CAR CARDS AND SLOTS IN USE

A current discussion among layout designers concerns holding and sorting slots for car cards used to direct freight car movements on model railroads.  I described my basic car card slots in a post two years ago.  http://espeecascades.blogspot.com/2014/05/car-card-boxes.html  Since that time, I have put my railroad into full operations and done a fair bit of labeling.  Further, I just introduced new computer-printed waybills and the “Spot Card” concept.  http://espeecascades.blogspot.com/2016/05/improved-car-movement-documents.html  Given the current on-line discussion, a refreshed visit to this topic is in order.

As I previously noted, I build my car card boxes with a nominal 1x3 MDF molding for the front piece.  Most of my boxes use nominal ½ x 2 wood strip for spacer-separators.  Though this might seem wide by some, I have found the extra thickness of the spacer makes for easier handling of the cards by my fat fingers and better visual separation of the groups of cards in the slots.  I use 1/8 hardboard as a backing.  This is a bit shorter than the height of the cards, providing for a finger-hold for the car cards in the slots.

A key reason for the thick front piece is to provide a horizontal surface for slot labels.  I got this idea from Rob Spangler in descriptions of his WP 8^th Sub layout on the Model Railroad Hobbyist Forum.  The horizontal labels are easily viewed from the normal operator standing position.

Car Card slot boxes on fascia shelves at Eugene Yard.

Yard track car card box with slots for each track. 

In the picture above, the yardmaster has begun assembling blocks of cars on three classification tracks for three of the locals that originate at Eugene.  Slot file separators are available for the yardmaster to identify the use of each track and groups of car cards associated with the blocks of cars on those tracks. 

The yardmaster also has a stack of “Spot Cards” for each of those locals.  The spot cards are used to control the number of cars sent out to each industry spur.  A high proportion of the traffic on my railroad is for empties delivered to industries for outbound loading.  One can think of the spot cards as a form of the station agent’s call for empties.  This reinforces the waybills, which also represent industry demand.  Each day, the car clerk (usually me during staging) collects up the spot cards from the cars at industries that are to be picked up.  These are added to the spot card stack at Eugene.  All the yardmaster needs to know is that if a car is billed for an industry and has a spot card, there will be space at that industry and the car can be sent out on the next local serving that station.

Inbound loads might arrive on any mainline freight arriving at Eugene.  The yard needs to pull those cards into the classification yard and add them to the car block for the appropriate local.  There is more variability in dealing with these inbound cars, so the spot cards help control what goes out on the locals.  The result is the use of Eugene for excess traffic—the “off-spot” cars.  Since my waybill deck is quite new, I have not had time to balance the traffic contained therein, so it is quite easy to overload a few of the industry spurs.  The spot cards help control this flow.

Example cars with car cards containing both waybill and spot card.  These cars are ready to go out to Oakridge on the next Oakridge Turn.

Cars at Springfield ready for pick up.  The spot cards have been removed and the waybills cycled toward the next destination.

As the photos show, I use a car card slot for each track, spur or industry.  That last case provides three separate card slots for the three industries along one spur at Eugene.  My other industry spurs get a single slot each, even when one industry has a couple of tracks, such as Western Lumber at Westfir.

Car Card slots at Westfir.  Western Lumber has two tracks.  The front track serves the wood chip loader and the plywood warehouse.  The back track serves the lumber loading.  A spare slot has been provided for a possible future use.

My car card slot boxes rest on the 1x4 shelves at the base of the layout fascia.  For some layouts, the shelf extension into the aisle might be an issue.  I have been careful placing the fascia shelves to minimize their impact on human traffic flow.  The railroad was designed with fairly wide aisles, though I did compromise down to a standard three feet wide aisle minimum around much of the mainline.  The Eugene-Springfield area has a very generous aisle that squeezes down to six-feet wide at the Springfield turn-back loop, but broadens to eight feet wide at the blind end near the Willamette River crossing at RR-West Eugene (RR-East Springfield).  I carefully thought through the human traffic around the rest of the railroad.  So far, this seems to work acceptably, though there are occasions when operators must pass each other.  Aisle width is an important element of layout design.  Projections into that aisle, such as my operator shelves and card card boxes, must be considered as part of that overall design.  It is not all track!

OPERATIONS RETURN!

Operations returned to my HO scale SP Cascade Line after the long layoff this past winter and spring for house maintenance.  Nineteen folk helped me restart regular operations.  Most were regular crew members, but they were joined by two new crewmembers.  We felt the loss of a couple of regulars who had performed key rolls previously, but this allowed others to step in.

This session marked the introduction of the new car movement documents noted in the previous post.  http://espeecascades.blogspot.com/2016/05/improved-car-movement-documents.html 
That meant I had to spend much of the prior week staging the railroad and matching up the new operating documents with existing cars and car cards.  The new waybills were well received.  The “spot cards” will take a little more work with procedure.  Still, it was a good introduction.

