Car Cards, Waybills, And Switchlists-15,000 Subscribers (174)

[@canadiannationalrailroad9201]

Very well explained for my sake. I have a better understanding

[@bneagleriversubdivision6224]

Great episode, finally someone showing the Micro-Mark cards, and really how too set them up and use them. Thanks

[@bneagleriversubdivision6224]

In Canada the Staples product # for the clear card holders is 46260.

[@peterjhillier7659]

What a really interesting Video, full of great Advice and gives a real insight into North American Freight Operations. Thanks Larry, keep safe.

[@TheDCCGuy]

Very welcome!

[@jhoodfysh]

Gratz on 15K subscribers Larry.

[@frankhellman6879]

Great news!

[@ricter591]

Thanks Larry, 🐾🚂 BearCreek RR of KY.

[@andrewpalm2103]

On the example waybill from 1946, I'd guess that the HR designation represents moving the car from the New Haven on Long Island to the Pennsy in NJ using a car barge across the New York harbor. There used to be lots of such car barge traffic at that time.

[@TheDCCGuy]

I bet that the car float was it. I searched for a Hudson River RR assuming there might have been one handling interchanges, etc. but could not find one.

[@kents.2866]

I was reading that it took about 2 days to empty a box car of canned food goods with hand trucks before the motorized forklift became available.

[@deputydog73]

Congrats on 15K subscribers!

[@peterainsworth8466]

Great info Larry. Congrats on 15k!!

[@markgoodrich941]

Congratulations on your reaching the 15,000 subscribers mark ! You provide a great service for each of us. Thanks so much.

[@FL70NJ]

Congratulations to ya Larry and a big thumbs up for reaching 15,000= subscribers!!!

[@Madonsteamrailways]

Good evening Larry!! I subscribed to your channel when I first found it. I find your channel very interesting. I’m a DCC man myself!! But I make British layouts instead of American ones.

[@rjl110919581]

thank you for the detailed video on the operation of the model railroad layout

[@johniacono3725]

It’s the New York New Haven and Hartford RR

[@dwaynethompson1885]

How do you determine and indicate the "shipping frequency for an industry"? On the CC, WB, or box slot? How do you track it a held card has been held the proper time at the spot? Great video.

[@TheDCCGuy]

It gets complicated and is part of the process of balancing car movements. As for timing that’s what you do between sessions.

[@strangleholdoutdoors]

Congratulations!!!

[@jamesthomas7724]

What Avery number are the sleeves that fit the micro mark cards?

[@donaldshroyer8633]

Nice vid. Congrats on 15K! I personally can't imagine shuffling paper or spending time assembling a switch list by hand. I have my computer for that and wrote my own Access application to organize trains and produce PDF switch lists I can use from any device. No paper involved, ever.

[@TheDCCGuy]

Some folks like Tony Koester revel in paperwork, others like you avoid it at all cost. I guess it comes down to how far you want to go to replicate prototype practices. I draw the line with car cards. I have seen the pitfalls of computer programs, having designed and sold a program called Switcher in the early 1990’s but abandoned it for operations.

[@donaldshroyer8633]

I'm curious why you abandoned it, and is it still available anywhere?

[@TheDCCGuy]

At the time I was doing a monthly column for Model Railroading magazine evaluating computer programs for model railroading. Marketing my own software began to create a conflict of interest issue so I had to pick one or the other. So I arranged to hand my customers over to Albion Software, the company behind Ship It and went my merry way. I don’t even have a copy of the program any longer.

[@donaldshroyer8633]

I asked because I've always thought the harder question was not how to program it, but instead what the software should do. I've seen the Ship-it site and their idea is to figure out raw materials and products for industries. My approach is to figure out rolling stock origins and destinations, but I'm concerned this will become too repetitive over time. I've operated my 5 sequence system for about 2 years now and don't think I've ever done any one of the train movements the same exact way twice, but I still wonder if I'll become so good at them I'll get bored. Even Ship-it says it makes non-random switch lists, implying repetition at some point.

[@25mfd]

@@donaldshroyer8633 you mentioned concern about repetition... (this is coming from a 10 year chicago and northwestern/union pacific switchman) on the real rr for all practical intents virtually all movements are repetitive, all those cars return back to the same place to get reloaded... over and over again... a lot of railcars out there are in some form of captive service... especially single commodity type cars like coal hoppers, automobile parts cars, automobile frame flats (those FTTX flat cars), plastic pellet hoppers, boxcars that carry newsprint or kraftliner, all those cars spend their entire time in captive service between the same shipper/receiver... i know for my layout i have a dead end industrial lead that has several firms on it... the only time i worry about any railcar/s is when they land in the yard, when they're staring me in the face (just like in real life LOL)... then i'm looking at my work order and figuring out how i'm gonna do todays work... my view is from the eyes of the yard foreman, as i did that in real life... any thoughts beyond that and i felt that i was taking on the roll of a yard clerk or worse customer service which was not my job... when i worked for the railroad as a yard foreman, i had a VERY limited ability to see what/when cars were going to land in the yard... only the folks in customer service had that ability... heck i had enough work just keeping up with what was in front of me for that day

