switchlist and "situational modeling"

[NJ Devils Fan]

Let me try to clearify this a bit.

This "mock up" switch list is "loosely" based on the NYS&W operations. I would suggest building a "master" copy of your switchlist first. This master should include: all customer sidings, all runarounds and passing tracks, any "team tracks", "rip" tracks, or any track or location that you can receive or place rail cars on. Once the master is complete, all it needs is for you to "pick" what needs to be done. You have total control here.

After your master is completed, it's up to you to fill in the blanks. Pick a few railcars from your collection to get started. Starting on "day 1", you can show the cars you "pick" to be on the inbound interchage. Show which customers are to receive cars from those on the interchange and where they are to be placed on thise sidings. On "day 2", show which new cars are arriving at interchange (again, you pick) to be placed and which cars are to be pulled (your choice) from the ones placed the day before.

My suggestion is to start with only a few cars at first until you get the hang of it. Remember, it's like a game. You can change the rules anytime because it's your railroad. If you want to "spice things up", place a few cars on the railroad that were there "from the previous owner". On "day 1" you can pull cars from the sidings as well instead of just putting them in.

[Gary S]

I'm liking the switchlist idea more and more. It may be possible to create a large box of "customer needs (waybills)" that can be placed in a pseudo random order. This would be based on "industry A needs on average 3 empty boxcars each week, industry B ships 2 boxcars each week, industry C receives 8 covered hoppers each week etc." Then before each operating session, draw however many you want and then make the switchlist from that. Of course, we would have to track the cars already on the layout too. Also, any empties on the layout could possibly be used for shipments from your customers which were headed back to the home road.

Seems that getting ready for an op session is going to take more time than the op session itself!

[steinjr]

I'm liking the switchlist idea more and more. It may be possible to create a large box of "customer needs (waybills)" that can be placed in a pseudo random order. This would be based on "industry A needs on average 3 empty boxcars each week, industry B ships 2 boxcars each week, industry C receives 8 covered hoppers each week etc." Then before each operating session, draw however many you want and then make the switchlist from that.

That's one way of doing it. Introduce an element of randomness not directly under your own personal control when you decide which cars to pull or spot. I also like that idea.

But that's does not seem to be Steve's idea about how to decide which cars to spot or pull. Sounds like Steve just looks around at what's on the layout (or on an updated master list or lists of what is where on his layout) and what cars he have available that could enter the layout, and then decides for himself that "This time, I feel like - mmm - I'll pull that boxcar from Industry A, and this car and that car from Industry C, spot a new boxcar at industry A, a tank car at Industry B and a boxcar at industry D. For added enjoyment, let's say I also am going to re-spot the gondola at industry D under the crane". And then he puts the required three inbound cars at an interchange track, and notes on his switch list which specific cars are to be pulled, spotted and re-spotted.

You can put as much or little thought into which cars to pull and spot as you like. You can e.g. base your choice of what to pick up or set out on your personal experiences with how long it normally would have taken to empty that car you spotted two simulated days earlier, or how often there typically would be inbound traffic for industry C.

Works fine. And it obviously is easier to balance a scenario where you decide for yourself both what you will move, where you will move it and (when you start switching) how you will move it.

What the waybills do is to separate (sometimes by an interval of years) the process of figuring out what to do and where to send cars from the process of deciding how to do it, in a fairly flexible way.

Of course, nothing prevents you from taking the information from the car cards/waybills and transferring to a single sheet of paper (the switchlist) before you start working your train (the switchlist e.g. "having been prepared by the yard clerk" or "the agent" before the switcher crew comes on duty), so you won't have to shuffle through the waybills while switching.

Having it all on one sheet of paper gives a little better overview of the switching to be done on the way than shuffling through a stack of cards, even if you keep the car cards sorted.

As for whether to do anything at all with waybills or only do a switch list - that depends on what you want to focus on simulating - modeling both routing of specific cars with specific loads and switching, or only modeling local switching.

The waybills are fairly nice to simulate the purposeful movement of cars across a layout, and create a need to route cars. And they are fairly easy to reset when you make changes you forget to make a proper note of - you don't have to print new switch lists - you just move the CC/WB combo to where you want it.