The crew call board got a work out with a new crew caller.  The random draw for “seniority” and job bids left a couple of positions uncovered, so we had to reassign a couple of operators.  We also needed to match the two new crewmembers with an experienced crewmember.  Both had good experiences as a result of this pairing.

Bob S. works the Crew Call Board, checking the line-up and crews assigned.

As usual, a full crew worked Eugene with a Yardmaster, West and East Switchers, and the Eugene City Switcher (conductor and engineer).  Here, Pete J. works as the East Eugene Switcher.

The Oakridge Turn began the session ready to start work in Oakridge.  Joe B. and Vic N. work the Turn at Westfir.

Dispatcher Rick K. rides herd on the crews, making sense out of the chaos (and noise) for twenty folk.

New crewmember Bill M. departs Eugene with a RR-West train.

A RR-West freight pulls out of Cascade Summit toward Crescent Lake as Amtrak Number 14 starts down the Hill.

The Second Springfield job works the aisle-side industries as a RR-East freight rolls through town.

Finally, the Superintendent (me—on right) gets a chance to sit down and talk with one of the crew, Dave C. (left)

IMPROVED CAR MOVEMENT DOCUMENTS

One task on my “active” list for most of the past year was improving the documents used to direct individual car movements on my layout.  I use a “home-brewed” car card and waybill system based on similar documents printed by Old Line Graphics and Micro-Mark.  All of these derive from the fundamental system described in a landmark article in Model Railroader magazine by Doug Smith.  

The basic car card and waybill system features a car card with a pocket that travels with each car on the railroad.  A separate “waybill” is inserted into the pocket to direct movement of that car to the next destination.  Long ago, I developed computer-printed masters for both the car card and waybill, very similar to the aforementioned commercial products. Though I have long-since lost the original text file, my printed masters still serve as reproduction masters.

Car card for an SP bulkhead flat car.

While my car card master continues to serve satisfactorily, even with the hand-written data entries, the same could not be  stated for the waybill.  I was reminded of the inadequacies of my waybill format for hand-written data entry as I pressed it into service for initial operations on my SP Cascade Line.  In the rush to get ready for the NMRA National Convention in August, 2015, I simply could not spend the time needed to develop or acquire a suitable computer substitute.  Note that I use Apple Macintosh computers for which little model railroad software has been developed.  

One positive aspect of my forced railroad down-time this winter and spring has been time to deal with this operating document issue.  I located a car card and waybill routine that used Microsoft Excel, a program on my desktop.  The particular program was developed and made available by the NMRA Australasian Region with a link provided by the Operations Special Interest Group.  The programmer(s) who developed the Excel spreadsheets did a great job, including getting the correct format for a two-sided four-cycle waybill.  My railroad operations really need only two of the four cycles resulting in my needing to print only the front side of the waybill.  I added color code bands for the destinations to assist the classification yard in rapidly switching cars.

Two waybills.  The waybill on the left is for a flat car to be delivered empty to Pope and Talbot at Oakridge and then move to a lumber yard in Los Angeles.  The waybill on the right is for a smooth interior car to be delivered to the Weyerhauser Interchange on my Marcola Branch.  This car subsequently moves to another Los Angeles destination.

A final car document I am now adding to my operations is a “Spot Card.”  This is a control feature for making up local freights developed by Lee Nicholas of “Utah Colorado and Western” fame and adopted by my friends in the nearby Willamette Model Railroad Club.  The idea is that the originating yard for a local freight has a file of “Spot Cards” for industry spurs served by that local.  The yardmaster (or clerk) marries up the appropriate “Spot Card” with a car card and waybill for a car being placed into the local freight consist.  If a spot card is available, that means there is space at that industry spur for the car.  I adapted the “Spot Card” idea from my WMRRC friends to my own use, adding the same color code used for the destination station.

Spot Cards for the waybills previously shown.

The final document for a car to be spotted at an on-line industry consists of a car card with a waybill and spot card in the pocket.

Car card set for an empty bulkhead flat to be spotted for loading at the Pope and Talbot lumber mill at Oakridge.

SP bulkhead flat being spotted at Pope and Talbot.

While I was working with Excel and printing operating documents, I used the same color code for file divider strips for use by my Eugene Yardmaster.  The YM uses the dividers to separate blocks of cars in the classification yard.

Car card slot dividers.  “Springfield – A” is the first Springfield switch job that switches the backdrop side of the mainline at Springfield.

The big test for all of these documents will occur in another couple of weeks as my railroad returns to scheduled operations.

