Model Railroad Podcast
|
Model Railcast Show #66
Sun, May 31, 2009
|
| Posted by: Ryan Andersen |
|
Show #66 - Balancing your Model Railroad Operations
Opening Yard Office
Round House
Departure Tracks
Length: 2 hours
Show Sponsors
Have an iPod or other Apple brand device? Then subscribe to the AAC feed here |
comments(32)
•
 boasted(5)
•
 toasted(1)
• Listen
|
| |
Comments  show votes |
|
Thanks for the pleasant surprise of having this show available for Sunday night, a day early.
Regarding the issue of too much rolling stock causing operational problems, there are other rolling stock issues relevant to a car-forwarding system. There needs to be a proper mix of rolling stock car types and subtypes. One needs a sufficient number of the various types to serve the needs of the industries as well as to fill through trains. Further, the mix of car owners and the era of the cars are important if one wishes to put the layout in a believable context. |
|
Regarding Mark F's car cards in the show links......I operated on Mark's layout in 2006 right before it was "abandoned" , but it ran well as I remember and was easy to understand - They certainly were very nice looking, compared to most peoples cc&wb's!
Dave Husman's car cards, if I recall correctly, are available only via the Yahoo Groups Car Card Group at - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CarCards/ You have to join and be a member to access the file. RAH |
|
Posted by:
simtim
 on Mon, Jun 1 2009
alwaystigers.mlblogs.com/Good show as always.... it was different to listen to myself on my mp3 player! Maybe this is overly simplistic, but perhaps the solution to having too much rolling stock for your layout is to put your extra stuff in storage and just get it out when needed!
|
|
Posted by:
motrak
on Mon, Jun 1 2009
www.motrakmodels.comGreat show. My problem is that I have too many freight cars even though I don't have a layout yet but soon I will. I think I'll need to sale some freight cars.
It's great to learn about car cards and operations. I'll be ready when that time comes. |
|
Steve, Marty and Ryan,
Love the depth of this show! Great Job on all sides! Thanks to all in sharing the knowledge. Very interesting to listen to the different types and sizes of Operations and how to "Keep the Ballance". I agree with Jeff that I have way too many freight cars for operation. Being in a MRR CLub, the hundred car coal train, while looking great when it is all together, is operationally impossible as it seems. Oh well I'll keep the cars for the roundy roundy at the club. I am wondering how I can apply Car Card - Waybill / Switch Lists to the Intermodal Industry, and things are becoming clearer after listening to this show. Thank You All Again for your time! Steve |
|
Posted by:
alkemscalemodels
on Mon, Jun 1 2009
www.alkemscalemodels.comGood show. You guys did a good job with a dry subject.
1. Is it me, or did Simtim sound just like Hank Hill? My son calls me Hank Hill because I take care of the lawn. But he doesn't realize that makes him Bobby. 2. Regarding shot and cartridges. Shot are the spherical pellets fired by shot guns (duh) and in larger sizes muskets or even cannon. In colonial to pre-civil war times manufactures made small shot in shot towers. Tall smokestack looking buildings with a platform up top and a water basin below. Up top they poured molten lead on a sieve. The lead fell through the sieve and formed a spherical drop as it fell down the inside of the tower. Air cooled it and it partly solidified. At the bottom of the tower a water basin caught the shot. Out of round specimens got remelted. There is still a shot tower standing in downtown baltimore. As for cartridges. Civil war soldiers called their ammunition "cartridges" even though it was not encased in brass. For a rifled musket, the cartridge consisted of a lead minie ball and a paper wrapper with gunpowder. They bit the paper with their teeth, poured the powder into the barrel and then rammed the minie ball on top. The big innovation that sped up the rate of fire was the percussion cap instead of a flintlock. They kept the percussion caps in a separate pouch. They placed the cap on a holder near the back end of the rifle/musket called a nipple. The nipple was hollow so that flame from the percussion cap could reach the gunpowder inside. The shooter cocked the trigger, aimed and fired. Later some regiments, mostly cavalry had repeaters that used brass cartridges. I don't know when shot towers stopped being used, but other techniques to make round shot evolved, so it is possible your shot mill does not have a tower. |
|
Great show again guys! Mark's site is great and I liked the talk on how to not over saturate one's layout and measure sidings based on cars delivered, not necessarily cars that can fit. My question is how does one treat blocks that just go from one through freight to another. For example, on Conrail's Harrisburg line, blocks would be taken off of one train and placed on another. In a car card or switch list system, should one have car cards for each individual car in that block or have a "block card" (I'll trademark that if no one else has). I think that would also be appropriate for intermodal as well.