Me, for my small little switching layout, I want to focus on modeling local switching - spotting and pulling cars from industries, but not caring overly much about where the cars will go next once they have been sent back to the yard (or towards the yard, as it were). Because I don't have room to do much in the way of routing.

So for me waybills are more than I need to generate the semi-random (from the switching crew perspective) work for my switcher crews. But at the same time I don't want to decide what to do more or less at the same time as I decide how to do it. So I intend to create car requests in a way that introduce a small element of randomness.

As Steve pointed out - each of us get to decide the rules for the we want to game.

Smile,
Stein

[NJ Devils Fan]

The "randomness" is something very easy to create. Your "random" cars are selected by you (foreign railroad) which were ordered by "your customers" which need to be interchanged (given) to your railroad for you to deliver. The customers generate the traffic so be creative.

Remember, customers need not receive the "same" type of car everytime.

For example: If you have a lumber company on your layout, you most likely, will think that they need centerbeam or regular flat cars - right? Wrong. Lumber is shipped in boxcars as well. So make sure you have a unloading dock where you can spot a boxcar too - maybe at the building itself. Flat cars DO NOT need a dock to be unloaded. They can be unloaded with a forklift as long as they are on level ground.

Also, if you have a feed mill, remember not all grain was delivered in covered hoppers. Grain was also delivered in boxcars too - or - at least it used to. I remember, in my railroad days, bringing feed in to local industries in CR boxcars. I believe they were 166 series. Anyway, they were unloaded at a platform with a "bobcat" which dumped it into a pit.

Creating "special" moves for your crews is part of the fun here. Let's say you have 3 cars to spot at that lumber mill - 2 flats and a boxcar. They need to be "lined up" first before they can be spotted correctly. You see, you just can't shove in 3 cars and be done. The flats need to go to the unloading area while the boxcar goes to the building.

Be creative with your customers.

[steinjr]

The "randomness" is something very easy to create. Your "random" cars are selected by you (foreign railroad) which were ordered by "your customers" which need to be interchanged (given) to your railroad for you to deliver. The customers generate the traffic so be creative.

Yes, obviously you can create whatever variety you want when you pick which cars you want to move for the current operating session.

For myself, who is a lone wolf modeler, I for some reason feel that I want to have little bit of unpredictability in exactly what goes on the switching list when I set up an operating session.

It's not quite as fun (at least to me) to first deliberately decide how many Easter eggs to hide and where to hide them, and then go search for them

Judged from what Gary wrote, Gary seemingly feels something roughly along those lines too.

Obviously - if you generate switch lists for others, then for them it is generated in some way they don't know - they are just told what they need to get done that day.

Anyways - there is no doubt that switch lists as such are nice tools for the switching crew.

And I have seen modelers describe systems that were hybrids (mixes) of car cards/waybills and switch lists. They used waybills for car routing across the layout. Switch lists are concerned with the next immediate move, not where cars are eventually headed. Waybills and car cards work better for that aspect of model railroading.

But instead of taking the car cards out to the industries and leaving them in a box by the industry, the waybills were kept in "the yard clerk's office", and necessary information transcribed from the waybills to a switch list before the crew took their train out on the road.

When the crew came back in they handed in their annotated switch lists with moves checked off and notes made about events (bad ordered cars, extra re-spotting moves they had learned about when arriving at the industry and whatever). Then the yard clerk moved the car cards to the right boxes by his desk, so the car cards showed where the cars were (and what they were loaded with and where they were bound).

Lots of ways to do this. The important thing is to have fun :-)

Smile,
Stein

[Gary S]

Stein, I feel exactly the way you do. I too will most times be a lone operator, so it seems proper to have "powers other than me" deciding what the customers needs are.

As I mentioned, a box full of waybills and empty requests based on expected customer needs seems to be the way to go.

Here is how I envision it:

I have drawers for my rollingstock under the layout at the interchange/fiddle yard. Each car has a car card with pocket associated with it. There is also a box of waybills and empty requests there too. If I want to do a small bit of switching, I pull maybe four waybills (If more switching is desired, pull more cards). From that, I grab suitable rollingstock/car cards from the drawer and place them at the interchange. When the op starts, these cars are taken to their destinations, but at the same time, I have to take care of any existing cars that need to be moved from the industries. Those cars would typically be going back to the interchange. At the end of the op session, the cars which make it back to interchange are removed from the layout - back into their place in the drawers.

