains wait on sidings or are suspended in time. After all on my layout several miles are represented in only an few short feet of HO scale track. The 3 x 5 inch (note card) car cards are printed on a color printer and include the colorful logo of the owner (Santa Fe, etc.) The cards are printed like a deck of cards so that they can be held like a poker hand. This makes them easy to handle and sort through. Also printed on the car is the type of car (box car etc.), the car's owner, the car's number, it's reporting marks (A.T.S.F.), and it's destination when empty. Since I operate the Santa Fe these cars are returned to the yard as are private owner cars like Railbox and Trailer Train. Union Pacific and Southern Pacific cars are returned to them via the interchange siding. All others are returned to either "East" or "West" and will be transferred back to their home road at some other point on the line which is not in the section modeled.
The car cards have pockets made out of cut up strips of ziplock baggies. They are taped onto the cards with clear tape. I make them about half the length of the waybills for easy insertion and removal. The car cards for the cars located in the yard are stored in a plastic card file which has dividers for each destination, east, west, local areas etc. Along the layout there are shelves in the benchwork which hold the cards for the local industries and for trains which are waiting on sidings.
Waybills The waybills are color coated for each day. Yellow for Monday, blue for Tuesday etc. This way I can have variety instead of reliving the same day over and over again. This is great for those special deliveries using that uncommon car or special flatbed load that isn't seen every day. With this seven day system you can have seasonal crops and other seasonal items only on certain days to represent changing seasons. The waybills are kept in a small box which is separated into sections for each type of car, boxcar etc. When a car needs a new assignment it gets the top waybill from the proper section. It can only take a waybill if it is the correct color for that day. On Monday you can only use a yellow waybill. If the top waybill is blue then all of Monday's demand has been met and the car will remain empty and either be returned home empty or left in the yard for another day.
In creating the waybills I had to figure out how many were needed for each day. First I figured out the which businesses receive empty cars and load them to be shipped off the layout. That was fairly easy because you can look right at the business and say that, High Desert Plastics has an output of two boxcars a day, seven days a week. While Sports Co, the clothing manufacturer has an output of one car every other day, monday through friday. Next I figured out which businesses received loaded cars from off the layout. These ones will have to be routed off the layout first as empties so they can return with the proper load. A good example of this is centerbeams which arrive loaded with lumber from the pacific northwest. They are delivered to the local lumber yard. When the empties are picked up and returned to the yard they must be returned to their owner. Since there is no loads headed back that direction the centerbeams are returned empty with a waybill that sends the empty car off the layout to be loaded and when loaded, to be delivered to the local lumber yard. So to keep things simple the waybill only lists the most important information. The empty information is on one side and the loaded info is on the back. After the car has been loaded the waybill is turned over. When the car is unloaded the waybill is removed and placed back in the waybill box.
I made templates for printing this from a computer but you could do it all by hand. My original cards and waybills where just black or blue pen.
The basic version of this is covered in the Bruce Chubb How To Operate Your Model Railroad, issued in the 1970s by Kalmbach, out of print but reasonably priced used at Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/How-Operate-Your-Model-Railroad/dp/0890245282
If you're on the MR Digital Archive, you might do a search on Doug Smith to get his articles on the same thing from the early 1960s. Some modelers have done a more simplified version of card operation, for instance see http://kingsportdivision.blogspot.com/2016/02/operations-3-car-carrying-member.html
Butch:
The first thing you need for a car forwarding system is that EVERY place that you could send a car have a name. If an industry has two spot on the same track, two names, e.g. "shipping dock" and "receiving dock".
Then for each car, you need a file card pocket. The pocket has the cars reporting number, and a basic description on it e.g. CN423456 brown, 40' light weathering.
The next thing is cards to fit into these pockets. These cards are car movement orders, and can be two, three, or four sided.
First side: To. Jeffery Furniture
40' boxcar
EMPTY
Dock (where to spot)
The second side, usually down by rotating the card 180 degrees is the same except it is where the car, goes after Jeffrey Furn.
If possible more sides, otherwise back to the yard, empty.
I have cars go to a industry, to a off line customer, back from offline with materials for some online industry.
Between sessions, the owner/host needs to turn selected cards at industries to show that they are ready for their next move.
Then draw cards and send empties to industries needing them.
When operating, a car at Jefferies whose card says it is going to Jeffries will not be moved.
I prefer to put a two letter town code in the upper left code on each side, and often a circled number on the upper right to show which step it is at.
You could have cards that route a car from A loaded to B and then empty to C and loaded to D and then empty to A
Dave
Could someone explane the ''basic'' card system for switching ? Every thing I found seems to talk about inproveing ,or using it high tech.
I need the For Dummy version
I heard or read about using reg. playing cards, and of coarse buying all kinds of packages
I'm looking for the very basic introduction, can you help?
thanks