In praise of car cards and waybills...

[nbrodar]

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 

[dehusman]

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.

[billski]

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

 

[steinjr]

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

 

[Texas Zepher]

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.
 

[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.

[dehusman]

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.

 

[Packers#1]

 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!

[tomikawaTT]

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)

[cv_acr]

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.

[Driline]

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???

[cv_acr]

http://www.shenware.com/

[Texas Zepher]

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.

[pike-62]

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

[Driline]

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.

[cv_acr]

Texas Zepher

dehusman

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.

 

Let's follow an example. A car for an industry on the layout which comes from staging.

The car comes out of staging on a through train and gets dropped off at the yard. Depending on whether or not the yard switcher actually gets around to sorting that track before the local departs, the car could end up sitting in the yard until the next session. Now the car has already taken two sessions to get delivered.

Now let's say the industry is a facing point switch with no nearby runaround, and the local can't set it off in that direction, and has to set it off at the next location or haul it all the way through. The local could be an out and back type of run that returns in the same session, or perhaps it only runs one direction in a session and has a counterpart that runs the other way. Maybe this counterpart train has already been past by the time the first train sets off the car, thus it takes another session for it to be delivered. (Or maybe the train starts in a branchline terminal, runs to the yard and back to the branchline terminal, in which case it will still be the next session before the car is delivered.)

Already, you can see that it could be anywhere from 1-3 sessions to deliver an inbound car, depending on how the car makes connections in the yard.

And one way to make switching more interesting is to add a note to the waybill to "hold x days for loading/unloading" so that your locals don't remove every car from every industry at every session. (it doesn't have to be a big layout or industry to do this, just reduce the number of inbound waybills in a normal session so that the industry doesn't get overloaded. Typically you wouldn't put this on a move destined to staging. That just cycles to the next side.)

In an extreme case, it could easily take 3-4 sessions to fully do one side of the waybill. And then the car could take 1-2 sessions on the outbound move as well, depending on connections in the classification yard.

(Of course, cars the only make east/west (or north/south) through moves from staging to staging will always cycle to the next step after each session)

 

Another solution to the problem of having the same car perform the same 4 moves over and over and over again, is to remove the waybill when it finishes move 4 (or 3 or 2 depending on how many of the "sides" are used). Don't permanently keep the same waybill with the same car forever. Since the waybills are always changing, and it takes anywhere from 4-8 sessions to go through all four moves on the waybill, and if you have a small fleet of similar cars, it becomes almost impossible to see individual cars repeating, unless they're particularly distinctive. (And if you operate say, once/month like my club does, it could take half a year to complete all four moves on the waybill)

[dehusman]

pike-62

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.

Glad you like it.  Hope it helps your sessions.

[dehusman]

Texas Zepher

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 side of a waybill is a destination where it will be loaded or unloaded.  The car may be moved to a dozen "locations" and trains to complete the trip to one destination.  The empty car is picked up from industry, pulled into the yard.  The switcher classifies the car.  The switcher builds an outbound local.  The local runs to the destination town and spots the car.  That's one move, one side of a four move waybill. 

If you run through four sides in one session that means you've had to pull the empty car, switch it, spot the empty car at industry (side 1), load it, pull the load, switch it, spot it at industry (side 2), unload it, pull the empty, switch it, spot it at an industry(side 3), load the car, pull the load, switch it,  and spot it at an industry to be unloaded (side 4) all in ONE session.  That is waaaaaaaay fast.

[Driline]

dehusman

By the way, I have a new version of my MS Access car card and waybill generator program posted in the files section of the CarCards and Rwy-ops-industrialSIG Yahoo groups in the CCGv7 folder.  Its free, it makes car cards, waybills, inventories your cars, engines, track components, structures, electronics components, and library and generates some reports.

The one catch is you have to have MS Access to run it.

Dave H.

 

Dave, do I have to get a yahoo account to download your car card waybill system? Do you have a link to your ccgv7 folder?

[wm3798]

 And if you model the Penn Central, you have take into account the car getting lost for several days due to computer errors, the train being delayed by almost a week on bad track, then the car has to sit in the siding, within 100 yards of the industry track for three more days because they can't get an engine in working order to come out and spot it!

But those would be "situation cards" not waybills...

Lee

[markpierce]

In my opinion, on a small or medium layout where there is little rotation among the operator(s), cars having fixed routines (other than those intended for captive service) will get repetitive/boring.  In such cases, I think it best to change waybills at the end of their last cycle, and better yet, rotate cars on and off the layout periodically, particularly if they are easily distinguishable/unusual/etc.

My experience operating on layouts with sophisticated operating schemes (such as car cards, waybills, and such) that require many (six or more) operators, is that these owners don't usually operate trains but are more likely to be roadmaster, trouble-shooter, or dispatcher.  Thus, they won't notice repetitive movements as easily as those operating the trains.

