My Take On Operations "Game"

[scubadude]

That's what I'm talkin' bout, Steve. You just summed up in one or two sentences, what I've been trying to say for a dozen posts! I plan to have 4 or so viable industries and 1 or 2 sidings to go to. There will be the big 5 - boxcars, gondolas, flatcars, tankers and cabooses, cabi , cabooseseses ....whatever. So 5th grade math that tells me there will be 36,781 different combinations. Should keep me busy until death do me part

I will make cards that say 2 boxcars here, 1 gondola there, pick up a couple of tankers there and take this wood on the flatcar over here. And vice-versa. Add move that car from there to way over there. Plus another plethura :?: of stuff going on in the yard. The best part - is the wildcards that will throw in another at last count 12 or 13 situations to deal with -(per your thread). And right now, I'm in love with the detector box that will radio me on my laptop or fancy phone with the "live" problems. Go to www. DallasModelWorks.com (join for free to see it, it's pretty bad to the bone!)

I figure I will end up with 30 or 40 cards.. After I finish making the cards, I will draw 10, fill out a switchlist and give you a live update to help me make it better the second time......

I'm thinking it's going to work out pretty good. Thanks, Steve, your ideas have evolved into this....This is awesome, it is really helping me finalize a trackplan so I can quit using the benchwork as storage.

Keep posting ideas about what moves can be made on the mainline and diesel maintenance facility (jglfan-- car 54, where are you?)

[steinjr]

The big difference is, I have made index cards to create a switchlist based on the industries and situations. Whereas if I read your suggestions correctly, you suggest I create the switchlist based on the possible moves each car might make to the industries and sidings. I have not made any cards specific to a car, only to industries and situations.

Scenario cards.

There is a description of them at Adrian Wymann's Shunting (ie switching) web page, here: http://www.wymann.info/ShuntingPuzzles/s...io%20lists

Smile,
Stein

[scubadude]

By George, I think we've got it

[NJ Devils Fan]

Glad to help Richard. As far as mainline and "roundhouse" moves, well, just about anything can take place here. I'll give you a few "examples" to help you out.

Mainline "situations":

As mentioned above, you can ALWAYS be subject to: hotbox and dragging equipment detectors. Where are you going to set off that defective car?

"Open plug doors": Plug door boxcars CANNOT travel with doors open. Trains are stopped by trackside employees who "spot" these doors open. They can fall off and kill someone. Regular "sliding" doors should be closed as well but sometimes overlooked. Where are you going to set off that car?

"Open top shiftable loads" CANNOT be placed next to tank cars! If you have a gon full of I-beams or poles, and they extend over the top of the gon, they are a "shiftable load". They can puncture a tank car in no time flat. So, if your the yard conductor and your thinking about placing that car next to a tank car - think again. Bad move.

Enginehouse moves

Where's the Hostler? You can spend more time here than you can "on the main". All you need are some unique pieces of equipment and maybe 2 or 3 pieces of rolling stock. Some of the following equipment can be found at a enginehouse. These examples are taken from the NYS&W Rwy's Utica, NY engine facility. Here has been found (all at the same time too), Steamer #142, their E-9's 2400 & 2402, passenger coaches, leased locomotives, locomotives being repaired from other RR's (such as BAR and MA&N), flat cars with wheel sets on them, boxcars full of beer - for online customer, stored here for security reasons because their siding was full, (imagine a boxcar load of beer just sitting on a siding located next to a high school

Furthermore, former NYS&W president Walter Rich was a AVID railfan. He Collected different pieces of rolling stock and stored some of it at Utica. Some examples are former D&H cranes, gons, and flat cars. There were also some 40 and 50' FJ&G boxcars here too.

Most enginehouses are also repair facilities as well - especially for shortlines. So whenever a railcar needed repairs, it was put to the enginehouse for repairs.

And because this was a 4 - track enginehouse, stuff was ALWAYS in the way. Before starting our day, we ALWAYS had to move equipment for the enginhouse people. This, sometimes, took almost 2 hours and sometimes made for an 8 hour day. Use your imagination here. Almost anything is possible at a enginehouse.

Hope that gives you some help.

[Ralph]

Richard,

All of this ops talk is giving me the "bug" again! I developed an industry card system a while ago that was sort of like a "Scenario Card" system but lately I've been just watching trains chase their tails. I think that's because I made it too cumbersome...and added the need to use dice rolls to determine how many cars go where. Redesigning the system stalled me because I didn't want to print out so many cards on my computer again. I had used colored fonts and some graphics for individual industry cards like this:



Then, after reading this thread, including the link Stein provided, I had a minor brain storm. I just created this standard form card that can be used with any customer on my layout. I can print out one sheet and then simply use a photocopier to make as many as I need. Then I'll paste them to file cards to make them more rigid. I included information about lading to make it more interesting. I always enjoy reading modeler's descriptions of what commodity is being shipped and why. Makes it more "real" for me!



I need to review a Scenario List like the one in Stein's link of how many and what kind of car might be used with each customer. Then I'll have to to fill out the appropriate number of cards for each industry, each reflecting one of the listed scenarios. My form provides for three types of cars (box, hopper, gon, etc) for set outs and pick ups because no customer on my layout uses more than that at one time.

