Model railroad operations & waybills


P

psychobeagle12

Member
Ok, so I just read some "basics" on waybills and operation, and I think I need a bottle of aspirin!! Does anyone have a simple "getting started" kind of site, book, or other advice for operating a simple layout using waybills? I have a couple industries and a handful of cars and am trying to start operating a little more prototypically. I don't know if it helps but 1940s - 1950s PRR. :D
 
Micro Mark sells a starter kit that includes boxes, car cards, and way bills. You can make your own. I used 3x5 cards for the car cards. I cut a 3x5 card into 4 pieces for waybills and used a paper clip to attach the waybill to the car card. I built town boxes from plywood and 1x2's.

The ops sig website http://www.opsig.org/reso/ has a lot of good information on it.

Do you have specific questions you would like answered?

Glenn
 
I think a lot of discussions try to make things too complicated. Small layout operations are very different from 40 x 60 layouts with two dozen people involved. If you have a small layout, first just think in terms of how the cars would move, not even bringing cards or paperwork into it -- basically, a car moves to an industry, it's loaded or unloaded, it's pulled, and it's replaced by another. On a small layout, you may just need to know that boxcars go to the lumberyard, no waybill needed!
 
I struggled with waybills on my layout so I turned it over to one of my friends that operates me layout with me. But to start what I did was make a list of my industries..then with that list added the car types that would go to each and what commodities that each industry would see. Although it's not entirely prototypical I used complementary industries on my layout so the cars could go from one place to the next on the layout..we also would bring a car onto the layout from staging to an industry. It would get loaded. Then go off layout to some far away place to be unloaded. Once you get started it gets easier but it takes some thinking to get it rolling. I also did more waybills than I have cars, this way I could rotate out waybills so the cars weren't always going to the same places all the time
 
I'll have a smaller rural operation and will most often be the only operator of my RR and I've been thinking about creating a Data base to do much the same thing but that's still off in the future for me.

Do you guys use a data base to figure-out what deliveries are to be made to where? I guess none the less it would still require a lot of thought to determine what products are produced on our layouts and who they would sold to as well as purchasing products from other sources to be delivered to supply the various manufacturers as well outside deliveries of living staples the communities require. If we are actually getting that detailed? I'm sure there could be no end to it but we have to draw the cut-off line somewhere too!

It will be interesting to read what you do on your RR's?
 
Per my previous post I created a list. I just sat down and thought about what items might be needed for each business. For example I have an aerospace manufacturer. They would need raw metal coming in..perhaps a new machine coming in and an old one going out. Finished product leaving. They could also use a box car load of pallets and packing material. I just did that with each industry and wrote it down. I didn't get super detailed, just enough to be plausible. It was actually simple to do that part, and it helped having that list to make waybills with. Having another person to help is nice because they can point out loads you may not even think of
 
I use CC&WB with mostly single shipment waybills (2 move instead of 4 move). I used a spreadsheet to do some of the planning and identify what industries ship what. I built my own Access database to create CC and waybills. But one could do the same thing with just a spreadsheet. As for billing the cars during an op session I really don't use any formal spreadsheet etc. I just pick the waybills that "feel" right. I have about 150 cars on the layout and operate with 6 people (1 classification yard job, 2 industry yard jobs, 1 local and 2 road freight crews). I pick the waybills and the destinations based on what I think will make the operation work right, not necessarily any semblance of "prototypical" demand. My feeling is that the operators don't have a clue what the prototype demand is so they don't know whether an industry should be getting 4 cars of coal for every 3 cars of steel so whatever billing I provide they are happy as clams. It just has to be reasonable and give them purpose.
 
An underrated book, long out of print but easy to find used on Amazon at a reasonable price, is Bruce Chubb's How To Operate Your Model Railroad. He goes through several manual methods for setting up switch lists -- among them, just figuring out which moves to make (e.g., B&O 123456 to Valley Lumber, NYC 876543 to Smith City team track, etc etc) making a list, and moving a paper clip down the side of the paper to show each next move. On a small layout, a data base is probably too much complication. However, JMRI has a very good, and FREE, computer based system available for the download, DCC not required. For those who like that sort of challenge, I recommend it highly.
 
jwb said:
An underrated book, long out of print but easy to find used on Amazon at a reasonable price, is Bruce Chubb's How To Operate Your Model Railroad. He goes through several manual methods for setting up switch lists -- among them, just figuring out which moves to make (e.g., B&O 123456 to Valley Lumber, NYC 876543 to Smith City team track, etc etc) making a list, and moving a paper clip down the side of the paper to show each next move. On a small layout, a data base is probably too much complication. However, JMRI has a very good, and FREE, computer based system available for the download, DCC not required. For those who like that sort of challenge, I recommend it highly.
Click to expand...
I've heard of this book before..I've never seen it in person though. I've heard good things about it though.
 
I'm like Trussrod modeling a more rural area and it is for the most part a one operator switching layout. I have operated on both large home layouts and club layouts, with and without waybills. Waybills can make operations a bit more interesting, especially when you have to make sure that the mainline is left clear, or if you have to clear the mainline for a through train. For me, at home, I really don't think I need them. I limit my train length to 14 cars, which is the longest train that a passing siding will hold. In my case, I really don't have to worry about leaving the main line clear because there are no other operators.

The KISS theory, Keep It Simple, Stupid.
 
Here's a local running on my layout, the West End Job, which serves just a couple of industries on the foreground track. The GP7 is returning to a small yard track with the UP hopper, having exchanged it for a loaded BN car at a feed mill off to the right. The depressed center flat has just been dropped at the team track area in the foreground.