|
|
Posted by:
simtim
on Mon, Jun 1 2009
alwaystigers.mlblogs.com/I hope I don't sound like Hank Hill! :)
|
|
Hey, sjconrail, regarding the car cards for every car........The Old Line Graphics car cards had a multi car block card (orange color card) for blocks of cars like reefers or coal hoppers that were traveling to one single destination one line, or as overhead freight from staging to staging. These cards are not really prototypical (except in ore/coal service, where I have seen such real cards), but in a model environment, very handy to have. I do personally feel that they are restrictive, because you need to be able to keep track of the cars in a "block", especially when switching that cut. But it does cut down on the stack of cards one must carry around, and that in and of itself IS a good thing! I would think that in modeling the operations of today where there is not a lot of switching enroute, that there cards would be very handy, and would take up covering most of the cars in the train, if not the entire train. I agree with Bernie (or was it Marty?) that the use of cc&wb is not what makes an ops session and thus the plan, and that it would be a good thing to further discuss ans flesh out on a future show some more. I think a lot of people have no idea where to start, and it would be helpful.
RAH |
|
Ralph, thanks. If you look at Conrail Freight Schedule 1998, this is the schedule I'm using as a base for determining number of trains, and how cars are delivered/picked up from local industries and how the Harrisburg yard would be switched. So that's what I'm starting with and I think you are right, the how to get started would be a good show.
-Phil |
|
Posted by:
Markf
on Tue, Jun 2 2009
home.comcast.net/~prrndiv/
I just finished listening to show #66 and what a surprise to hear you mentioning my cc&wb setup page on my website during the car cards & waybills discussion. Steve, I am pleased to hear that my site was able to help you set up your system and you are pleased with the results.
sjconrail, if you go to the Operations page on my site and look under the section entitled "Through Freights and Off Line Staging ", you will see how I create the illusion of blocks of cars on through freights passing through the system. Most through freights contained three blocks of cars; 1 that got set out and two other blocks that stayed on the train. That section explains how those blocks rotated through the train. This is just one way to do this. If you are shipping blocks, such as coal hoppers, then you can simply make up a single car card for that block, and the associated waybill for that block. The beautiful thing about the cc&sb system is that it is very flexible. Once you understand the basics that make it work, you can easily customize it to your operating scheme. Again, thanks for the kind words! |
|
Just a comment on the Shenware software. While the program is nice and allows you to manage the databases created by the opsig or ldsig (can't remember), there are problems with the databases. You will go nuts trying to match up shippers and receivers. What you end up finding is there are not always a receiver or a shipper for a given product. Or they are not located where you need them.
For example you may model a line between Chicago and New York. You want to ship an item in a box car from the west coast to New York. You find a shipper in the west but the only receiver may be in Atlanta. What happens after a while you end up making up so many shippers and receivers you wonder why bother with the database. Greg McCartney |
|
Posted by:
Kimble
on Wed, Jun 3 2009
web.mac.com/rcarignan/iWeb/Layout/Some Car Card Waybill links:
http://home.cogeco.ca/~trains/rrsoft.htm |
|
Posted by:
darkterritory
on Wed, Jun 3 2009
www.Housatonicrr.comI'm also a Shenware products user, and to a certain extent Greg is right about the databases. However, I'm not sure what the alternative is - any database can only give out information that's been put into it. Having the OpSig's 40,000 strong database available helps a lot, but again it can't possibly hold every industry in the nation for every era. With any system, you are going to end up doing some level of customization. If your requirements are not as strict as Greg's you should do better.
