CAR CARD OPERATIONS

[superchief]

I have operated on Dean(colddriver) with the tabs and have watched Mark Dance's video and spoke with him 2 years ago at sound rails and it convinced me to go with car tabs. I have held about 15 sessions since and I am not going back to computer switch lists or car cards. I have about 900 cars on the layout and it took a while to make the tabs( it would of taken longer to fill out the car cards!!) I did not see it listed before but the tab is painted(this will tell to town the car will go to) and then some marking on the colored tab( this will tell where in the town to car is to be spotted). So a Tank or coal car with a yellow tab mark with "JF" will go to the town of Marceline, MO. and will be spotted at Johnson Fuels. This make classing the cars in the yard very simple and blocking very easy!!! For smooth roof passenger cars and tank cars I bought some poster tack and put a little ball under the tab and the tab stays put. I think the tabs work great and as we all get a bit older reading some of the numbers id getting hard, like on the lower section of the tank cars.
                                                                                 Gordon Bliss - Santa Fe-All the Way

[Rossford Yard]

I have operated on Dean(colddriver) with the tabs and have watched Mark Dance's video and spoke with him 2 years ago at sound rails and it convinced me to go with car tabs. I have held about 15 sessions since and I am not going back to computer switch lists or car cards. I have about 900 cars on the layout and it took a while to make the tabs( it would of taken longer to fill out the car cards!!) I did not see it listed before but the tab is painted(this will tell to town the car will go to) and then some marking on the colored tab( this will tell where in the town to car is to be spotted). So a Tank or coal car with a yellow tab mark with "JF" will go to the town of Marceline, MO. and will be spotted at Johnson Fuels. This make classing the cars in the yard very simple and blocking very easy!!! For smooth roof passenger cars and tank cars I bought some poster tack and put a little ball under the tab and the tab stays put. I think the tabs work great and as we all get a bit older reading some of the numbers id getting hard, like on the lower section of the tank cars.
                                                                                 Gordon Bliss - Santa Fe-All the Way

Gordon,

For some reason, I like looking at my yard tracks and seeing a string of the same color tabs on each track.  Maybe part of our satisfaction with MR ops is doing a job well done.  When having to read car nos., etc., you are never really sure.  When I see a string of yellow dots on one track, red on the next, it makes me happy.  And, if one car happens to be at the long end of a track with the wrong dot, almost impossible not to go cherry picking, but maybe I'm a bit OCD.

You have one of the great N scale Ops layouts I have seen, and no use not to enjoy that to the fullest, IMHO.

[railnerd]

That's my HO club, Silicon Valley Lines— that session was recorded in Spring 2019.

-Dave

[John]

That's my HO club, Silicon Valley Lines— that session was recorded in Spring 2019.

-Dave

Nice ... whats with the chain link fence partitions?

[John]

I found this on JMRI io groups .. its a comparison of JMRI Ops vs ShipIt ..

[Hoot]

I realize that this is not prototypical paperwork for the Pacific Electric, but this is for a model railroad, and I am using artwork from an era correct notepad

This is in Excel, so it can be edited as needed. I also plan to draw up a SPINS (Southern Pacific Industrial Numbing System, a map of all tracks) sheet for the branch, that is why there is a SPINS column, to match up with the track number.

That looks quite similar to something I read in MR awhile back. Jim Hediger used a form like that on his OS, he called it a wheel report. If I recall correctly it was not only easier to manage but easier for new operators to figure out. I think he made up multiples for each train (I want to say it was 10 but I could be wrong) so that each operating session not only the were the same cars showing up at the same place but the was and ebb and flow to each industry. The form tells you what type of car to put where, and the operator just picks the car in the train.

[cv_acr]

Personally, I've never liked the 4-cycle car cards and waybills system.  I feel like it locks the layout into a never-ending and unchanging cycle that just gets repeated over and over.

Only if you use it in such a rigid fashion.

Expand your mind.

Remove the waybill when the last move is completed, and assign new ones. The CC&WB system can be EXTREMELY flexible if you make it.

[R L Smith]

Just discovered this thread...    Not enough hours in the week to keep up  with TRW!

I've been into ops for several years; most layouts I operated on used car cards and waybills.  I used them on my own layouts until about 10 years ago, after reading an article in NMRA Magazine (then called Scale Rails) about Industry Cards. 

Instead of having a car card for each freight car, I have a card for each industry spot. The card lists the industry name and spot (if more than 1), the type of car to be spotted (40' box, tank, coal hopper, etc). After spotting a car at the location, the card is flipped and contains much of the same info but also has instructions on where to send that car (typically the nearest interchange track) when it is picked up.  Colored dice determine how many cars are setout and picked up at each town.




The biggest advantage is, no need to read reporting marks. Also, fewer cards to write (most layouts have many more cars than they do industrial spurs). One can take the cards and hand-write a switch list or wheel report if that is your preferred method of operating. And, you won't find the same boxcar going to the same siding on a repetitive basis because no two locals will ever be the same. The use of dice provides randomness in the train makeup for each session. Said another way, each op session runs the Wayland Turn. But the consist of the Wayland Turn will be different each session - the number of cars and the industries switched are determined by the roll of the dice.

I did a PowerPoint clinic at an NMRA Division meet back in 2014 and still have it if anyone would like more details.

Ron