INSPECTION, REPAIR, AND TUNING

During the house repairs, I covered the affected areas of the railroad with hardboard to protect the track.  The railroad had to serve as a work platform in three places, each of which had a number of switches installed.  After I painted the repaired ceiling over the railroad, I removed those hardboard covers.  Inspection of the railroad was the next task.

I was pleasantly surprised to find relatively little damage to the railroad.  Only one switch repair could be tied directly to the house repair activity.  The throwbar for the snow plow track off the Oakridge wye was broken.  This was a Micro Engineering turnout.  I have found their throwbars a bit frail and have replaced about a half dozen on the railroad so far.  Although I had to fiddle with the switch machine installation while replacing the throwbar with a pc-board tie, the job was directly accomplished.

One other switch repair was somewhat related to the house work.  The RR-West siding switch at West Springfield (outer edge of the turnback loop) looked like it could use some tweaking.  I got a bit too vigorous with my small file, catching the point, splitting it through the rail web and crumpling the head portion of the point.  The picture below shows my attempt at reforming the point.  I decided it would be better to replace the point rail.  This turned out to be an easy job—much better than trying to make do with the damaged rail.

Damaged point rail at RR-West Springfield.  The damaged point is on the right, not quite straight.

Switch with replacement point rail.  The replacement rail is unpainted.

A consequence of all of the drying action in the house was change in the moisture content of the railroad benchwork.  This showed up as warped track—like a sun kink on the full-sized railroads.  I had two of these warped rails or track.  A single rail needed to have a gap cut for expansion and the rail spiked down for about a foot in length in the midst of Oakridge yard.  A second spot, on the mainline out of Springfield, had the track pop up off the adhesive with both rails warped.  This one was a very simple fix of shortening the rails at the nearby rail joint and reattaching the track to the roadbed. 

Mainline track warped RR-West of Springfield.

Reattached track after trimming the length of the both rails.

A final track task has been a long-deferred systematic inspection and tweaking of my Fast Tracks switches.  Most of my original construction Fast Tracks switches were built without a notch in the stock rail railhead where the points meet the stock rail.  At least for me, this resulted in tight track gauge at the points and through the first couple of inches of the points.  Although I or one of my trusted helpers have gotten to many of these switches, now was a perfect time to systematically inspect and tune.  All of the rolling stock that has been on the railroad is in the staging loops in the “back” room.  Without equipment in the way, the inspection and tweaking proceeded very efficiently. 

It has been a long  down time for my railroad.  I am about to clean the track (another task made easier with no equipment nearby), vacuum the railroad (again) and finally turn the power back on.  That light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter!

THE RAILROAD REEMERGES

It has been a long stressful winter and spring as we dealt with the aftermath of discovery of a water leak in our house at the beginning of January.  The leaks were caused by flooring staples penetrating radiant heat tubing (intended to heat the tile on our main floor).  Four years later and a thermal cycle (no heat) allowed the punctures to reveal themselves.  I reported the start of this process back in January:

http://espeecascades.blogspot.com/2016/01/house-maintenance-pause.html

The railroad has been covered by screwed-down hardboard for the past four months.  The railroad had to serve as a work platform during that time.  House reconstruction (flooring restoration, drywall replacement, trim—deferred, and paint) finally got underway in April.  We finally took action for ourselves with paint as we realized it was the key item remaining that kept us from returning to normal house functions.  The trim will get installed in a while, but is not critical to returning our lives to normal. 

Here I am applying paint to the ceiling over Oakridge.  A large patch of ceiling was removed for both leak repair and inspection.  Three new inspection hatches have been left in the ceiling, one of which is just over my left shoulder in this photo.

Two primary leak sites were discovered.  The subsequent inspection effort exposed more of the ceiling such that four stations on the railroad were impacted by the construction effort.  The first was over the Oakridge engine terminal.  Subsequent inspection led from Oakridge across the aisle to an area over Cascade Summit.  The second leak site was over the RR-West end of Springfield.  The subsequent tubing inspection led to a long opening that extended from the back wall of the house to the main house beam over the Eugene Depot area.  This last area  disturbed the mounting of my NCE radio base station.

NCE radio base station dangling from the ceiling.

The ceiling has been restored as far as it will be, with three inspection hatches left open for now.  Eventually they will be covered.  They are located over aisles, so the hatch cover mounting should not impact the railroad.

Radio base station remounted and Eugene uncovered.

The final step of uncovering the railroad was at Oakridge where it all began.  In the rush to provide a work platform, I had screwed down many small scraps of hardboard over the Oakridge track.  Uncovering this area required many more screws to be pulled out than other areas.    At least it is done now.

Oakridge uncovered.

I now turn to a period of inspection and repair.  I also found I have some spray foam insulation (used under the house main floor) to dig out that fell between those scraps covering Oakridge.  Sigh.