Mark

[cv_acr]

markpierce

In my opinion, on a small or medium layout where there is little rotation among the operator(s), cars having fixed routines (other than those intended for captive service) will get repetitive/boring.  In such cases, I think it best to change waybills at the end of their last cycle, and better yet, rotate cars on and off the layout periodically, particularly if they are easily distinguishable/unusual/etc.

At my club, we do both.

Here's what happens in between sessions:

- waybills for cars parked at industries are turned (unless they're held for loading/unloading for more than one session) so they're ready for pickup in the next session 

- all waybills for cars in staging are turned. if they're already on the last move, the waybill is removed instead of rotated

- new waybills are assigned. to do this, we have a spreadsheet that list each car type, and uses Excel's random number function to choose a value between the specified minimum and maximum for the number of each type of waybill. Any cars that don't receive a waybill are removed for the next session, and while assigning the waybills, you usually start with the cars that were in storage and not used the previous session. This approach keeps the individual waybill assigned to a specific car always changing, keeps the overall mix of cars on the layout always changing (especially for the through trains which otherwise might always be the same mix of cars), and keeps the number of cars in each train always slightly different which adds to the variety. This way, the same car rarely follows the same pattern (subject to the variety in the waybills you've created for that car type). If you only have a few cars of a given type and all the waybills are the same, then the car's movements could be noticeably repetitive (good for captive/assigned service cars). If you have a good variety of waybills for the car type, then an individual car should ping pong around quite randomly. And given that it could take anywhere from 2 to 4 or 5 sessions to move through even two sides of a waybill, it gets really hard to predict what you might see in a given session. As example, when restaging the club layout recently, one mainline train has no less than 44 cars in it, while it's direct counterpart has only 25. Each of these trains will stop and switch in the main on-layout yard, so that mix will change during the session as you never know how much each will lift after dropping their set-offs.

- once all the waybills are assigned, the inbound trains are blocked and made up and the extra unused cars get shoved into a storage track or shelf in/near the staging yard.

Our layout is quite large, but the same process would _Very_ easily be applied to a smaller layout. (And would actually be less work as there are fewer cars and waybills to handle)

One other technique which we use to really define our traffic (which I've touched on earlier) is using our own really specific car types rather than the generic AAR types. That is, western boxcars (eg. UP, BN, ATSF, etc) are in a different group than eastern US (B&O, C&O, NW, EL, etc. - our time period is the mid 1970s so CSX and [the modern] NS don't exist yet and ConRail was just being created) and a different group than home road boxcars (which are actually divided into several groups based on type and service - eg. dedicated paper service, 40' general service, 40' & 50' double doors assigned to lumber service etc.) Obviously on a smaller layout you wouldn't have to (or probably want to) get this detailed, but it really works for us to define certain types of traffic. For example, you can always tell the Montreal to Sault Ste. Marie (to connect to the SOO Line) trains (911/912) from the massive block of New England boxcars (paper and other bridge traffic from New England to Chicago). These trains also frequently carry and lift CP paper traffic from Quebec and Ontario to Chicago and the US Midwest and handled small blocks of container and TOFC. You can tell them apart instantly from other trains on the layout by the makeup of traffic. :-)

[Driline]

 

Dave, I just downloaded your software and it looks great! Now all I have to do is write down all my train car data.

Do you have a picture of one of your completed waybills or waycards? I'd like to see how the train pic's look on the waycard.

[dehusman]

Driline

Do you have a picture of one of your completed waybills or waycards? I'd like to see how the train pic's look on the waycard.

Yes and no.  I could show you a picture of my car cards, but none of them have pictures, I don't use that feature myself.  I only added it because so many people asked for it.  I use colored 60 lb car card for my car cards generally so any picture wouldn't come out right.  On my layout I want to reinforce the idea of looking for the car initial and number rather than a picture of the car.  Most of the people who want the picures are N scalers where reading car numbers may be an issue.  Most N scale layouts I have operated on are more modern layouts, 1960's or more recent, so the cars are more colorful.  I model the 1900 era so the vast majority of my cars are some shade of brown or reddish brown, or are black.  that makes a picture (especially an itty bitty picture) less useful IMHO.

[Driline]

dehusman

Driline

Do you have a picture of one of your completed waybills or waycards? I'd like to see how the train pic's look on the waycard.

Yes and no.  I could show you a picture of my car cards, but none of them have pictures, I don't use that feature myself.  I only added it because so many people asked for it.  I use colored 60 lb car card for my car cards generally so any picture wouldn't come out right.  On my layout I want to reinforce the idea of looking for the car initial and number rather than a picture of the car.  Most of the people who want the picures are N scalers where reading car numbers may be an issue.  Most N scale layouts I have operated on are more modern layouts, 1960's or more recent, so the cars are more colorful.  I model the 1900 era so the vast majority of my cars are some shade of brown or reddish brown, or are black.  that makes a picture (especially an itty bitty picture) less useful IMHO.

