Starting to think about Operations


twforeman

Certified Great Northern Nut
Yesterday I decided that it was time to start thinking about Operations. Just running a few cars into town and distributing them on an ad hoc basis wasn't really doing it for me.

So I did some digging on the Internet. I don't want to go whole-hog crazy about Operations, but I thought some Car Card and Waybill system would probably do what I wanted.

I couldn't really find what I wanted in pre-made print-your-own form, so I drew some up and made my own.



Here are some of the resources I found about Operations in case anyone else wants them.

MRR has a series of three blog posts about the basics.

If you don't want to design your own cards, the AU NMRA OpSig site has a set here.

If you are more organized than me, here is a nice discussion about using Excel to generate the cards and waybills.

This is a good post with various cards - I based mine off of these.

I can upload my designs if anyone wants them.

I was a little surprised that there is no sub-forum here for Operations.
 
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In my Lionel days in HS, I usually just ran the trains while I was creating my models from scratch.

I wasn't concerned as much about operations and my current layout isn't really setup for operations as much either. My original intent was as a passenger train running through the prairie, with some smaller hills, but the estate\auction stuff I've picked up over the years has changed that somewhat. You have given me something else to consider....
 
Very nice.

I will be using and already have this Waybills.


It's great! I used it with my club years ago when I was in Florida. I recently did a free upgrade last week. Once you buy the program its free upgrades for life. I have had Waybills, IndMan and MiTrains since 2000. Love it. The owner and developer Peter White is an awesome guy. You can call him and chat with him etc. Great service no bull.

Anyway what you have looks good.
 
I designed my layout to be a switching operation, mostly spurs with industries on them. So Operations was always in the back of my mind. I saw some posts on MRH (can I say that here? :) ) about "Simple Operations" and decided it was time to start thinking about it. The layout is done enough that I could run some sessions now, so it's time to start figuring out what that looks like.

I need to fill out all the car cards, label all the industries, and figure out some waybills that make sense, but it's starting to percolate in the back of my brain now at least.
 
Your cards look great...and simple to use.

I'm looking for a simple way myself for future operations. Right now if I want an area clear of rolling stock I use a switcher to move the cars out of the area and just move locomotives from like the Saxeville Interchange down to where I can inspect them, blow the dust off anad clean their wheels if necessary. Not exactly operations!!!

Greg
 
Operations sections on most forums are a pretty dry and dusty place that aren't visited by very many. If you want some ops discussion, the OpSig has a forum on IO groups and there is some ops discussion on the OpSg and LDSIG Facebook pages.

Car cards are a very flexible system that can be easily modified and customized by the owner. I have used car cards for probably the last 25 years. I wrote a Access database to generate CC&WB (well actually I have done about a dozen variations). I generally only use one and 2 move waybills now, it just fits my operations better.

I love to talk about operations, but as I said, on most forums there isn't enough interest to really support a separate forum with any substantial traffic.
 
I like operations, as a matter of fact switching is my favorite aspect of running my railroad. I have over 70+ industries currently and will add a few more as time permits. I have a program to print car cards and waybills that I downloaded from the Internet over ten years ago, it is an updated version of one that I first used a few years earlier. It was written by none other than Dave (dave1905) many years ago. The version that I have is v7.11. I have made some internal modifications to it to fit my needs, but basically used the operations program and CC&WB as they were originally written.
I am currently not using the program since I tore down my last layout and built a new and improved version. While all of the freight cars and engines are being kept current, I have not completely updated the industries that I now have. So I wing it for now.
I first pick one of the eleven towns that I am going to switch with what I call an "out and back" run. These originate in one of three staging yards that also are used as classification yards. Each town has between 5 and 11 industries in them. I jot down which of the industries that I am going to switch and what types of cars I need. I only vaguely think about whether they are empties or loads right now. I then go to the yard and assemble the train based on my experience with how to best switch or drill each one. Then I move the train to the appropriate town and collect cars and leave cars as needed. To add interest, I will occasionally stop switching and make sure that the main is clear; and then run a through freight or two down the main to interrupt things. After that I resume switching. When done, I return to the originating yard.
I will return to using the program at some point in the future, as I like its features a bit better than the newer Easy Model Railroading Inventory program by Robert Langer. Dave's program will automatically generate waybills based on information entered, where EMRI requires manually entering which freight cars to use. I think that I am remembering this feature correctly.
Your cards and waybills look very similar to the ones that Dave's program generates. They seem to all follow the same setup. I can't add much more than the links that you have in your post. Good luck and happy railroading.
 
Last night I filled out about 35 of the car cards and discovered I needed a bunch more. So I made more car cards.

I also whipped up some Empty Car Order and some Bad Car Order cards. I have some industries that will need empty cars (the grain elevator and the glue works for sure) and I'm sure I'll have some bad cars at some point.

 
Traditionally, on a 4 move waybill, half of the moves are "empty car orders":
For an on layout shipper:
  1. Empty to shipper
  2. Loaded car shipper to consignee
  3. Empty to another shipper
  4. Loaded car shipper to another consignee
For an on layout receiver:
  1. Loaded car to consignee
  2. Empty return to shipper
  3. Loaded car to another consignee
  4. Empty return to another shipper
In the case of the on layout shipper, moves 1 and 3 are "empty car orders" and in the case of an on layout receiver, moves 2 and 4 are empty car orders.
Nothing is stopping you from using a separate empty car order. On my layout I have single use waybills, "Hold for agent local loading". They route cars to a particular agent, such as empty gons to the agent at Coatesville where there is a steel mill. Then I can pick from the cars on hold to spot them for loading. Most of the time I just tell the yardmaster/switch crew how many empty gons each loading track needs and they pick the gons and spot them. Then later I add a movement waybill as they get loaded.
 