In my case I have the OpSig database loaded, but I can't use about 80% of it because the commodities did not exist in my time period. Moreover, among those that do the names are inappropriate (Like Geo-Tech Industries) so I have to exclude them. Even still I manage to make good use of what is available. I've input all of the towns and industries on my layout, and wherever possible I've added period offline industries by collecting data from State Commerce books close to my period. I have an abridged database for New Jersey from about 1910, and a comprehensive database of industries in Bridgeport CT from the turn of the century. I'm always looking for more data that can be transcribed into Shenware-compatible database files for use. I've also made these databases available to others through the OpSig's Yahoo group. Yes it took many hours to do all this. It would have taken just as much time (possibly more) to get any system or software product up and running to similar specifications. Personally I like the Shenware products a lot and recommend them. |
|
Posted by:
ChrisNH
on Wed, Jun 3 2009
model-railroad-hobbyist.com/blog/chrisNHHi,
I am about half way through the episode.. not sure when I will finish.. but I did hear the part where the car cards and switch lists were discussed.. One of Craig and Bernie's points about car cards is how they allowed one to make interesting decisions as they operated. Switch lists seemed to be weak in this regard. For instance.. a switch list will tell you what cars to put in what trains in the yard where with car cards thats a decision that the yardmaster makes. Depending on the complexity of operation on a given layout, there may be multiple ways to send a car out of a yard after it arrives. You may have to make choices about which cars go and which cars stay based on available motive power as well. I was hoping that issue would be addressed. Having used car cards but only read about switch list software its something I would have been interested in hearing Steve's thoughts on. Chris |
|
Chris, one thing I can say about the entire switchlist "issue" is that (and maybe this was made clear on the last show, I do not remember right now) there are switchlists that can be made from the info taken off the car cards, which is what the real railroads did (only off of the waybills) and IS very handy and prototypical, and then there are the pre-generated switchlists that are printed by computer programs ahead of time, and in essence "pre-script" all the moves for a session, and are not very flexible and/or forgiving of mistakes during a session, in my opinion. I say to each their own, but I just don't like that use of switchlists (which, to avoid further and future confusion, should maybe be called trainlists instead, which is really what they are if you think about it) when I am operating, but I do like making my own switchlists (sometimes called dingers, at least on the NKP) to work a yard or work a local - They are handy, and easier to handle along with a throttle than a whole stack of cc&wb's that usually ends up as a game of 52 pickup somwhere over the course of a session!
RAH |
toasted comment hidden
|
|
|
|
Its not that I was being strick with my choices in the Shenware database. You just fall into that trap when you are working out your waybills. Since most times you can only find only shippers or only receivers for a product you end up having to make up the rest of the information. If your not careful you can spend a lot of time on a single waybill. After spending 20-30 minutes completing one waybill and having 400 cars to go you start to think there has to be an easier way.
I guess my take home messge to anyone looking at the Shenware program is this. The program does a very good job of sorting out the opsig database and allowing you to change things around. Just don't expect to go into the program and starting making prototypical waybills right off the bat. My advice to anyone using these databases would be to sit down and generalize the commodities that convert all the railroads to your era. For example if you model the B&O and you know they served a papermill at Luke Maryland, but the database says it was served by CSX. Change that back to the B&O so it will be an option when you go to set up your shippers and receivers. Greg McCartney |
|
Posted by:
bobcatt
on Wed, Jun 3 2009
bobcatts2bits.blogspot.com/Operations is such a deep subject, and is "new" to so many model railroaders (despite the extensive coverage in the press) that it's easy for us neophytes to get confused.
It's not something the average person can read about and implement "cold" without seeing and experiencing it for themselves. It's definitely a good addition to a layout, but don't get hung up on the details. |
|
Posted by:
ChrisNH
on Wed, Jun 3 2009
model-railroad-hobbyist.com/blog/chrisNHI hope I didnt offend anyone with my post. I just saw this as a unique opportunity to get some compare and contrast from people who enjoy using both car cards and computer generated switch lists. I tried to be clear I was being curious, not argumentative. Hopefully I will get a chance to operate a computer switchlist layout and can draw my own conclusions which is always best anyway.
Anyway, I will drop it and look forward to future discussions on all aspects of operations. Chris |
|
Chris, just to follow up on your question above, I am not really sure what Craig and Bernie are alluding to as far as the train crew having discretion when using CC&WB that they wouldn't have when using a preprinted switchlist. Whether it be waybills or switchlists, the information the crew would have is the same. These cars need spotted and these cars need picked up. I guess you could choose to ignore some waybills and not make pickups as specified and not have to worry about the consequences down the road, but that is pretty much the only flexibility you would have if your going to follow prototype practices.