As an example on my layout, the customer could be Sal's Salvage. Sal shreds stripped autos into scrap metal and loads the shreddings into open gondolas. I'd note the name of the customer, and in one scenario might write Set outs: 3, Type:Gons, Lading: MT (empty), Sp. Instructions: Spot cars next to loader. Other scenarios might involve picking up loaded cars, or both picking up and setting out gons.

I'm going to mess with it for a while to see how it works or me. If this is helpful to anyone else feel free to copy or modify at will. I hope you don't mind this intrusion into your thread Richard. If I end up going with this form I may post one of my own with examples of how it works later.

regards,
Ralph

[scubadude]

Good stuff Ralph....feel free to jump in anytime! I think for me, I'm going to make 3 or 4 cards for each industry, each card with a different move. So for example......White Furniture will be a complex that makes furniture. They receive lumber and ship finished furniture. So they would have a card to receive up to 2 flatcars of lumber at at time from the sawmill located elsewhere on my layout. They would have a card to receive 1 boxcar of ordered hardware or misc stuff. They would have a card for sending empty flatcar(s) to interchange and another one for empty flatcar(s) back to sawmill. And one more card for sending boxcar(s) to interchange with finished furniture. The sawmill would have similar cards to and from interchange and to/from White's Furniture. Similar cards for the other 2 or 3 industries on the layout. I'm basing the number of cars for each industry on the size of the siding and loading/unloading space. So I think we're thinking basically the same thing. I too didn't want to complicate things with rolls of the dice in addition to the cards. You might consider creating "Chance" cards to throw in a little fun with prototypical problems like Steve suggests in his thread http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic...=54&t=2909.
Also, I have been looking for the right kind of cardstock for when I iron all the kinks out and make it permanent. You can buy Avery index cards for printers that are laminated on one side and are thick - makes for easy shuffling might save you the trouble of gluing paper to cardstock.

Sal Monella - too funny

[shortliner]

Carcards - cheap quick and easy - go to ebay or a gaming supplies site, and get packs of "trading card holders"! - plastic holders that your cards fit into and stay clean. Put car cards in them - and add the movement cards behind. Make the movement cards slightly larger so that they show above the car card - you can show four moves on a card, with a green dot indicating "turn over" after the second move, or a red dot indicating "remove" when the movement is complete - like a traffic light ( green for move on and red for stop-completed!) special instructions are in blue. The car picture tells you what you are looking for amongst the car in storage

An example <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2341261">http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.js ... Id=2341261</a><!-- m -->

I bought more than I will ever use for about $10 (equivalent) from ebay

This shows the sequence ,Which I hope explains the system

from I/C to Jenners (spec insts DOOR 3)

   

***this will wait 1 cycle for unloading*** then

empty to yard (green says turn over)

   

Empty to McHinerys
   

***this will wait 2 cycles for loading*** then

loaded to I/C (red says remove after move)
   

[Ralph]

Shortliner,

That's one of the better descriptions of the use of car cards I've seen. I like seeing a photo of the car itself on the card pocket. Very cool! Thanks!
I probably shouldn't speak for Richard but I think he and I are wanting to generate rail traffic as prompted by industry demand without needing to make a card for each car. I'm one of those modelers with a number of identically numbered cars from the same manufacturer and would need to do some decal work to individually number them. That's not a high priority modeling job for me as it might be for others who use those numbers for switch lists and car cards.

Again though, I really liked your presentation of the car card system. I can see why so many people like it.

Ralph

[scubadude]

I think that is a great idea, although for me personally, a little too close to the car card/waybill gig. My goal is to shuffle a deck of cards that has all the possible needs of all the industries on my layout along with some random problems that a train might encounter on any given workday. I really don't want to have car cards going from slot to slot, etc. and I don't want to roll dice . I want to take the drawn cards and make a switchlist, because I think switchlists are cool..I do like the looks of those car cards, I might put pictures of the industries on the cards!

[shortliner]

I don't know if it would work - but instead of car cards, what if you had industry cards, and instead of waybills you dropped a card with the name of the car in - So, McHinerys card comes up expecting a load of short planks - You pick a suitable car, drop its card into the packet, and move that car to McHinerys, probably from the exchange siding, unless you have a sawmill /lumber dealer on the layout. When it has been delivered it returns empty to the yard. Johnson Canning wants an empty car suitable for cartons of cans - send them one from the yard, the industry card say deliver to Harrisburg Meats via exchange siding so that is where it goes. Every time a move is completed the industry card goes back in the pack. It really doesn't matter then if you have cars with the same numbers - you are just allocating a car with that number to an industry
Just another way of organising your switching

[scubadude]

Another good variation, although I don't want car cards of any kind and don't want to move them around to various pockets.
I just want to have a deck of cards that I can shuffle, then draw a few to make a switchlist for the operating session. When a session is over, I will leave the drawn cards out of the deck so I can pick up where I left off. Once I make the switchlist, I'm done with the cards until next session.