General Discussion (Model Railroader)

To each his own.

I don't mind the tab/tack on car system.  I also don't mind car cards/waybills.

One thing I don't like about the four cycle waybills is the "rigidity" of the basic system.  Generally, most people cycle the waybill every session, which generates lots of action, but doesn't really simulate the customer's interaction with the RR's agent.

I modified my card car system to use demand or scenario cards, that give instructions for each customer:  no work; pull car at spot A, spot inbound at A; pull spots A and B, no cars to spot; etc.

Nick 

nbrodar wrote:

One thing I don't like about the four cycle waybills is the "rigidity" of the basic system.  Generally, most people cycle the waybill every session, which generates lots of action, but doesn't really simulate the customer's interaction with the RR's agent. I modified my card car system to use demand or scenario cards, that give instructions for each customer:  no work; pull car at spot A, spot inbound at A; pull spots A and B, no cars to spot; etc.

That's not a limitation of the 4 move waybill, that's just how the owner sets up his waybills and manages the process.  If there is no work then don't turn any of the waybills.  If you want to pull spot A, then turn the waybill on spot A.  If you want a car to go to spot A then put the spots on the waybill.  It can be done with just the 4 move waybill.

You are correct, a demand/activity/scenario card can be very useful for adding activities or diverting a car from its normal route or destination.  I use them a lot for hold for agent "empty' cars.  Empties going towards the steel mill all get a "hold for agent" card.  When the industry "orders" a car for loading, the hold card is pulled and the regular empty move of the cycle is used.

Dave H.

Dave H.

Where canI I purchase Rail-Op - I have searched on line with no success.

 

billski:

Where canI I purchase Rail-Op - I have searched on line with no success.

 Well, then I assume that http://www.railop.com must not be the place ?

 It is the very first hit when using www.google.com to search for any of "railop", "rail-op" or "rail op".

 Smile,
 Stein

 

wm3798:

Anyhoo, a couple of months ago, I was fretting about whether to expend the effort to really organize car cards and waybills, but now I think I'm going to enjoy the layout a lot more once that's up and running.... Sure, it takes a little discipline,

And that is a joy most model railroaders will never understand or partake in because they don't have the discipline to do this sort of thing.   This is my first thought when someone says they have become "bored" with their trains, they aren't operating them.
 

nbrodar:

One thing I don't like about the four cycle waybills is the "rigidity" of the basic system.  Generally, most people cycle the waybill every session, which generates lots of action, but doesn't really simulate the customer's interaction with the RR's agent.

You've noticed that too?  I started pondering on this issue last June at an operating session as I moved a car through the same circuit as the operating session before.   I developed an 8-cycle waybill but it really has the same issues, just a longer cycle.  I've put together some real modifications and written an article I hope to get published.  The hard part is not assuming the customer's demands are identical year to year or month to month.

Texas Zepher:

You've noticed that too?  I started pondering on this issue last June at an operating session as I moved a car through the same circuit as the operating session before.   I developed an 8-cycle waybill but it really has the same issues, just a longer cycle.  I've put together some real modifications and written an article I hope to get published.  The hard part is not assuming the customer's demands are identical year to year or month to month.

That would seem to me that if you moved through an entire 4 sided waybill in one session then the waybill wasn't set up right, the waybill just had through train moves, a single session simulated 3 or 4 days worth of scale time or the owner is serving WAAAAAY too many caffenated beverages.  I have seen waybills where it might take 2 or 3 sessions just to make it through one side.  A car is interchanged, the local carries it to the division point, the division point classifies it and  puts it on a train to the branch junction, the branch junction local takes it to the industry and spots it.  Easily 2 or 3 session on just one side of a waybill.

 

 Cool post Lee. I looked at what to do for operations a while back, and since it's jsut a small branch line, I decided on just having a switchlist. Dang, your layout handles a lot of coal!

Texas Zepher:

nbrodar:

One thing I don't like about the four cycle waybills is the "rigidity" of the basic system.  Generally, most people cycle the waybill every session, which generates lots of action, but doesn't really simulate the customer's interaction with the RR's agent.

You've noticed that too?  I started pondering on this issue last June at an operating session as I moved a car through the same circuit as the operating session before.   I developed an 8-cycle waybill but it really has the same issues, just a longer cycle.  I've put together some real modifications and written an article I hope to get published.  The hard part is not assuming the customer's demands are identical year to year or month to month.

My answer to that is dead simple.  While I do have some four-cycle waybills, they are used only when a shipper can 'capture' an unloaded car from the same town for an outbound load.  Once that outbound load has been delivered (usually to a track in staging) that waybill is removed from that car and put in the back of a stack of waybills for that type of car.  It is replaced by a waybill from the front of the stack, which may involve a completely different routing and destination.  When the first waybill migrates to the front of the stack, the car which delivered it is very unlikely to be in line to get it back.  More likely it will be spotted somewhere, half way through the cycle of another waybill.