I suppose that makes sense. I tried to create double-sided waybills but my printer was not aligning the two sides correctly when I was printing them. I might try again at some point.

I was thinking that Car Orders might be used in cases like a grain elevator, where the box cars (not hoppers yet in 1958) might be sitting on a siding until the grain was ready to ship and then the elevator would order a whole batch of cars at once.
 
For additional information of what I previously posted (Post #4) about Shenware programs regarding WayBills.

Here's YouTube video of Peter White's explanation of how WayBills works and is used.


Also here is a cool video of a group that uses different techniques for moving cars across the layout. Uses JMRI and switch list plus WayBills.

 
I was thinking that Car Orders might be used in cases like a grain elevator, where the box cars (not hoppers yet in 1958) might be sitting on a siding until the grain was ready to ship and then the elevator would order a whole batch of cars at once.
You are using them just like I am using my "Agent Hold" cards. They pool cars at a location for future use. Same concept, different name.
 
The thing that people get hung up on is that "car cards" and "waybills" are physically two pieces of paper. What is actually happening is that the combination of a car card and waybill duplicates the essence of a prototype waybill. Since a layout has a fixed number of cars and fixed number of industries, there are only some many reasonable waybill combinations possible. If you have one cement dealer on your layout and you have 3 cement hoppers, its a 100% chance that those hoppers are going to end up at the cement plant on a regular basis. What separating the car info (car card) and the shipment info (waybill) allows you to do is create multiple "waybills" without having to rewrite things. Once you put a waybill in a car card pocket, it becomes one object, the equivalent of a prototype waybill. The most prototypical method of operations (even more prototypical than computer lists) is CC&WB combined with handwritten lists. That duplicates the way real railroads operated from the 1800's up until the 1970's-1980's.
 
The thing that people get hung up on is that "car cards" and "waybills" are physically two pieces of paper. What is actually happening is that the combination of a car card and waybill duplicates the essence of a prototype waybill.

I think I got that part of it. I haven't actually put it into practice yet though, so the light bulb might get a little brighter when I start operating.

The way I understand it is the car cards represent the physical cars, and the waybill represent the loads (or empties) and where they are going. You can put a "box car" waybill into any "box car" car card to create a complete "action" as it were.

And then there are three actions you can do with the car:
  • Pick it up from it's current location - assuming your train is going the correct direction to take it on it's way.
  • Drop it off at the destination.
  • Leave it where it is (to simulate loading or unloading)
I think I need to grab some of my car cards, and write up some waybills and see if that works the way I expect.
 
I think I got that part of it. I haven't actually put it into practice yet though, so the light bulb might get a little brighter when I start operating.

The way I understand it is the car cards represent the physical cars, and the waybill represent the loads (or empties) and where they are going. You can put a "box car" waybill into any "box car" car card to create a complete "action" as it were.

And then there are three actions you can do with the car:
  • Pick it up from it's current location - assuming your train is going the correct direction to take it on it's way.
  • Drop it off at the destination.
  • Leave it where it is (to simulate loading or unloading)
I think I need to grab some of my car cards, and write up some waybills and see if that works the way I expect.

I would encourage you to watch the 2nd video I posted. It is a long one but very insightful. :cool:
 
This is a what a prototype "car card and waybill" looks like:
6a01bb094d2658970d01b8d2c126b4970c-500wi

The "card card" is the top line of the document.
The "waybill" is the rest of the document.
The combination of a car card and a waybill represents that whole document.
This is a standard waybill form that has been used from the early 1900's , technically up until today, although paper waybills stopped being used in the 1980's. Today waybills are virtual documents (most of the same info, just a data record.)

Normally when a crew or yard clerk handled waybills, the document was folded in half length wise. Everything that the crews needed to move the cars, the car info, the commodity and destination are on the left hand side. The right hand side is the shipper and billing information.

If you just take the info from the left hand side and write it down, you get the same info as on a CC&WB:

CGW994 50 ft Boxcar
to : Algoma WI
via : CMSTP-Green Bay- MILW- KGB&W-Casco Jct-AH&W
to: Algoma Plywood & Veneer Co.
commodity: Carload of rough glued lumber

If you have an empty move of a car or remove the waybill and just use the "when empty return to" on the car card, you are duplicating this document:
IT%2BMT%2BBill.jpg

This is an evolution of the types of waybills used in the 1800's, but was used into the 1970's. Note that it is a piece of cardstock that is 1/2 a sheet of paper wide. That is because, as I mentioned previously, waybills were used folded in half. So this would fit into a stack of waybills. Just as an aside, switch lists, timetables and many other documents produced when waybills are used are also that width (as are back pockets on overalls) so that all the paperwork can fit in one packet.

Hopefully this puts a "face" on the CC&WB system. You aren't using some thing that modelers just dreamed up, you are actually simulating prototype railroad documents.
 
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