Great idea

What a great idea, Tom, particularly for us N Scalers who have a hard time reading individual wagon numbers. But also for those of us who haven't yet ventured  into operations but want to give it a try without going the whole hog and getting into too much nitty gritty. This is the sort of system I've been looking for - simple and adaptable. This may be just the shot for easing people into operations who might otherwise think it's all too hard. Well done.

Tony

Bendigo, Australia

Simple Car Card System

I really like your system.  I developed my own "simple" card system for the same reasons you stated.  I call mine Work Orders, and each of my cards would be similar to one line on the back of your train card.  I considered using one card or page to represent a train or even an entire Op session, but I preferred the ever changing nature of one-card one-instruction I get with my system.  I draw a random number of cards (Work Orders) to start an Op session and work any number of trains until all the orders are complete.  It's much less time consuming than the standard car card & waybill approach, and like you state, you don't need to read tiny car numbers.

Thanks the interesting article.

KISS

You have really maximized the "KISS" concept. Excellent idea, I really liked it.

I'm not going to be able to be at the show,

but one of the guys in the modular club is organizing an operating session based on this system for Sunday afternoon at the Anaheim GTE Show.  I'll check with the guys at the set up next week in the San Bernardino Museum to see how it went.

your show

I will look forward to hearing how it worked for you, I may have more fun thinking of the scenarios than running them

Thanks all for the comments

Tom Driscoll

Great Article

Thanks for providing this system.   What a great article.

Tony Bruce

Simple car card system

The simple car card system is great for a layout the size of mine (12 feet by 9 feet) I'm adding the set out industry, pickup and destination to my train authority sheet. This gives a train crew a schematic map of the layout, space to record the train authorities permitting the the train to travel between stations and the cars to be handled. The train crew needs only needs one sheet of A4 paper to operate a train over the layout.

Regards

Rod Tonkin

Great article

Great article and I encourage folks to give this a try. It can be a lot of fun, even for die hard car card folks.

I have a friend with a largish N scale layout who uses a similar system. Like many N-scalers, he does not like car cards and the need for looking at tiny card numbers. We had discussed an old MRR article which had a similar system and eventually he came up with the system currently in use.

He has each train large on a laminated card. The number of set-offs and pickups are indicated with wet erase markers rather then being pre-slugged. The operator carries it on a lanyard around their neck for easy transport and reference. 

Yard work is a little different. He has a card for each potential train that shows car type cross referenced with capacity. The yard master just builds trains based on the guidelines from the card. There are not specific builds or the train.. just capacities by car type.

The only down side to the system is it requires the "agent" (Aka layout owner) to mark up the train cards on the fly depending on what's in the train in the yard and what's ready to go at the other end. Sometimes for experienced operators we forgo this and just wing it as we go along. For more formal sessions he will have cards ready to go for any trains all ready made up at the start of the session.

There are some exceptions. The paper mill runs entirely on a "see it, switch it" system which depends on what you have arrive and what you see needs to be swapped out. There is no train card for the paper mill switcher and just a yard card to build the trains bringing cars.

I personally like having detailed car card systems, but this is fun and certainly meets my friend's needs.

Chris

Something a bit different....

Working in N Scale, I, too, have no interest in reading the car markings, preferring to identify cars solely by type.  I have a switching only module, with incoming cars arranged off-stage in a fiddle yard, so all I need is a switching list to build the train and handle drop-offs. (pick-up's are based on cars already at industries.)

I use a computer generated switch list that, based on the industries and their needs, and the frequency of delivery randomly generates the switch lists.  The switch list is set up once and will regenerate a random list suitable for use as the actual switch list quickly and easily, guaranteeing (within the laws of probability, at any rate) a different scenario each time.

How it works is more fully described here:  https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/anyone-want-a-free-switch-list-generator-for-switching-layouts-12189351.

The spreadsheet, which runs under a variety of spreadsheet apps, (it's stored as a Google Document spreadsheet which may be copied and used as is, or downloaded in a number of formats, including excel and Open Office)  is available for anyone who wants it at:   https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmH3g4BYgRtgdFFmMXJWNnRjNjVSNE4tbXlKQXpaS2c&hl=en_US#gid=0

It didn't work real well at the show.

"I will look forward to hearing how it worked for you, I may have more fun thinking of the scenarios than running them"

I wasn't able to make the show for the operating session.  It was not the fault or any problem with the system that created problems.  The problem was with a new member who was operating for the first time.  He probably should have had an experienced member working together as a crew" to get the job done.  As it was, he ended up taking an hour to switch one industry and had both the industry he was switching as well as both mains tied up for the full hour backing up trains in both directions until he had finished.

As Simple As It Gets!

I flip-flop between being as prototypical as I can and being as simple as I can.  The bottom line is to have fun in this hobby and, sometimes, being prototypical ain't all that fun!  Good job on the creation of this card system and for the accompanying video.  Great timing for me, too, as I was just about to dive into a car card/waybill system!  

What is the possibility of publishing or sharing your Word & Excel files for this card system set-up?

Again, thanks for keeping it all fun!

Word files

Does Tom have the templates

Does Tom have the templates used for his train cards available for download anywhere?

Tom, send us your latest files

Tom:

If you send us your latest files, we'll post them in the subscriber bonus section for free download.

Tom's files are now in the subscriber downloads for Jan

If you look in the subscriber bonus downloads for January, we've added Tom's sample Word Doc files for you to use to build your own operation scenarios using his system.

Simple Car Card System

Am old geezer w/bad eyes, occasional arthritis in hands: This system a Great Idea for switching on my small branch line HO layout! Eliminates tons of paperwork [had enough of that in the military, LOL!] Allows one to just Enjoy running trains, switching layout industries. This'll work for me! ........Old Tom in NH