It may come in without a

It may come in without a waybill on interchange, and be returned after a few days of annoying the yard crews.  I recall dealing with that almost monthly way back when in my Soo days.

Happens all the time

Thanks Milt,

Three reasons why I wanted to do this.

1) As you said, it happens all the time

2) It happened to my railroad

3) It was fun!

James

Me likey!

Another way to work in a car that would otherwise have no place on my layout!

Mike in CO

Nicely done

Hi James:

That's a nice enhancement to the layout. It's sure to make some operators scratch their heads...

I have a similar idea, lifted from a memoir written by a former dispatcher. He worked for a railway that was having financial difficulties that resulted in deferred maintenance.

Wash-outs were an issue. Since the accountants were reluctant to spend money on maintaining the RoW, the track gangs would try to fool them by ordering more cars of ballast than they needed to fix a problem. For example, if they estimated 10 cars, they'd order 12. They would then "lose" the two extra cars by having a crew drop them on a spur on a branch somewhere in their territory.

The idea was that next time some ballast was needed, they'd have some handy - and maybe prevent a wash-out.

I've written up some instructions for cars of ballast to be dropped on the double-ended track in St. Williams to represent this. They then stay put for a few operating sessions, complicating the switching in this location. I don't do it very often, but it makes for an interesting change to the typical session.

Cheers!

- Trevor

Balance

Thanks Trevor,

There's countless examples of real-life situations that can confound operations, or at least make it less repetitive. Like you said, it's best used in moderation. Last thing we would want is to turn a prototype-based layout into a caricature of poor design and execution.

James

Caricature? Not going to happen

We'd have to add more track.

- T

PS: How's your nose?

You weren't drinking coffee when you read that, I hope...

Beverage Choice

After 6pm it becomes water... with malt, hops, and barley. I'm good my friend

And for the rest of you, it's just an inside joke. Carry on.

James

I like that

It's a reminder that odd things happen everywhere.

Lost cars

Mis-routed cars

I remember hearing about my prototype returning a mis-routed autorack to the UP a couple years back. There are no locations I can think of on the prototype that would even call for an autorack, either loaded or empty, so it's a bit of a wonder that the car was left in the first place. 

Room for Everyone

f Omaha Steaks or Visa gift card if you found one.

They should post the wanted car  list on a railfan site and they'd find them right away.....DaveB

it's a bit of a wonder that the car was left in the first place

 I once saw the local drop off an empty 6 axle Dept. of Defense heavy duty flat car at a local lumber yard that only receives lumber by rail. It sat there for a while then was gone one day....DaveB

Convenience

Car 54, where are you?

Dear MRHers,

Seem to recall 2 related incidents:

1 - An article in Trains or Railfan-and-Railroad magazine about a fan who bought a full-sized ex-Seaboard caboose to put in his back yard. The article covered the story of the purchase, the almost-1-year of transit and "adventures" the caboose went thru, and the eventual suffing-and-mounting on the fan's property.

2 - Check thru the OsoRail Climax book, it's reported that at least 1 NG Climax locomotive, shipped ex-works from Corry, PA in a SG gon, wandered (who knows where) for over a year, eventually being waybilled back to the factory, never delivered... 
(takeaway point: mis-billed cars and the related ops are applicable to Model RR ops covering late 1800s thru til now, they are not just a "modern era" thing...)

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Statistics

James' example is one of a home road crew misplacing a car, or getting bad paperwork on that car's routing.  I don't have any stats on the frequency of that, but if anyone's interested, the stats on error switches (i.e. cars wrongly delivered in interchange) from UP and BNSF to the IAIS in the spring of 2005 at Council Bluffs were as follows:

UP: 20 error switches out of 1325 cars interchanged (2%)

BNSF: 2 error switches out of 1262 cars interchanged (< 1%)

BNSF obviously faired better in this sampling, but a few years later they more than made up for it by mistakenly interchanging an 80+ car unit train to the IAIS.  

You must have thorough operators

I can't think of a layout I've ever operated upon where all the cars end up in their rightful places anyway.  Invariably some cars are missing their paperwork, and sit around for a few sessions while the card gets found again. 

How far could it wander?

How far away could a mis-routed car wander before being found and sent home?  

"...travellin' far and wide..."

Dear Irish,

I can't remember how long ago it was, but seem to recall MR having a unformal "readers contest" to spot a Wisconsin Central/Wisconsin Southern boxcar with MR herald on it, with a road number that related to the Kalmbach publishing office address? Apparently, the reports "from the field" had the car travelling all over the continental US, and the results were published at one time as a system map...

Many cars such as tankcars and covered hoppers with "once they take a specific load, it's a pain to clean them to take a different type of load" charactistics tend to stick to relatively known routes. Unit-train cars ditto. However, you want a car that travels any/everywhere? No contest, it has to be a Railbox boxcar. (Just one of the reasons they are soo commonly hit by graffiti. If the painter's motivation is "mass exposure", then they know a Railbox boxcar will travel far and wide with their work on show...)

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

PS Interchange rules say that any MT car not earning $$$ hauling a load needs to be expedited back to it's home road/rails. Of course, if the fastest way to West is actually East,
(An MT Los-Angeles-based UP boxcar on a NY shortline has to be handed to CSX first, because the shortline can't hand it to UP directly, ergo "go East to go West"),

or with a load which takes it "out of it's way home",
(Once that UP boxcar gets to the nearest CSX transcon classifcation yard as an MT,
it is "commandeered" to take a load for "somewhere in Idaho",
because that load is heading "in the right general direction of home" for the car),

then "fastest way home" may not actually be a straight line...

Whoops...

Dear Joe,

"...dang, I know I left that hopper train somewhere..."

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Paperwork

Neat idea, James. And as others have noted, one that could be used in a variety of ways. Question- what type of paperwork do you use to instruct the crews on how to move (or not move) the car? 

Tom Patterson

Lost "CAR" with a lost "CAR" load

Years ago my Sister-in-Law and her husband moved from Mt Isa (Central Queensland) to Emerald (south east Queensland) for a new job at the recently opened coal mine there. They had 3 vehicles so they shipped one by Queensland Railways. QR said it would take about 2 weeks fro it to arrive but it never did! After about 2 months of looking QR gave up and paid them the insurance value of the car.

Jump forward 5 years and they get a phone call from the QR Station Master to say their car had arrived!! So off they goto the station and there is there car looking very bedraggled after sitting on an open flatcar for 5 years!! They explained to the SM what had happened and he stated "I wondered why the date was so wrong but just assumed it was a slip of the pen!!!"

After a few phone calls the SM found out what had happened. Quite a few of the QR stations have a WYE track leading away from the mainline to serve some sort of "Industry" and to allow the turning of locos. Apparently the flatcar must have developed a fault and the crew had set the car off on one of these sidings which happened to be obscured by trees and there the car sat until someone noticed it still sitting there and reported it.

Eventually the QR said they could take the car back as they didn't want the hastle of all the paperwork to return the payment. They rebuilt the car as a hot rod and named it Bo Peep as it it was a lost sheep. They still drive it on special occasions.

For the car nuts it was a General Motors Holden Model FJ ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden_FJ ) which are now really collectible.

Graeme Nitz

Error switch

Now keep in mind that in the case of error switches, the road mistakenly receiving the car is owed $250/car, and you can see how such mistakes would be frowned upon.  I'm told that on some roads, that charge only applies to loads, and the two roads may work out a reasonable settlement, but still...