West End Job CP Jaques.jpg

I use the JMRI Operations feature to build switchlists. One feature that I find handy is the ability to identify different jobs with different numbers of car moves, so if I don't feel too ambitious, there are still jobs I can run with a limited amount of effort. A layout doesn't have to have just one switch job, a good thing to keep in mind. It will let you start small, or it will let you give jobs later to guests whose interest or attention span isn't great.
 
I think I will look at the JMRI Operations feature, since it seems to be highly recommended. I have a question on whether my idea would improve operations on my layout. This is the current 4x10 layout (the extension is not pictured here, but it goes off where the red line has been added):
current layout.jpg

I am thinking about adding a crossover at the back end of the layout so that I can use the inside main as a yard lead. The track close to the inside main in the yard is being used as an arrival/departure track, and the other two tracks are industries. Right now, if I want to leave the yard, I have to make a complete pass around the main. Adding that crossover would also allow me to use the outside main as a runaround track to switch train directions going back to the mine. Thoughts? Here is the proposed crossover:

current layout with xover.jpg
 
I'm glad Psybegal started this thread as several of you guys have helped to answer some of my questions and I really appreciate the info. I think I'm going to download JMRI but have a feeling it may tend to be more advanced than I'll need? Like Montanan, I'm the only Engineer operating and I only plan on running one train at a time as it's a small rural operation.

The Way Bills are another asspect of operation I may look into a bit later. My reason for thinking of a Data base is that a guy could set it up, at least I would assume so, so that deliveries would vary at different times to keep things a bit more varied and interesting. And I guess I just answered my own question about Way Bills but I also like the Idea of sheets with paperclips on the edge to denote where a car is to be moved to or from. The Kiss method is sounding fairly attractive right now as my head is hurting!
 
Psycho-b, I think the arrival-departure track idea is very good, although if you find industrial and yard switching fun (I certainly do, and I enjoy watching it on the prototype), you might want to plan to expand both the yard and industrial tracks as time goes on. The extra crossover goes either way, you can operate that layout with it or without it.

Trussrod, JMRI is in effect a data base. If it's fully set up, it can decide that any XM boxcar in the data base can go to any industry that uses them on your layout -- you don't need to make up waybills to cover each individual case, which as the layout and the roster grow, gets harder and harder to do by hand. But if you're just starting this kind of operation, any sort of manual system, like the paperclip (or I think Bruce Chubb goes as far as to say just crossing out the last move on the list with a pencil) will get you well on the way to thinking about what car goes where, and how.

If you aren't necessarily a computer geek, there's no sense frustrating yourself with too much complication early in the game!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
JMRI is one program you can use, and over the years, there have been many programs that generate traffic for a model RR. Some have been available commercially, and some are custom built.

I have a waybill generator that I was considering using on my layout, that was written by a friend of mine down in Mobile, back when Windows 3 was SOTA. Believe it or not it still worked in 95, 98, Me, 2000, and XP. For some reason, it doesn't work in 7, even when set to run in compatibility mode, but that's another story.

He named the program COSS, for Computer Operated Software System. It was really sophisticated for it's time, doing a lot of stuff that even some of the programs today don't do. I keep a copy on hand just for sentimental reasons.
 
I got Bruce Chubb's book when it first came out about 1976. I was in the 8th grade-still have it. Seemed very expensive at the time. To me for a small layout, identifying which industries get or ship which kind of loads, and in which direction the cars should travel in, to get to their destination, could be complicated enough. There used to be a piece of software called 'ShipIt' or something like that, which created switch lists if I'm not mistaken. I also have the MicroMark car card system. I'm wondering these days if car cards are 'past their prime.'
 
ShipIt! is a commercial product that costs money. I think the general take is that, while it was possible to make ShipIt! work by tweaking it a lot, it never quite worked right. JMRI is simply a better software solution, and it's free. This isn't to say that everyone should use software to generate switch lists, but if you do, I think JMRI is the logical choice. Some people use car cards. Among other things, I don't think they're very prototypical. Some guys, for instance, have written articles on how they've made the "waybills" in car cards look more like prototype waybills -- fine, except that the crews who actually do the switching don't work from waybills and often never see them. The yardmaster and the accounting department see them, not the guy on the ground that you're pretending to be when you operate.
 
jwb said:
Some guys, for instance, have written articles on how they've made the "waybills" in car cards look more like prototype waybills -- fine, except that the crews who actually do the switching don't work from waybills and often never see them.
Click to expand...

A lot of modelers say that, but it is not correct if you include the conductor, which is the role I enjoy when operating, and the transition era, which is the era I model. Conductors had to see and handle the waybills, since they were often picked up or dropped off in boxes at each station. He may have written up a switchlist, but he did it from the waybills.

To your other point, you are correct: ShipIt! is unworkable.
 
I made a computerized waybill system, but it was getting complicated, couldnt deal with a large club, anyways a car card system seems to be the best way. You have to think about who makes what and then who uses what is made, like a coal mine brings coal out then its delivered to the power company. Hand write some notes for ideas. A simple car card with a 3x5 folded to hold a load card, then make some smaller load cards cutting 3x5 to fit in the car cards, you can use 4 sides of the load card to help identify its route to take (it could be more called a route card than load card) saying to run to Diggs Coal in Westmont, AR (MT) then turn it over saying ANTHRACITE COAL to BURNS POWER CO. after the car is delivered Diggs. Flip the card around (or remove it with the card card saying EMPTY RETURN TO YARD, its covered by the load/route card) to add more routing if needed, refrigerator cars need more routes IE spotted at Icing platforms, or you might have interchanges to other railroads.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top