 

I see your point. I model circa 1995 Soo Line, BN, Davenport and Rock Island Davenport division so my cars are more colorful. I still haven't gotten a good grasp on this car card waybill system, but as soon as I enter some information and decide what industries do what on my layout hopefully it will become clear.

Here is a schematic of my layout.

I really only have two industries to switch on the layout. Ralston Purina, and Alter metal company located in Davenport Iowa. Ralston has two tracks, while Alter has only one. The other side of the layout constitutes a small rail yard with turntable located in Bettendorf Iowa.

There is a staging yard that has 3 tracks available and holds approx. 8 cars per track. The layout was mainly built to run trains, not operate them, but I think operation will add alot to the "fun" factor.

Your thoughts???

[super cheif n]

what scale are you?

[Driline]

super cheif n

what scale are you?

 

HO

[dehusman]

Driline

Your thoughts???

What i normally suggest for small layouts is to figure out how many "spots" or cars your industries will hold and then have 1 waybill for each spot.  So if Acme Inustries holds 3 cars you would have Acme 1, Acme 2, Acme 3.  Then for each spot you would write down what cars can be spotted at those locations.  So if Acme 1 can handle both boxcars and reefers then the waybill for Acme 1 would read"

Acme 1

Boxcar - Reefer

Then make a car card for each car. 

Shuffle the waybills and draw about 1/3.  Put them in cars that match the waybill car type (so if Acme 1 was drawn it would go in a boxcar or reefer).  then spot those cars at their industries.  Pick 1/3 of the rest of the waybills, match them to car cards and put hose in the next train to be spotted.  For the next session, pull 1/3 of the waybills from the cars at industry.  Mix them with the remaining 1/3 of the waybills.  Pick a random 1/3 of the waybills and match them with cars for the next session.  In the next session spot the 1/3 in the trrains and pull the 1/3 at industry.  You can keep doing this every session.  Every session will be different and you will never overload an industry. 

[Driline]

dehusman

Driline

Your thoughts???

What i normally suggest for small layouts is to figure out how many "spots" or cars your industries will hold and then have 1 waybill for each spot.  So if Acme Inustries holds 3 cars you would have Acme 1, Acme 2, Acme 3.  Then for each spot you would write down what cars can be spotted at those locations.  So if Acme 1 can handle both boxcars and reefers then the waybill for Acme 1 would read"

Acme 1

Boxcar - Reefer

Then make a car card for each car. 

Shuffle the waybills and draw about 1/3.  Put them in cars that match the waybill car type (so if Acme 1 was drawn it would go in a boxcar or reefer).  then spot those cars at their industries.  Pick 1/3 of the rest of the waybills, match them to car cards and put hose in the next train to be spotted.  For the next session, pull 1/3 of the waybills from the cars at industry.  Mix them with the remaining 1/3 of the waybills.  Pick a random 1/3 of the waybills and match them with cars for the next session.  In the next session spot the 1/3 in the trrains and pull the 1/3 at industry.  You can keep doing this every session.  Every session will be different and you will never overload an industry. 

 

Thanks for the help...I'm copying this and pasting it in word for later reference. How would you use the yard/staging tracks? I'm thinking I have 3 staging tracks, so a couple of Soo consists and maybe a BN head to the yard from staging....drop off loads to be switched at the industries, and then pick up mt's and head back to the staging yard. The Bettendorf yard uses its own switchers (Driline) then to drop cars off at the industries and pick up mt's back to the yard. This was done in real life, so I'm trying to keep it somewhat accurate. Both the BN and SOO owned the Driline and used it for switching small industry in the Quad city Area.

BTW, did you develop this program yourself? Its awesome.....you saved me some big bucks 

[Texas Zepher]

dehusman

A side of a waybill is a destination where it will be loaded or unloaded.  The car may be moved to a dozen "locations" and trains to complete the trip to one destination.  The empty car is picked up from industry, pulled into the yard.  The switcher classifies the car.  The switcher builds an outbound local.  The local runs to the destination town and spots the car.  That's one move, one side of a four move waybill.

Yes, very good explanation, but you state it like I don't know.  I've been operating with way bills and car cards for over 25 years.

If you run through four sides in one session that means you've had to pull the empty car, switch it, spot the empty car at industry (side 1), load it, pull the load, switch it, spot it at industry (side 2), unload it, pull the empty, switch it, spot it at an industry(side 3), load the car, pull the load, switch it,  and spot it at an industry to be unloaded (side 4) all in ONE session.  That is waaaaaaaay fast.

I don't know about waaaay fast, but definitely a lot of moves and this is my point exactly.  If we don't do that, on several of the layouts even with throughs and passengers there aren't enough trains to keep the  10-15 operators busy.  Or they get to run one train and then just sit for the rest of the 4 hours.  I'm not certain some of the cards don't make it through 5 of their "way bills" in one session.