Playing cards

[railroader9731]

I know i asked for help here and not much surfaced. So i have tooled around and come up with this any questions or ideas welcome and yes its free to copy and use.

Write down all industries such as woods lumber burns fuel standard tools and so on as what industries you have.
Take a deck(s) of playing cards write down on each card a car number along with road name such as railbox 1234 gatx 1234 and southern pacific gondola 1234 (also can abreviate road names).
Next decide what industries need what type of cars (each card can hold up to 3 industries useing this method). For example railbox 1234 can be used at industry woods lumber ( write a 1-3 next to
that industry on the card
, them numbers will come into play later) and lets use standard tools as the 2nd industry (write a 4-6 next to that industry on the card)
Once you have found the cars needed at what industry you have such as the one above you repeat the process for other cars you have. Now you can use dice to select how many cards you draw
for me one die will do. Lets say i roll a 5 so now i draw 5 cards. Pick up your loco and head to the yard and pick up them cars or switch them cars out from yard into a train. Now comes the part
where you wrote the numbers next to the industrie(s) on the card you have choosen for that rail car. Lets take rail box 1234 and look at the 2 industries for that car you have wrote on the card,
take the dice and give it a toss. Lets say you roll a 4 now you look at the card and not 4-6 will go to standard tools, so now you know thats where the car has to go. Make a box holder for them
industries this is where you can leave the card there where the car is spotted. Now you question how do i know when to pick up the car(s)? Well heres my idea once you roll the dice for a new run
of cars lets say the SP gondola gets called on to go to standard tools. Once that car arrives at standard tools take your dice and roll it if you end up with a 1-3 car stays till next run and if
roll a 4-6 pick up that car and return the car to the yard or the industry that requiers it back. Cars such as coal cars or fuel cars and so on need to go back to that industry. UHOH!!!! that
industry cant hold no more cars...... no sweat you can forward them cars to a holding track or yard till space becomes avalible. As a bonus you want to add a bit of fun for rip work just take a
few extra cards and write RIP on it and the car that was drawn befor the rip card was is to shove off to the rip track and you can use the dice deal here as well 1-3 stays 4-6 ready to go back
into service. As cars are returned to service place the card back into the deck and shuffle and have fun.

[foulrift]

Harry-you may want to look into this-Dallas Model Works has a free program where you enter all data about your layout,rolling stock,industries and motive power.Once you have entered all the required data the program will generate a switch list for each day of the week. There is also an advanced section that will even make up a complete consist.
I found this program useful but given the fact that my layout is a small switching layout 2'x8' I found it necessary to tinker with the switch list results to suit my needs as a car may sit for a day or so before it can be moved.
This is just a suggestion but I tried many ways to switch my layout and this one seems to be the best one I found.
Good luck-
Bob

[railroader9731]

I tried that method and found its a oain in the rear to take my lap top down and have to recharge it every time i want to run trains. So i went this method and still tooling with it.

[Ralph]

Harry, For some reason I seem to have a hard time "getting" operations schemes. I either have to read about them several times or actually see them work. For example, It took me forever to understand how classic four sided car cards work. :oops: I've read your description of the card plan a few times and wonder if it would help me and maybe others to go through an example of your scheme again. Tell me if I have this right....

1. Fill out cards for each car you plan to use for operations. (Do you used playing cards for convenience since they are already pre-cut, inexpensive and easy to shuffle?)

2. Find three industries each car might be sent to and write them on the card.

3. Roll dice to determine how many cards to pull off the shuffled deck.

4. Assemble a train with the cars named by the cards you drew.

5. Roll dice for each card to determine which industry it goes to (a 1-3 means Industry 1, a 4-6 means industry 2, a 7-9 means Industry 3)

6. Set these cars out according to the dice roll.

7. Cars that are already at industries are handled by dice roll (1-3 means leave it, 4-6 means pick it up)

8. A Rip card drawn means the next card is a car that goes on the Rip track.

An example: You rolled the dice, got a 4 and drew four cards. One of them was....

Penn Central 50 ft foot boxcar 160502
Industries: 1. Canton Box Co. (Dice roll 1-3)
2. Gern Industries (Dice Roll 4-6)
3. Kings Port Steel Supply (Dice Roll 7-9)

You roll the dice again for this card and get an 8...so Kings Port Steel Supply is the destination.

You assemble this car in a train and arrive at Kings Port Steel Supply, finding another car there. You roll the dice to see if it should be picked up or left alone.
You set out PC 160502.

Do I have this right? I like the built-in variety. I was using a home made system with dice and Industry cards on my layout for a while so I can relate to yours. I didn't have individual car cards though, just cards for industries and the dice randomly told me how many to set out or pick up.

So, have you been using this system for awhile? How is it working out?