That's a simplistic explanation of the process, but I think it will work well. Some things to consider would be the "situations" that have been brought up. Also, some of the customer requests for empties could be filled by cars that are being unloaded at a customer, so the car for that request wouldn't come from the interchange.

Now, instead of carrying around all the car cards and waybills, this could all be translated to a switchlist.

[RobertInOntario]

Steve,

All of this sounds REALLY interesting, as I'm always looking for ways to enhance the operations on my small HO (actually British 00 which is similar to HO) layout. I'm going to print of both of your attachments and read them "at my leisure" later on today.

Thanks!

Rob

[steinjr]

Oops - forgot to say "thank you" to Steve for the two word documents. Not all of it is news - most of these ideas has been described in model railroading magazines and books before, but both documents were well written, and it is nice to have a convenient collection of these ideas in one place.

Steve - you might want to try to submit these to e.g. Joe Fugate's Model Railroad Hobbyist (http://www.model-railroad-hobbyist.com) and see if they would want to print this as an article in one of their issues.

Smile,
Stein

[RobertInOntario]

Well, I've read the switching article. It was interesting & well-written, but, as I got 2/3's or so through it I began to get a little confused & bogged down with the details. I'll keep rereading it though! Part of my problem is that I don't have too many sidings on my small layout, so I'd have to simplify these operations a fair bit. Rob

[FCIN]

One prototypical way to introduce some randomness and situations in your operations and something I view as being required when using switch lists; is to maintain a record of cars placed for loading and/or unloading for each customer.

Out there in Railroad Land, customers must pay Demurrage Charges if they exceed the allowable free time to load or unload a car. Every railroad company is required to keep records of the date and time that:

1. The car is placed for loading/unloading
2. When the customer is notified that the car has been placed
3. When the customer releases the car to the railroad
4. When the car is actually pulled

In addition, the railroad company is also required to keep a record of customer requests for cars to load and the railroad must record the type of car ordered, the date and time it was ordered and by whom, and finally the date and time that the car was actually furnished to the customer.

Those are simplified descriptions and there are a lot of details involved; many of which need not be applied in our model railroad worlds. However, we can apply the basic elements of these records to enhance our operations, make up our switch lists and keep track of car movements on the layout.

Of course, adding this paper work gives you another hat to wear when operating your model railroad - you must be the Station Agent or Yard Clerk in addition to Conductor. So we'll try to eliminate all but the required elements.

As for the record of customer car orders, you could just have a printed list of your customers, what they ship/receive, what types of cars, and a typical number of each, for say a week or month. Then add some method to randomly have customers request cars to load or receive a shipment. There's where your car cards/or waybills could come into play. As Gary suggested, you could randomly pick a number of waybills and that would indicate that your customer is receiving an inbound shipment or fill your customers request to furnish a car for loading.

By keeping these Customer (Demurrage) Records for each customer, we introduce “situations”. I've made a very simplified form to duplicate this activity - one for cars placed for loading and one for cars placed for unloading. To keep it really simple, we'll use the basic Demurrage free time of 24 hours to load and 48 hours to unload to determine when cars are ready to be pulled from your customers.

The information on both forms is identical, the only difference being that one is for cars placed for loading and the other for cars placed for unloading. The form has fields for the following information:

Car Init (Reporting Marks), Number, Kind
Load or Empty
Commodity (To be loaded or unloaded)
Date/Time car is Constructively Placed, (if applicable - more on that later)
Date/Time car is Actually Placed
Date/Time car is Released

The last two times are used to determine when you would pull the car from the customers track (private track or team track). 24 hours to load (after one operating session) or 48 hours to unload (after two operating sessions) from the time that the car was Actually placed for loading/unloading.

The Constructively Placed date/time applies when the customer receives a car and is unable to spot it for loading/unloading, usually because they do not have room to spot the car or for some other reason. For our purposes, we're using that time to indicate that the car is on the track, or nearby, waiting to be spotted.

