Steve Prevette
Burnt Hills & Big Flats RR
Pasco WA
Fluor Hanford
City University

• This clinic will cover some basic methods to designate destinations for your cars.
• Car Cards and Marker on Car will be included
• This is one of the first steps to bringing
Operations to your layout

• You’ve built your empire, what do you do now?
• Running trains around in a circle, switching cars aimlessly can get boring

• Where should the car go next?
• How does the operator know where the car is to go?
• What is the car carrying?
• What does the car do once it is delivered?

Thinking
Man’s
Wheel Order
Switchlist
Card Order
Tab on Car
Tack on Car
Cargo
Operation

• Generally, the more realistic the freight forwarding system is, the more complicated it becomes
• We are here to have fun – at some point the trade off between complexity and ease, realism and fun must be made.
• It’s your decision
Easiness Realism

• We’ll stick to noncomputer systems for this talk.
• Personally, I use a computer program that
I wrote in QBasic to assign destinations to cars and then I put tacks in holes on the cars.

• You’ve been assigned a local train.
• You arrive at a town and are told to switch out the industries.
• How do you know which cars to set out (deliver) and to pick up?

• Used by John Armstrong
• A train crews picks up whatever cars they would like to, sets out as many as they want to.
Easiness Realism

• These methods provide paperwork to the train crew to tell where the cars are to be delivered
• Paperwork must be handed off to and from the yard crews
• Can have problems reading reporting marks on the cars, but some people add photos of the car to the paperwork

• Cards are made up for each train listing the number of each car type for the train.
• Make several card sets to give variability
• Pick up like cars to replace cars set out.
Easiness Realism

Car Type
Boxcar
Wheel Report for Train 236 from Big Flats Yard
To Cadosia
1
To Burnt Hills
3
Reefer
Tank 1
1
Flat
Gon 2 1
To be used on odd numbered days

• Make one 3 x 5 for each car
• List about 10 destinations down the card
• Use paper clip or pencil check mark to annotate the next destination
• When at bottom, erase check marks or slide paper clip to top
Easiness Realism

New Haven 40 foot plug door boxcar 45097

Cadosia Team Track
 Erie Lackawanna Track 2, Big Flats

Amphenol Electronics, Sidney
Utica Staging
C. Auter Track 1, Cadosia
Lackawanna Tool & Die, Scranton
Note: Next Destination is
Utica Staging

• Make one 3 x 5 for each car
• Make a pocket to hold a smaller “order” card
• Order cards provide up to 4 destinations
• After last destination, replace order card
Easiness Realism

Make one card per car
Graphics from “Ship It”

Make “lots” of order cards.
Note: “HD” implies hopper

• Make a box to store excess Order Cards in, organized by car type
• Make a pocket to hold a smaller “order” card
• Order cards provide up to 4 destinations
• After last destination, replace order card
• Probably the most common method used, can develop very realistic car routing sequences

• These methods put markers on the cars in order to tell the train crew where they are to be delivered
• Generally incorporates color coding (though car cards can also be color coded)
• Very friendly for clubs and new operators
• Avoids having to read reporting marks
• Need supporting method to assign the markers to the cars

• Print labels on cardstock – ¼ inch by ½ inch
• Bend the corners down with tweezers
• In practice, tabs have lasted years
• Watch out for Sneezing! (make out of metal?)
Acme

• Use plastic H-columns
• Paint and letter each side
• Can have one destination on each side
• John Allen used a long-short-long-short sequence.
Acme

• Use common thumbtacks, with dry transfer letters
• Advantage – magnetic and stable
• Disadvantage – must drill holes in cars
A

• Magnetic strips with magnet or metal glued on underside of car roof
– Can stack these so can last for multiple op session before putting on new markers
• Sticky Dots
• Yellow Sticky Pad paper

• The next slides provide some ideas on how to assign tabs/tacks to cars
• Car routings can be fairly realistic, but probably not as realistic as can be provided by car cards.

• Put one destination on each side of a H type tab. When delivered, flip to other side.
• Car shuttles between two spots
• John Allen managed a 4 cycle routine with a long-short / flip / long-short color coding.
Easiness Realism

• Mark on backside of tab or tack what car types can receive the tab.
• Randomly draw a handful of tabs/tacks and start placing on the allowed car types
• Keep going until all cars are marked
Easiness Realism

• From a Model Railroader “Bull Session” in the early 1970’s
• Draw up order cards specifying the type of car, the load, origination and destination.
• The order cards are used to assign the tabs/tacks
Easiness Realism

40 Foot Gondola
From: General Electric switch lead, Big Flats PA
Load: Scrap Metal
To: Jack’s Scrap, Oneonta NY
Via: Delaware and Hudson
Interchange, Sidney NY

• Deal out a card
• Find an empty car of the type called for
– If none available, put in a “hold” box
– If going offline, try to find a “foreign” empty
• Put tab/tack in car to get it to origination
• Put card in box for that town (card is not needed by train crew)
• Car is delivered to origination

• After car is delivered, remove tab/tack
• Find the order card for the load
• Load the car (if open-top)
• Place tab/tack in car for destination
• Put order card in box for destination
• After car reaches destination, “unload” it by removing tab/tack and treat as empty
• Put order card back into deck

• I used it on 2 HO layouts at a teenager
• Gives realistic traffic flows
• May need a deck for each staging origination
• Realistic job for traffic agent – finding appropriate empty cars to use
• No paperwork for the train crews
• Some loss of realism – if two box cars come to the same location to be loaded – which went with which order card?

• I currently use tack-on-car in N scale
• Tacks are assigned by computer
• Tell the computer the car type and current location, and computer gives next location
• “Empty return to home road” is a destination
• Works well, I have 280 cars on the layout

• Determine what to put on the cards or tacks, how many of each to make.
• To do this, list all your destinations
(including interchanges and staging) and choose how many cars of what type they should get per week.
• May even include detail as to types of loads
• Use this table when making cards / tacks.

• What trains to run?
• I have a clinic given at PSX 2004 on Traffic
Flow that may help. It is available on my website at http://users.owt.com/prevette

• Freight car forwarding can be as easy or complicated as you would like it to be
• This overview of some simple systems should help you get started
• Operations is Fun!