Ralph

[railroader9731]

Ok Ralph here it goes and not and try to mess you up. I use the deck of cards as they are easy to handle and put into a card box at the industrie or yard. As for the car you choose it can have 1 - as many as you choose (for me 3 work). As you can see in the photo i have a car set out at the chemical co along with the card Like i said before its a work in progress as stated you have got it right. Now i have tooled with it and given another way to run that list youve gotten right.

Since im here supporting the idea again ill give all of you guys a run down on what has changed. I have found for my self that way was a little to plain for my tastes and mixed it up a bit not to bad tho
[1] Write down the car number and name for each car and yes the abrevation still works such as UTLX 14851 tankcar {specs hydrochloric acid}
[2] Here i give the car a starting point such as Burton chemical inc
[3] Write down industrie(s) that may use that ladding. For example on my layout the car listed above can be used at Midtown Construction and at Charlotte Paper
[4] Put numbers as stated befor next to each industrie you choose so for the car stated 1-3 for Midtown Construction and 4-6 for Charlotte Paper
[5] Roll a dice to see how many cars you are to pick up out of yard, lets say i roll a 1 (i know to easy lol) set that car out for the road loco or run car(s) under the loco your running and set car out at tindustrie
[6] Now heres where step 2 will come into play. Off to burtons chemical to be loaded
[7] You can leave the cars for a set time before picking them up or use step 8
[8] Roll a dice for each car in idustrie track(s) even number she stays odd she goes back to the yard onto the "outbound/loaded track"
[9] Here you can start at step 5 for empty cars to be routed and use the dice for the loaded cars on the outbound/loaded tracks. lets say you have 6 cars on the outbound track and you roll a 4 (shuffle the loaded cars in a seprate pile and pick 4 cars out now along with the empty cars that are drawn you must set these cars out also
[10] Loaded cars will be dropped off at the industrie(s) you wriote down on the card by rolling the dice for each car in the consist
You still can include the RIP cards as well

[Ralph]

Seems like a good way to do it to me!
Ralph

[P5se Camelback]

I can think of no better use of a deck of cards that was reverse-printed so you would need a mirror to read them. The really amazing thing is that you apparently wrote backwards using reversed characters, making it easy to read the whole card when using the mirror! I really like how when the operating session begins, there are no worries about each operator cheating and reading the card in advaance ... he must wait untill he gets to the industry switching site to use the mirror provided there to read the card! Brilliant!

Over the years, I taught myself to draw upside down convincingly so that the drawing "reads" correctly for the client across the table and that just "wows" and impresses them, for sure, but I'm not so sure I could write backwards-reversed, even if I practiced constantly! You have some absolutely amazing writing skills there!

Where do you find those reverse-printed cards?

[Ralph]

I guess in a past age we'd suggest the slide was put in backwards. You have a god eye biL. I think my brain just did the Gestalt thing and I didn't notice. Harry, I am curious about how you posted a mirror image of the car card! The visual curiosity aside, I like the easy modification in your last post of using odd or even dice rolls to determine whether to pull a car.

Ralph

[P5se Camelback]

Thank you, Ralph! I have taken so much flack about my "off-the-wall" sense of humor lately, I was wondering if anyone would see my tongue sticking in my cheek or if I would get a response telling me, in all seriousness, that the whole image was backwards, that the cards were really normal, etc.!

[RRManiac]

Here's a couple of thoughts I had(uh oh! Duck!!!!!):

Thought 1: Passenger operations could be easily added to this by way of adding a seperate, smaller passenger car deck with all passenger cars, mail cars, and express cars set up the same way as the other deck. You put your train together as usual, but this time, when you are approaching a station, you roll the dice, and if it's anywhere from 1-3, it's a stop at the station, if it's a 4-6, you just blast right on through. Adding in your mail and express equipment, if you so choose, would be as simple as rolling the dice to determine whether or not it's a stop. If it's a 1-3, you have to roll it again and if it's a 1-2, it's a stop for mail. If it's a 3-4, it's a stop for express. If it's a 5-6, it's a stop for passengers. The whole thing is completely customizeable.

Thought 2: For reversing the print on the cards, some image editors allow you to flip text and images. The first thing that comes to mind is Microsoft Office Photodraw, but I'm sure you can do the same with programs like Photoshop, OpenOffice.org Draw, and other image-editing programs.

I just bought 2 packs of playing cards and a package of 5 dice at Wal-Mart a little bit ago, so I'm all set!

[P5se Camelback]

RRManiac said "...Thought 2: For reversing the print on the cards, some image editors allow you to flip text and images. The first thing that comes to mind is Microsoft Office Photodraw, but I'm sure you can do the same with programs like Photoshop, OpenOffice.org Draw, and other image-editing programs."

I was refering to the playing card pictured in railroader9731's photo about half a page up from here ... I was wondering about the reversal of the whole photgraph, and just having a little fun fun with the whole thing. 8-)

[railroader9731]

Yea for some reason i used cam on the computer and it sets em backwards :oops: Like the whole custom idea here......... lets see where it keeps going.