Before each session, we check our Customer Records and see what cars are ready to be pulled, based on the time actually placed and the applicable free time. Just keep in mind that the time must be equal to or greater than the applicable Free Time. In other words, if this is the next session after the car was placed, it's been 24 hrs – second session after the car was placed, then it's been 48 hours.

For each car that is ready to be pulled, we put down the Car Released date/time and note on the switch list that the car is to be pulled. Cars that are Constructively placed that can be spotted are also added to our switch list, along with any cars that must be re-spotted and any cars that we have in our train or have picked up from the interchange. Every car on a customers track must be listed with instructions as to its disposition.

When we spot our car(s) for the customer, we record the time the car was Actually or Constructively Placed. The Released time is an indicator that the car was pulled and can also be used as a reference for how long the car has been off line or last used for a shipment.

Where things get interesting is when you have customers that pretty much receive cars on a daily basis. Some will pull or spot or be Constructively placed because the customers spots are full. Other cars must be re-spotted because the Free Time has not expired (car hasn't completed loading/unloading). Since cars arrive on different days (operating sessions), you can see that not every car will move every day – just as in the real world. For variety, some cars might be ready to pull before the free time has expired, if you choose to speed things up a bit.

A couple of other elements that may add more variety “situations” come to mind too.

Privately owned cars (ACFX, UTLX, etc.) on a customers private siding are not subject to Demurrage charges, so a customer can hang on to such cars as long as they need to before releasing them. You often find industries that actually use such cars to store their product until needed. Plastics manufacturing facilites are a good example. In such cases, you might just do something as simple as flipping a coin to determine if these cars are ready to be pulled.

Large shippers will often provide the train crew with their own switch lists or switching instructions. The railroad agent will know in advance what cars you will be delivering to the customer and what cars the customer has billed out or released as empty, but as far as the work to be done at the facility, you won't know until you get there. So if you have a large customer, they could have their own switch lists. I used to deal with that at two different distilleries here. Always made my day more interesting!

I've attached the forms I made (both on a single .DOC type file) so feel free to use them if you like. Hope my descriptions of how this works gives you the information needed to put it into action.
  CustomerCarRecordForms.doc (Size: 69 KB / Downloads: 127)

[steinjr]

Well, I've read the switching article. It was interesting & well-written, but, as I got 2/3's or so through it I began to get a little confused & bogged down with the details. I'll keep rereading it though! Part of my problem is that I don't have too many sidings on my small layout, so I'd have to simplify these operations a fair bit. Rob

The basic idea is simple.

1) You take a sheet of paper.

2) Write down the name of the first industry you are going to serve on your next run on the sheet of paper

3) Write down (on a separate line for each car) each car already at that industry
Behind each car you make a note of whether you want to do anything with that car (pull it or re-spot it) when you start switching
Cars without notes are by default "leave it where it was, customer still isn't done with it".

4) Then add one line per car for new cars you will be bringing in from somewhere to spot at the industry
Behind each car you make a note of where you want to spot that car at the industry

5) Go on to the next industry you will service on that run, repeat steps 2-4.
For the purpose of a switchlist, any track where cars can be left or picked up is treated like an industry.
So you make a title (e.g "Interchange track") and list cars already there and what to do with them, plus cars to be left there

When done, sort your inbound cars, take your engine and go start switching, pulling cars, spotting cars, and re-spotting cars.

That's really all there is to it.

You don't need many sidings to use a switchlist. A mainline with one industry spur with a couple of sure spots and a storage spur is enough.

Here is an example from Jack Hill's blog page: http://oscalewcor.blogspot.com/2010/02/t...tions.html

Smile,
Stein

[steinjr]

One prototypical way to introduce some randomness and situations in your operations and something I view as being required when using switch lists; is to maintain a record of cars placed for loading and/or unloading for each customer.

That is also a good idea.

Btw - just for completeness sake - that is the way it often is being done with car cards and waybills too. Typically by having three boxes (labeled "set out", "hold" and "pick up") at each town or switching area.

When a train get to a town, the conductor take the cards in the box "pick up" and locate those cars - those are cars to be picked up. Enter them on your switch list, if you want, and put your car cards in your pocket.