Even with the yards there really shouldn't be any difference based on whether you use cc&wb versus switchlists. See even with cc&wbs, trains are usually predetermined based on destinations served by the railroad. Its the yardmasters job to put that car out on the appropriate train not what ever train he thinks looks good. Both the waybill and the switchlist will tell him this information. The problem where preprinted switchlists fall down is they tend to micromanage the car movements. Because they are printed ahead of time you are reinacting what the computer said happend. And as long as the script is followed there is no problem. I know several have said they don't like this scripted feeling, but I think that is just a mindset becaues both systems are scripted. I guess this feeling of scripting may come from working as a yardmaster. As Craig mentioned, you tend to need to cherry pick cars to prepare the next train for departure versus breaking up the cut of cars that just arrived by destination like you do with CC&WB. The guys working the locals and road trains should not notice a difference in the two systems because they are presented with the same information just in different formats. Now the area where switchlists can shine is their ability to set the amount of time it takes to load and unload a car and the frequency and industry sends or receives a car. CC&WBs are just not well suited for that. Generally what happens is that all the waybills for cars in a given town are turned at the end of a session. Then during the next session, the local comes and pulls every car in town and replaces them all with new ones. There are tricks you can use to avoid this such as specifying that this boxcar can only be unloaded at warehouse dock "A" and if that spot was occupied when the car arrived then it waits its turn. On my railroad, I plan to employee ShipIt! software as a mine agent to assign hoppers to various mines based on priority and frequency of loading. So far my tests have thus far been favorable. Greg McCartney |
|
Greg,
Thank you for a very clear summary on cc&wb and switch lists. As I said on the podcast, use what works for you and your operating crew. If they don't like it, they will let you know. I have operated on many railroads using both approaches and it was not the car card or switchlist system that made it fun or torture. As said in a previous post, there is so much to operations and the use of car cards or switch lists is but a small piece of subject. Greg, good luck with Ship It. I had a terrible time with it when it came to handling staging and interchanges. If you start having trouble with it, don't think you are the problem; it's the software that is the problem. Steve B. |
|
Posted by:
darkterritory
on Thu, Jun 4 2009
www.Housatonicrr.comHi Greg
Let me try and give you a little more info on what Bernie and I are talking about - actually you alluded to it in your posting. It's the micro-management aspect of the computerized switchlist at the root of the problem. Here's an example: A local freight gets bogged down during the session and ends up running a real-time hour late or more. That train has cars on it that are meant to go on a through train after it arrives back at the yard. It's important to get that through freight out on time, and now you have a situation where a decision has to be made whether to hold the through train until the local shows up and transfers its cars, or to let it go and deal with the cars from the local later. With a computerized switchlist, if you don't wait until the local shows up you will have the following issues: The through train will leave town with items on the switchlist missing from the train. If that train travels to another yard or intermediate point and is supposed to hand off the cars to a yard crew or another train, there will be confusion about what happened to those cars. This is what I was referring to in the cc&wb show as a cascading failure. Once it starts it can't be fixed and can affect other operators down the line with no explanation possible. On the other end of things, when the local finally shows up, the cars have missed their connection and there is no further information on how to handle them. The information is with the switchlist for the through train that left. If several of them were priority cars, you're out of luck - they will sit there in the yard until the next session when the layout owner updates the system noting these cars never made it to their planned destination. With cc&wb, there are options. The through train can depart and there is no confusion anywhere down the line, they somply handle the cars they have on hand. They neither know or care about the cars that missed their connection. And on the other end of things, when the local shows up the YM (Yardmaster) can read the waybills that stay with the car, and make arrangements for those cars to get on another train later in the session going the same way. If they are empties, it's no big deal to shove them off into a storage track and let them go next session. That's where the discretion angle comes in. It's not whether to ignore a car or not, it's about making choices regarding how they should be handled in real time. And THAT is the big difference, doing a job that requires thought and decision-making compared to just following a list slavishly with no input of your own. To be fair to Steve, it sounds like RailOp (the program he uses) can handle this better than most prepared switchlist programs. It seems to operate in real time which is an advantage, and if I were interested in a switchlist program I would investigate it carefully. But it does mean it is going to be someone's full time job, or close to it, printing out switchlists on demand and update the program with new data during the session. It's not a job I'd want to do. In the end Steve is right, not everyone has the same tastes and there is plenty of room for all kinds of systems out there. Most work pretty well, some better than others. I said the same thing at the end of the cc&wb show too. It's not a fight, just an open discussion of the pros and cons of each system. And that's cool. |
|
Posted by:
ChrisNH
on Thu, Jun 4 2009
model-railroad-hobbyist.com/blog/chrisNHGuys, thanks for the insight. I really appreciate the time taken to provide such full responses.
