05-24-2010, 01:17 PM
Steve;
Being a former railroad employee, both in train service (on short lines) and having worked as a Freight Agent/Clerk on a Class I road (a job I hated, but I digress....); I've always used switch lists with my model railroad layouts. As you say, it is more prototypical and provides more information than a hand full of waybills. I had not however, considered the addition of adding situations to the operation - and situations are a normal way of life on the railroad, so I find that an interesting concept.
Switch lists that I used or made, were exactly as you describe. List the location, the cars on the track and what the crew needs to do with each car. It's the ONLY way to operate as far as I'm concerned.
One thing that I always did when making out switch lists for my crews, and something that was required, was to have a track check - listing what cars were in every track in the yard - all listed from one end of the track. When I made up my switch lists, the crew always knew that the cars on the list were in the correct order in the track. Of course couldn't always check every industry in town so in most cases, the conductor would advise me of the order that cars were in on the customers track when they completed working the customer.
I've been looking for some sort of computer program that would generate prototypical looking switch lists based on customer car requests, loading/unloading time, etc. but not having much success; at least in so far as getting them to work in a prototype fashion. The program ShipIt! http://www.albionsoftware.com/ is as close as I've found, but can't ever get it to work just right, especially where interchange of cars is concerned. Perhaps I just haven't mastered that program yet, but darned if I can get it to work right! Even with a pool of 100 cars in the ShipIt! database, the same cars tend to keep coming back over and over and others just get left sitting offline.
Actually, it isn't that much of a problem to just print out some blank switch list forms and fill in the information you need on that list. I suppose a person could make up a simple word document and fill in the blanks and print it out, just haven't looked into it very much.
Being a former railroad employee, both in train service (on short lines) and having worked as a Freight Agent/Clerk on a Class I road (a job I hated, but I digress....); I've always used switch lists with my model railroad layouts. As you say, it is more prototypical and provides more information than a hand full of waybills. I had not however, considered the addition of adding situations to the operation - and situations are a normal way of life on the railroad, so I find that an interesting concept.
Switch lists that I used or made, were exactly as you describe. List the location, the cars on the track and what the crew needs to do with each car. It's the ONLY way to operate as far as I'm concerned.
One thing that I always did when making out switch lists for my crews, and something that was required, was to have a track check - listing what cars were in every track in the yard - all listed from one end of the track. When I made up my switch lists, the crew always knew that the cars on the list were in the correct order in the track. Of course couldn't always check every industry in town so in most cases, the conductor would advise me of the order that cars were in on the customers track when they completed working the customer.
I've been looking for some sort of computer program that would generate prototypical looking switch lists based on customer car requests, loading/unloading time, etc. but not having much success; at least in so far as getting them to work in a prototype fashion. The program ShipIt! http://www.albionsoftware.com/ is as close as I've found, but can't ever get it to work just right, especially where interchange of cars is concerned. Perhaps I just haven't mastered that program yet, but darned if I can get it to work right! Even with a pool of 100 cars in the ShipIt! database, the same cars tend to keep coming back over and over and others just get left sitting offline.
Actually, it isn't that much of a problem to just print out some blank switch list forms and fill in the information you need on that list. I suppose a person could make up a simple word document and fill in the blanks and print it out, just haven't looked into it very much.
Ed
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"