When inbound cars have been spotted according to instructions and checked off on your switch list, take the car cards for those cars from your pocket and leave them in the box "set out". Car cards for cars that still are being unloaded remain untouched in the box "hold".

Before the next session, the layout owner will typically transfer cards for cars that has completed unloading from "hold" to "pick up" (and turn the waybill so the car has a new destination) - it has been released.

Other car cards gets transferred from "set out" to "hold" (they are still being unloaded - still have one or more days to unload before they are unloaded). And cards for cars that has been loaded in one turn (24 hours) can get transferred directly from "set out" to "pick up" (again with the waybill turned, so it has a new destination).

There are many ways of achieving the same net effect on a model railroad. And most of them work :-)

But I must say I am enjoying this discussion about the paperwork and how to simulate various aspects of real railroading. This stuff is fun.

Smile,
Stein

[RobertInOntario]

Well, I've read the switching article. It was interesting & well-written, but, as I got 2/3's or so through it I began to get a little confused & bogged down with the details. I'll keep rereading it though! Part of my problem is that I don't have too many sidings on my small layout, so I'd have to simplify these operations a fair bit. Rob

The basic idea is simple.
1) You take a sheet of paper.
2) Write down the name of the first industry you are going to serve on your next run on the sheet of paper
3) Write down (on a separate line for each car) each car already at that industry
Behind each car you make a note of whether you want to do anything with that car (pull it or re-spot it) when you start switching
Cars without notes are by default "leave it where it was, customer still isn't done with it".
4) Then add one line per car for new cars you will be bringing in from somewhere to spot at the industry
Behind each car you make a note of where you want to spot that car at the industry
5) Go on to the next industry you will service on that run, repeat steps 2-4.
For the purpose of a switchlist, any track where cars can be left or picked up is treated like an industry.
So you make a title (e.g "Interchange track") and list cars already there and what to do with them, plus cars to be left there
When done, sort your inbound cars, take your engine and go start switching, pulling cars, spotting cars, and re-spotting cars.
That's really all there is to it.
You don't need many sidings to use a switchlist. A mainline with one industry spur with a couple of sure spots and a storage spur is enough.
Here is an example from Jack Hill's blog page: http://oscalewcor.blogspot.com/2010/02/t...tions.html
Smile,
Stein

Thanks, Stein. I've printed this off as well & will carefully read it later today. I found some of these instruction almost getting mathematical or "mechanical". Being a visual, artistic sort of person, I found it a bit of a challenge !

Rob

[NJ Devils Fan]

Stein: I tried 3 times sendind those articles to Joe Fugates MRH website. No response was ever given to me from those people. To be honest, I've had a great reception from the readers of this forum. I am very greatful that those of you out there reading this have shown a great deal of interest in my material.

I'm not trying to turn the model railroad world upside down with my ideas. I'm just trying to put a "real world twist" on a great hobby - that's all! When I posted these ideas at MRH, the reception to them was, well, let's not go there. To say the least, there were more "nitpickers" than just people who wanted to listen. I am always open to others' ideas and I am willing to hear critics....but when I'm told "Im wasting my time" thats when I draw the line. I don't feel I've wasted my time at all. I am just trying to share some information with new people.

Thanks again for the warm welcome!

[Gary S]

Steve,

I want to thank you big time for sharing your ideas here. I've only been in the hobby about 4 years or so, and have never participated in an ops session. I have done a lot of reading and alot of thinking about how to add operations to my layout once it is running. So, I'm very very interested in your point of view, and the interesting discussion which is taking place here. I hope you remain a member here at Big Blue and give input wherever you can. Plenty of us want to operate, but aren't quite sure about the "best" or most efficient way to do it.

At first, car cards and waybills seemed like the ticket, but there is the hassle of carrying and sorting through a bunch of seperate cards, which seems relatively difficult.

I've seen switchlists before, but it just didn't seem very intuitive on how to create one.

The simplest procedure seems to be markers which are attached to the roofs of individual cars that show the destination. No hassle reading through a big list, no hassle sorting through cards, just run the train! But, having a tag taped to each car is rather repulsive to me! I mean, we spend hours on each car, weathering, detailing, all that, only to tape a huge non-proto-typical tag to the car?

Again, thanks for everything you have shared so far.