I have one other question related to what RailOps can or can't do. One of the things I really want to model is requesting an empty car. From the point of view of modeling "railroad decisions" I think this is a really cool one. If a mill wants to send a load of widgets from Boston to New York City, then it would be more correct to load this on a NYC boxcar then it would be to load it on a CP car. With my modified card system (I am looking at a system similar to the one described in the last LDSIG journal, I will update this with the author when I get home..) I can hand the yard master the waybill cards for loads to go out. He can look in the yard for an appropriate car. If he finds one, he stuffs waybill into the car card. It will now forward for loading. At some point in the session we will consider it a "no-go" and the card will be brought to a train in staging to be inserted into an empty there. This gets around Steve's issue (I agree) if having to store a lot of cars. You work with whats on the railroad.. if nothing is there the superintendent puts it in staging. Anyway.. I drifted.. is there a way to handle empty car requests using Railops? Some of this is my own interest, some of this is because I have a layout I operate on where the owner has railops and is considering using it (yeah, thats backwards..). This is not purely academic for me! THanks! Chris ps- I saw Ted Pamperin's presentation on their prototype waybill system at the NE RPM meet. Very interesting.. however I am more interested in modeling prototype choices then prototype paper.. so some aspects of it I don't see myself using if I do continue down the waybill road. |
|
|
|
Hey Craig, I know exactly what you are talking about with the missed cars and I agree that is a very common problem among all of these software packages. I know ShipIt! now has a real time version as well but I have not played with it. ShipIt! is not a very user friendly program but it has some features that I like. In the end my plan like I said before is for ShipIt! to handle my coal mine empty load requests and use CC&WBs for freight.
One thing ShipIt! can do is print a master list of all car destinations for a session. With that information it would not be hard for missed cars to be crossed off switchlists and penciled in on others to fix an error. Also you can revise a car location in a program if needed. One thing I want to try is to just use the master destination list only and scrap the rest of the switch lists. That way I get out from under the computer micromanagement of the individual car movements. I can use the info from the master destination list to fill in waybills for carcards or switchlists as needed. Chris just to answer your question on car requests, I know ShipIt! will make car requests but does not pay attention to the roadname on the car. Thats why I have not persisted in using it for freight where you have multiple roadnames. I get by with it on coal shipments because coal cars tend to be home road cars so I don't have to worry about off road cars getting pulled in for coal service. Here is how I was using ShipIt!. I model Chessie System (B&O) in West Virginia. I was able to set up my mines to request empties and ship loads. The B&O shipped a lot of coal to Curtis Bay MD to be loaded on ships. I was able to repeat this operation on my railroad by allowing ShipIt! to manage those offline (staging) movements. See my railroad east staging was a mole staging. So when a train went into staging, those cars would be removed from the layout and stored in drawers. ShipIt! would continue to move those cars east to Curtis Bay virtually, give them dwell time to be unloaded, then sed them back west. Once they show up on the switchlist for the train to carry the cars back onto the layout, the mole would pull the cars out of the drawers and place them in the train. The net result was a constant cycling of cars on and off the layout keeping the same cars from repeating very quickly. Also since my layout was very small and not able to handle all the hoppers I had purchased, so it allowed my to use all my cars without clogging the modeled portion of the railroad. Greg McCartney |
|
Posted by:
Kimble
on Thu, Jun 4 2009
web.mac.com/rcarignan/iWeb/Layout/Ryan,
I learned something this week. 56min into the "Balancing your railroad" segment, Steve mentioned a novice mistake he mad when he first started operating - a mistake I am, or was, planning myself! He said he used to move card from one town to another but his research showed that that never happened in the prototypes. Card go form staging to industry and industry to staging, never industry to industry. As I've been planning my waybills, I have been thinking: "The car from the meat packing will take floor sweepings to the dog food factory and the milk run will take milk from the farms to the creamery and then from the creamery to...." and so on. If Steve would like to expound on that, I'd be appreciative. Rob C in Maine |
