? about waybills

Nomad

Active Member
Hi all, I have a question. On my layout, i have a two track siding, and a one track siding. The two track siding will have stockyards on one track, and a slaughter house on the other track. The other siding will be an ice house.
Now, the question is about waybills. Since the reefers from the slaughter house need to be iced as soon as they are loaded, would I have waybills to move the reefers, or how would that work? Any help would be appreciated.
Loren
 

brakie

Active Member
Not if the ice house is just a normal switch move because that would be covered by the switch list and not a waybill..
 

doctorwayne

Active Member
And not that this would affect the waybill part of the equation, but there's a good chance that the reefers would be iced before loading, so that the cars would be pre-cooled.

Wayne
 

Nomad

Active Member
Brakie, Doctorwayne, thanks for the info. This is the first time setting up carcards/waybills, so I hope you don't mind more questions.
So, it sounds like I would have waybills sending reefers to be iced, then to the slaughterhouse, then to staging. Would that be correct?
Loren
 

60103

Pooh Bah
You might have a line on the waybill "Ice car before spotting" or something. There are probably a few other special instructions -- chemical tanks that must be returned empty to the originator. Larry: do waybills carry this sort of instruction?
 

MasonJar

It's not rocket surgery
It depends...

In my experience, one may operate with switch lists, or waybills, but I have not encountered both together...

With the waybills, you could have them with orders to move cars from icing to the slaughter house in order to be consistent. Theoretically, the ice house could ship to places other than the slaughter house, so you'd want waybills to reflect that.

A switch list would be much the same, listing lifts from the ice house to spot at the slaughter house, as well as other destinations.

However, on your layout if the ice house only serves the slaughter house, you could have a standing rule that you spot all "inbound" empty reefers at the ice house, switch the reefers already there to the slaughter house, and make your lifts from the slaughter house only.

I hope that is clear... although reading it again, I am not entirely sure... :rolleyes: ;) :D

Andrew
 

Nomad

Active Member
Guys, now we are talking about switch lists. What are those? I searched the Gauge and the net and really can't find any information.
This is still in the thinking stage, so I could use either one. The same with my industries. If it would add more operational interest, I could always add a cold storage. But, I don't think I like the idea of a single industry based layout.:rolleyes: I think two would be enough. Right now, I have the icing platform only.

Loren
 

MasonJar

It's not rocket surgery
On a couple of the layouts I have operated, each industry has a three-bay card holder for the cardcard/waybill. One is inbound, one "hold", and one is outbound. When you arrive to switch the industry, you put the cards into inbound, move the existing inbound cards to hold, the hold cards to outbound, and you lift (take) all the existing outbound cards (and cars).

In this case you might have something similar, but with a slot for reefers that need to be iced for the slaughter house. So that would be 4 slots at the ice house - in, in for slaughter house, hold, out. The slaughter house in would basically be at the ice house, so it would only need hold, and out.

There are still three slots for each industry, just that the "in" for the slaughter house is at the ice house instead.

I hope this is clarifying things, not making it more confusing...

As for switch lists, they are a single piece of paper with all the orders for one train. All the lifts and drops are listed (by car number and industry). Somewhat easier to handle, but may not be as versatile.

Andrew
 

jetrock

Member
Switch lists are a different sort of operational scheme, using a single sheet of paper with a list of cars and destinations. Often these are generated by computer programs that track car movement.

Ice houses often also served as cold storage--theoretically, an ice house/cold storage facility could become the center of a whole layout, serving fruit & vegetable, dairy and meat packing industries, with a whole fleet of reefers!

That might be pretty cool.
 

Nomad

Active Member
It sounds to me like switchlist are a one time deal and then you make new ones, is that correct? I know carcards/waybills you use over and over, so I would rather stay with them.
Jetrock, you mentioned computer programs. Do you use one for switching? I tried every freeware program I could download, and never had much luck making them work the way I thought they should. But, I am having trouble figuring out carcards and waybills, so I guess it figures. I need to think about your idea, it sounds interesting.

Thanks everbody for the input.

Loren
 

Ralph

Remember...it's for fun!

60103

Pooh Bah
Loren: I operated on a layout that had computer generated switch lists. The computer had a list of all the cars, all the industries/sidings and was given a description of all the trains. It would then generate a page (or more, usually) telling you which cars were to be picked up or dropped at each town as the train went around the layout. The computer kept track of the cars' locations. When we'd run all the trains for one day, we'd shift the time forward and print another set of lists.
The computer would automatically match cars to loads and loads to industries (well, they had to be input initially). It seemed that after every month we'd have to adjust train schedules or something to try to get the railroad balanced. And we never did get that solid train of hoppers coming down from the coal mine.
 

Nomad

Active Member
Thanks for the links Ralph, now I know what switch lists are. My railroad has 9 industries. How many switch lists do you think I would need to keep car movements random?

Loren
 

jetrock

Member
I don't use switch lists, I use a simplified operation scheme called a "wheel report." It's simpler than a switch list or car cards because I don't have to track individual cars. I find that they are not detailed enough for real operations fans, but they're easy to use and shuffle things sufficiently for my purposes.
 

brakie

Active Member
Actually a wheel report is a conductors train consist form that includes locomotives.It only tells the conductors the type of car and what towns the cars go to but not the industry.
Like so.
Wellston,Oh Setouts
2 covered hoppers
1 boxcar
1 tank.
What you would do is switch out car for car BUT what if you have a empty covered hopper for Tri County Co-op and a load of plastic pellets for General Plastic Corp how would you decide which covered hopper is a empty and which is loaded and the correct car to spot at each industry? IMHO that is why the car card/waybill method is so popular it takes all the guess work out and adds to the value of prototyical operation..
 

Nomad

Active Member
:wave: Hello all
60103, that was the one problem I never had with computer switching. I could never get the program to work right that long!
Brakie, thanks for all the information, and I mean all the other articles you have posted about switching too.
Ok, I have decided to go with carcards and waybills. I am also going with an icing platform for the slaughterhouse and a seperate cold storage facility for produce and the like. The cattle and produce would all come from off layout through staging and interchange. I love the old billboard reefers and have qiute a few, so I need a reason for them.:D
I have read lots of articles about setting up carcards/waybills and am tottally confused. Would somebody help me get a system going please? Any and all help is needed.
Thank you in advance for whatever you can do to help me.

Loren
 

jetrock

Member
brakie: All of my layout is in one town so I modified the "wheel report" idea to suit my layout--by industry, rather than by town. The simplicity of the system is that it doesn't matter if the car is empty or full, it is based on moving cars rather than worrying about what is in them. For solo operation it's suitably satisfying but fast and simple to use.
 

brakie

Active Member
That would work in your case but,as a former brakeman I perfer the car card/waybill method even on my industrial switching layouts.sign1
 

Nomad

Active Member
Can anybody tell me how many waybills per industry I should have for solo operation?
All I can find is information about multi-operator setups.
Thanks

Loren
 

60103

Pooh Bah
Loren: I think number of waybills and such is getting into art. Or experiment.
I would think that you would start with as many as acrs fit the siding (or the building doors). If you have a 4-car sawmill supplying 5 furniture factories, you can't have 4 waybills for each factory. (but then you need cars to carry the furniture out...)
You could sit down and estimate how many cars of what each location requires/produces per day and base the waybills on that.
 
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