I can get away with this because I spent a railroadless tour in a combat zone generating waybills for use with the car cards of cars I didn't yet own, for use on a railroad that would finally be built four decades later!  (It's still under construction.)

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with waybills created in 1972)

Texas Zepher:

nbrodar:

One thing I don't like about the four cycle waybills is the "rigidity" of the basic system.  Generally, most people cycle the waybill every session, which generates lots of action, but doesn't really simulate the customer's interaction with the RR's agent.

You've noticed that too?  I started pondering on this issue last June at an operating session as I moved a car through the same circuit as the operating session before.   I developed an 8-cycle waybill but it really has the same issues, just a longer cycle.  I've put together some real modifications and written an article I hope to get published.  The hard part is not assuming the customer's demands are identical year to year or month to month.

 Actually the card & waybill system can be very flexible, it depends on how you actually use the system.

At our club layout, we have a spreadsheet that we print off when setting up trains for staging. In between the sessions, you remove the waybills from cars that are in staging and have completed the last move on the waybill. Not just rotate them back to move #1. Then the spreadsheet can say for example "assign 2 waybills for this type, 3 of this type, 1 of this type, 0 of this type etc." and you take a number of waybills based on the spreadsheet list and assign them to appropriate cars in staging. This spreadsheet acts as our customer demand simulator. (In our case, we have set up pools of waybills, so the various "types" of waybills can vary from "boxcars for loading paper at XYZ Paper Mill" to "misc. through boxcars from the west" this allows the traffic for each industry and through traffic to be finely balanced)

It adds a little complexity to the staging activity between sessions, but does a really good job of simulating both the different types of traffic and the small variances in demand.

Gale-B&M:

A really great software package for Carcards/Waybills is available from Shenandoah Software at http://members.aol.com/Shenware/index.html   Allows creating and printing 4-sided waybills and carcards in various formats.

I've used the software for (5) years creating approx 1000 waybills and am very pleased with the product.  There are (2) programs available.  MiTrains for inventory and carcards; and Waybills for waybills.  Many extra features are built-in such as including 6000+ actual U.S. industries using 600+ commodities to choose from.  Print programs allow easy printing and can include rolling stock photos.

There is a 30-day free download available for trial.

Gale

 

Website is gone. Is there another link???

http://www.shenware.com/

dehusman:

the waybill just had through train moves, a single session simulated 3 or 4 days worth of scale time

No, it doesn't.  An 0perating session is a single 24 hour day.  There just isn't enough territory to let a car sit at an industry a "scale" amount of time be it a day or a week or whatever.

I have seen waybills where it might take 2 or 3 sessions just to make it through one side.

Two or three sessions to make a car move two places?   There must be a whole lot of places to put cars on that layout, or very few trains/operators.   Now I do know of pre-programmed operating sessions where once the car has reached the waybill destination it halts the motion of that car so it is basically dead until the next "set up".  In that was each car makes only one move per operating session, so it takes 4 sessions to cycle a card.  But those are some monster layouts, and they require hours of set up time before EACH operating session.  The ones I'm talking about are the perpetual type that require almost zero set up between sessions.

A car is interchanged, the local carries it to the division point, the division point classifies it and  puts it on a train to the branch junction, the branch junction local takes it to the industry and spots it.  Easily 2 or 3 session on just one side of a waybill.

Once again sounds like a very large layout and very few trains. 

The real point I was trying to make is that a car circulates through exactly the same four sets of moves.  How noticeable those four moves are is a factor of many things.  Adding "return when empty to" breaks the cycle up a bit and adds more yard work.

Dave

I just finished downloading your latest carcard database. I lost the last one I had to a computer problem. I must say, the new version is a lot more robust than the old version I had. I need to get all of my cars entered back into it and am looking forward to getting it all set up again. Thanks for all of the work you do on this program.

 

Dan

corlissbs:

With my old layout I used car cards, but on my new layout. I bought a computer program that picks the cars and builds trains and routes the cars to industrial tracks that they belong on.  The computer does all (There is a manual over ride, in case I want it.) and prints a manifest or switch list for every train.  Each siding has a list of car types that it should accept in the computer.  Once the data for every town, route and train has been entered, the computer does the rest.  I just print up a switch list for each train and go to work.  The computer decides how long the car will stay at each industry and where it will go next.  There are not just four sides to a card; the car can go to as many possible sidings as I have designated.  The computer keeps track of where each car is and won't overfill sidings, etc.  I love the program.  It is called Rail-Op.

 

I suspect with a single post and a recommendation for a $140 piece of software, you must have some financial gain with this product. I would be interested if any other posters other than yourself use and recommend this "pricey" software.