|
Rob -
It should be noted that the above example you stated is generally correct. If the goal is to model the larger rail network, then yes, this would not be realistic. Notice though, that I did NOT say that this can't happen. In a terminal operation, large plant (or at least large online industry of the same type) or a company owned railroad, this very well could happen. An example of this - The Cornwall RR in Pennsylvania was owned by Bethlehem Steel - http://kc.pennsyrr.com/layouts/kulp/prototype.php At one end of the RR, there were iron mines, and 6 miles away on the same RR, the ore would be refined, then shipped off line to the big company owned furnaces elsewhere in Pennsylvania. The Big Bethlehem Steel plant in Bethlehem PA is an even more insular example of this kind of operation, happening all in one place. In the case of the meat packing industry in states like Iowa, I am sure a packing plant on say the CG&W would get cars of pigs shipped from one town somewhere in the state to the big Decker Packing plant in Mason City IA, and then to another distributor (like a cold storage warehouse?) somewhere else in Iowa. OK, that is a stretch, but it COULD happen. There are other real-life examples, but I think you see where I am going. In general, yes, it is a "bad" idea, for the sake of realism. We are trying to represent large distances on our layouts, nad by doing what you laid out above, doesn't help renforce that illusion. So yes, the general rule of thub is avoid paired or direct shipper/receiver industries on your layout, but do not discount them directly. Just think "what would the prototype do/", or failing that, do use logic. Of course, as the always, say, it is your layout, and you can never do wrong when applying that logic to it. Have fun with it - that is what is most important! Just because it (it being a train, an operation, or an industry) may not be 100% prototypically realistic, doesn't mean you can't do it. RAH |
|
Posted by:
ChrisNH
on Fri, Jun 5 2009
model-railroad-hobbyist.com/blog/chrisNHGreg, thanks for the feedback.
I will be interested to see how the computer generated switch list programs evolve to keep pace with increasing operational realism being sought in the hobby. One can't help but wonder if someday there will be a program that supports both car cards and switch lists in one program that can generate both. I think you combine this with barcodes printed on the waybills and cards to allow one to quickly create wheel reports and you will have a winner that offers the best of both systems. I really appreciate the debate here. It has really helped me to refine my own thoughts on the subject as well as making me better able to discuss it with my local groups when the subject comes up. Regards, Chris |
|
Chris one of the company that makes ShipIt! also makes a car car program and the two are suppose to integrate together. While the version I have has that ability, I have not tried it. From what I understand most people have not been able to make it work properly. As Steve B. noted, ShipIt! is a cantankerous program to get to work and I don't know that I would recommend it to anyone. I have got where I am with it because of a lot of trial and error that most would have given up on long ago.
Greg McCartney |
|
Posted by:
jbaakko
on Sat, Jun 6 2009
rr.blockchoice.com
Don't have Excel? Use Open Office! I love free programs, (hence the prior links to VLC for listening to the podcast...
|
| A Model Railroad focused podcast/blog. For railroading beginners and seasoned line veterans. |
home
Photo Gallery
More Content
Pioneer Content
Support Posters
Show Products
Login
MRCS Forum
MRCS#157
MRCS#156
MRCS Swag
MRH Magazine
Shortline Modelers Lounge
Alkem Scale Models
Amesville Shops
LogicRailTech
Minuteman Scale Models
Motrak Models
Paw of a Bear
Railroad Kits
Tam Valley Depot
MRR Forum
Bernie's USMRR
Craig's Housatonic RR
Hallet Cove Southern
Lebanon Valley Blog
Marty McGuirk's Blog
New York Harbor RR
Siskiyou (Joe Fugate)
Stockton & Copperopolis
Stones River RR
The McNamara Blog
Tom Wilson's PWVRR
MRCS YouTube Group
December 2011
MRCS#155
MRCS#154
MRCS#153
November 2011
MRCS#152
MRCS#151
Use iTunes to receive our weekly show and have it delivered right to your computer or MP3 player automatically.