[@CSX_Bennett_Subdivision]

Great video! I do have a couple questions: 1. So, the SR freight Depot in Monroe, VA is not a physical industry on your layout, right, It's location is just represented by the same interchange track as was used in the previous cycle? And then 2. What would you do with this box car after cycle 4 is completed? Do you ship it to a staging yard and give it a new waybill, starting again with cycle #1? Or are you resetting everything and getting it back to Gleco Mills somehow? This is where I have seen a lot of variation from layout to layout, at least while browsing thru youtube to decide what would work best. "Life after waybill" is something I have yet to understand 😂😂

[@TheDCCGuy]

Actually there is a freight depot in Monroe and there will be a C&O interchange track in Lynchburg. Only the moves to and from Richmond are imaginary. Once the 4cycles are complete you have 2 choices. First you can simply flip the waybill back to position 1 and do the same moves again. Since most layouts are only operated monthly it takes 4 months to complete a cycle and usually different operators do the runs so no one will remember the repeat moves. The second option is to have a box of waybills and after the cycle is completed you just insert a different waybill. The real trick is how domyou get the car from the Freight Depot in Monroe back to Gleco Mills at position 1 in the cycle? That requires an empty car oder form. These are also sold by Micro Mark and are printed on blue paper. They replicate a call from a company to a station agent requesting an empty car for a shipment. The agent would send that request to the nearest yard and the blue car request form would be inserted in the waybill pocket in from of the regular 4 cycle waybill to creat the movement of the empty boxcar in Monroe to Gleco Mills. Otherwise you would just have to use a different waybill that begins the cycle with a move from Monroe to a shipper. So there are two ways to do that too. It makes creating waybills something of an art form to make them seen reasonable and realistic. Another thing to remember is the “Return empty to “ line on the car card. That gives a more direct routing back to a yard to begin another cycle.

[@Bobby347.]

I finally found out what those cards are on layouts

[@michaelplumb8821]

Tell me about tibs. Is it easy to install on the layout? Does it work better with computers or without? Does tibs tell the difference between a priority train and a wayfrieght?

[@TheDCCGuy]

What is tibs?

[@JohnTitterton-f8t]

A Freight Bill with freight charge calculations is not a waybill. Customer submits a Bill Of Lading ( BOL) to the carrier, who produces a Waybill internally to govern the movement of the shipment on the carrier and connecting lines. A Freight Bill is rendered by the originating carrier who collects revenue from the Bill To Party (which could be entity originating the shipment or rr other shipment depending on the terms agreed),. Originating carrier will collect Freight Bill revenue and divide the revenue with connecting carrier according to established divisions over that interchange or as otherwise agreed between the carriers. Alternatively the Freight Charges could be based on Rule 11 where each inter line carrier issued a separate Freight Bill to the Bill To Party.

[@TheDCCGuy]

There is a lot of differences between the way the prototype actually did/does things and the abbreviated approach most modelers use.

[@railroad9000]

You mentioned and showed the clear sleeves to hold the cards that were made by Avery. Do you have their stock number? 'I have looked at the web page and nothing is listed. Did I hear you incorrectly? Thanks Congratulations on 150K!

[@TheDCCGuy]

Avery 76009. I ordered them off Amazon. Each sheet has 10 slots but when you cut them apart you get 6 complete car card sleeves since they share a common edge between them. Also if you use the MicroMark sets you need to trim the sides a hair to get them to slide in and out easily.

[@railroad9000]

@@TheDCCGuy Great!' Thank you!

[@strobelightaudio]

guess I need 3 yards to make it interesting

[@TheDCCGuy]

I have 4 on the PS. Two are on the visible layout and 2 are staging yards-with one at each end. The staging yards allow me to stage almost all trains for a session. Only locals and interchange runs are handled in the visible yards.

[@berrysipsma2382]

very irritating that more than half the time this guy keeps on talking instead of showing something !!

[@TheDCCGuy]

There’s a scroll bar at the bottom of every video. You can use it to move past sections that don’t interest you, it’s that simple!

[@modelrailroader5619]

Congrats Larry! Keep the great videos coming...👍

[@DSchrader-dz5fw]

If his Southern car is shipping bagged flour, shouldn't it be a AAR XF

[@TheDCCGuy]

XF would have been preferred but I bet if one was not available an XM could have been cleaned and pressed into special service.