Car Cards

The Bear Creek and South Jackson controls the movement of cars (and whatever cargo they're laden with) using Car Cards and Way Bills.

Each freight car has a car card created for it when it is placed in service. The car cards are labeled with the car's information - aar type, road, number, and color. Each card has a pocket in which a way bill can be placed. The waybill determines the car's current destination.

Making Car Cards
I make my car cards are 4" high x 2" wide. I use a word processing program to print the car information on a piece of paper 5 1/2" x 2", then I fold up the bottom 1 1/2" and tape it (scotch magic tape) to form a 1 1/2" x 2" pocket. To save paper I print five on each sheet. I use a heavier grade of paper for the car cards.

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Waybills

Waybills are used to specify where each car is heading next. I use 4 cycle waybills (they have from 1 to 4 destinations printed on them 2 on each side).
The two sides of a 4 cycle waybill. Waybills may be produced with 4, 3, 2 or even single cycles. Note the progression of destinations and cargos specified by this waybill. The waybill is turned and/or flipped to its next cycle between operation sessions when the layout is restaged.
I make my car cards are 4" high x 2" wide. I use a word processing program to print the car information on a piece of paper 5 1/2" x 2", then I fold up the bottom 1 1/2" and tape it (scotch magic tape) to form a 1 1/2" x 2" pocket. To save paper I print five on each sheet. I use a heavier grade of paper for the car cards.

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Moving the Freight - an example

When a crew is assigned to a freight train they will receive a pack of car cards and waybills for the cars in that train. The conductor walks the train matching the cars with the paper work (car cards and waybills). The conductor also notes the destinations of the various cars, where they are located in the train and how they are blocked.

Train BCHW runs from Pocatello to Salem making a single stop at South Jackson yard where a block swap can occur.

Today the conductor of trains BCHW receives the waybills for his train in Pocatello Idaho. He walks the train checking the cars against the waybills/carcards and finds that for once they match.

Train BCHW runs from Pocatello to Salem making a single stop at South Jackson yard where a block swap can occur. This train will drop a block of shorts at South Jackson - cars destined for

• South Jackson
• Mill Bend
• Oakhill
• Redland - Deschutes branch
• Bend - Deschutes branch - staging

assuming off course that there are any cars headed there. Today there are four of them - the blue cars in the consist leaving Pocatello. They are blocked together at the head of the train.

The remaining eight cars are longs headed to points west

• Salem - staging
• Portland - via Salem staging

shown in red. Who ever built this train did a good job with the blocking - all the shorts and longs are grouped together with the shorts at the head end which will make the South Jackson block swap easier.

After the conductor gets his clearance BCHW departs Pocatello and runs to South Jackson yard. The yardmaster has a block of 5 west bounds he wants to give to train BCWH (yellow) and takes the 4 shorts (blue) they have for him. The conductor is careful to hand the yardmaster the correct carcards and waybills for the 4 cars being dropped and gets the correct carcards and waybills for the 5 pickups.

While the air is pumped up and a brake test made the conductor gets clearance to depart and the train heads for Salem, it's final destination.

Meanwhile back in South Jackson the yardmaster is sorting the cars he received by desitination.

• XM - mt to Mill Bend lumber loading
• RS - food stuff to Mill Bend cold storage
• FM - mt to Mill Bend beam loading
• HT - coal to Redland team track

The yardmaster will (if he's good) have the yard organized with different tracks for the different destinations. The 5 tracks in South Jackson are typically assigned as follows:

• Track 3 - Oakhill and Mill Bend (inbound) cars
• Track 2 - Redland and Jallen (inbound) cars
• Track 1 - Pocatello and Salem (outbound) cars
• Track S - siding, also used to accept a returning local freight
• Track M - the mainline

The three Mill Bend cars go onto track 3 with the other Mill Bend cars. The HT of coal to the Redland team track goes onto track2 with the other Redland cars. Later in the day when it's time to call the Mill Bend Turn the XM, RS, and FM the hauler west dropped will be sent off to Mill Bend.

When the Mill Bend Turn arrives at Mill Bend the crew will scan the waybills of all the cars already in town to determine which cars are ready to be pulled. Also some cars may have been left "off spot" because their destination track was full when the previous MBT crew switched the town so they were left anywhere there was room.

The crew knows a car is ready to pull when it's waybill shows a destination other than where that car is currently spotted. For example: a reefer is spotted at the Cold Storage track in Mill Bend but it's way bill says it's going empty to Salem would be pulled. But an XM at the plywood track with a waybill saying Plywood track, Mill Bend, OR should not be pulled as it is still being loaded.

Today the crew finds an offspot XM on the tool track that should be at the warehouse. There are also a TA at the bulk oil that's not unloaded and two XMs on the lumber loading tracks that aren't loaded yet.

The crew pulls the outbound cars, then checking the waybills of the cars they brought from South Jackson spots the inbounds at the proper places. The offspot XM is moved from the tool track to the warehouse. There is one too many XMs for the plywood loading track so it gets spotted on the tool track. The TA and the two XMs that weren't unloaded or loaded are left behind. Tomorrows MBT will pick them up.

Once the crew of MBT has assembled their train for the return trip, pumped up the air, made the brake test and the conductor has obtained clearance they are ready to return to South Jackson. Before leaving Mill Bend the conductor makes sure the car cards for the cars were just spotted (and moved) are in the correct car card pockets (accidently taking that waybills back to South Jackson is a no-no!) and that the car cards for the pulls are in his possesion.

The South Jackson yardmaster has them pull in on the siding. The head end power is cut off and sent to the engine service tracks. The SJ switch engine hooks on to the cars just arrived from Mill Bend and pulls the entire train onto the yard lead then sorts the cars onto the tracks for their destinations (their waybills specify the destinations). Most of these cars will be heading for Pocatello or Salem (or points beyond) but sometimes there will be a car for Redland, Bend, Oakhill, or even South Jackson.

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Special waybills - offspot

A car not spotted where it should because there are too many cars already on that track or track maintenance or whatever is said to be "offspot".

Such a car should be left in the destination town on a spur where there is room for it - preferrably in a location in close proximity to its real destination.

To help tomorrows crews identify the offspot car(s) so they can be moved to their proper location an "offspot" special waybill should be placed into the car card pocket in front of the regular waybill as shown to the right.

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Re-staging Between Op Sessions

Restaging is quite simple with carcards and waybills.

Re-staging trains in staging

The card decks for each train in staging are checked and the waybills are pulled and turned to their next cycle. When going from cycle 2 to 3 the waybill is turned over so the backside is now showing which is also done when going from cycle 4 to 1.

Once all the cars in the train have been "re-billed" the cars are moved to block the longs and shorts together. The yard master and train crews get grumpy when a train is built using stochastic (random) blocking. I also turn motive power and get to to the head of the train again if the train is in single ended staging track (double ended is easier because locos don't need moving or turning!)

If a train didn't run during a session it's not necessary to do anything to its carcards and waybills.

Re-staging towns

For the cars spotted at industries in a town I turn between 75% and 100% of the waybills to their next cycle. This simulates a few cars staying put because their loading or unloading isn't completed.

If I'm feeling a bit nasty I'll put the cars to be pulled deeper on the spurs than the ones that will stay to give the crews a bit of extra work.

Done!

That's it, the layout is ready to run another session. Don't do anything with cars that are still enroute such as cars in a yard, waiting on a siding for pickup, or cars in a trains that stopped on the high iron when the last session ended.

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