Industries

 I'm impressed - good trackplan. Here's the info I use to determine what cars go where: A) What does the industry make?b) what raw materials go into making that product? C) How does the raw material get shipped? (truck/gondola/covered hopper/ boxcar/reefer) D) How is the finished product shipped?

I also have other cars for trains that do not fit the categories; these are "through cars" to other railroads for interchange tracks and/or in the yard awaiting a further destination. 

Keep in mind that the siding should support the different kinds of cars needed for that industry. So, the might be a "pit" for unloading covered hpppers and a car length away a boxcar door for loading/unloading.

Really like the rolling stock on the portable shelves - gicves me an idea for my layout.

Thanks, but...

Thanks for your input but I know the industries, the in bound products, out bound products and what AAR type of car is needed for the era I am modeling.

I have waybills to ship industry specific products to my consignees. The waybills are in consignee name order. Should I shuffle them like cards, then deal them out? How do I determine how many to deal? It seems to me that the waybill will determine what cars are needed, not the other way around.

I think I should have a scheduled freight for each area, neighborhood, based on the number of cars I have decided my locomotives can pull. Does that sound right?

Local freight trains are limited to 5 cars, thru freights 10 cars. If a neighborhood requires more than 5 cars I will have to run the scheduled plus an extra.

Shuffle

Shuffle the cards, Bob. That way you won't know what cars are being called for until you pull the required number of waybills for that session. As to the number of cars, why not use one or two dice as is used by others to decide how many waybills are needed for a session. I haven't gotten into the major operations portion of your program, but from my most basic understanding, you could have the program call up the number of waybills and therefore the type of cars. Either way, the variety of each consist would change with each operating session.

Anyway, just some thoughts to ponder. Have fun and thanks for letting us use your great program.

Roy

Try this

You know what cars are needed for each industry so select a few of your favorites from the collection and "salt" the layout.  Start with about 40% full for each industry.  Do a few industries a little less than 40% and a few a little more than 40% (but don't over do it).  Have about the equal amount in the yard, some empty ready to be delivered to the industry on the next local and some full that just came from the last one waiting to hitch a ride with the next hauler to get to their destination.  Also have a train made up from those cars to.

When you get that done run some trains!  Have some fun and don't stress.  A system will start to develop.  You'll find a few problems but just tweak them a little as you go..... a couple cars fewer for Industry X, a few more boxcars to the layout etc.  Run some more trains and see how that works and tweak as needed. Don't stress this is fun -you're runnin trains on your layout

As the system is developing along there will always be some tweakingAlso, as you go, pull a car off the layout and swap it with one from the stash to mix things up. 

As for WB I'm not familiar with EZ MR inventory but set them up as to what you think the car is doing on the initial set up.. ..empty or full, heading in or out as appropriate and turn them as you go.  At first you don't even need WB.  Just do a one for one swap- one box car for one boxcar.  Open loads will need to be turned by you between sessions.

As for the set out stuff, when your train arrives that has work at that town/ind, locate your off spots so you know where they are, the cars you will "pull" while you are there (as you have your card box set up) and the cars in the train that you will "spot" (on the WB) before you leave.  I would pull the cars out first so you will have room to spot the new cars in their place.  Next is the off spots, they've been waiting and need to get in there, followed by the cars you'll spot from you train. If need be, off spot the cars from your train since they have been waiting the least.  Remember to place any hold cars (those that are being loaded/unloaded) back where you found them so the customer can finish. If at all possible get to an ops session, it will make everything a little clearer.  The Op SIG group is a great way to do this http://www.opsig.org/. 

It's hard to read your track plan as to yards and staging, but it looks like you'll have to switch WBs on the layout as you go.. kinda set a session, run it, re stage the layout and run "another session.

Here is a little chit that I did when I was salting the layout. The industries are on top and locations/trains on the left

Anyway, just my thoughts and I hope they help.

Steve

Adding Cars for the First Time

Hi Bob,

You certainly have everything well prepared.  If you talk to anyone who has actually had an op session, I think they will all tell you the same thing.  It is a lot of work, especially the first time, but it gets much easier after that and once you establish your basic requirements.  It still takes me a couple of hours for about three days to get ready for one, but I'm probably slower at it than most guys.  That also does not incluse the time required to install new items or make repairs.  That said, where to start. 

You've already determined your max train lengths and your basic trains.  I usually make up my mainline freights for staging first.  You didn't mention it, but will they be doing any pickups or drop offs? If they are which happens with mine, you almost have to work backwards for those cars.  What industries would they service? I got the impression your north and south train will serve different areas. Pick the waybills for some of them and assign them to a car.  Do the same thing for your local/s and stage them.

With the large number of industries you have, I would work on the cars that are to be spotted there.  What p/u's are there?  Find waybills for them, assign and spot those cars.  How about cars being loaded or unloaded?  Stage them.  I think you'll be suprised about how many cars and waybills you end up using, and what your layout looks like after doing this.

Trying to make up a switch list.  I think that really helps to refine the cars to be spotted and where.

Anyway, some food for thought.  It should get you in pretty good shape to try a practice op session.  So when do you want to run it?

Chuck

I am ready

Chuck, when can you come over? There are a couple of small things I would like to do but they will not take long and if not done will not effect a little op session.

One other thing to keep in mind is that not all cars going

to industries on the layout will be loads, and not all of the cars coming off the layout will be empties.  It is not likely that you will have any cars that go to one industry on your layout to be loaded and then to another industry to be emptied.  Typically a move that short will be more economical if done by truck.  What you will have is some industries that make a product.  That type of industry may receive raw materials in one type of car and ship out finished products in a different type of car.  Other industries may be warehousing and receive inbound loads by train with outbound distribution going out by truck.

Break your layout down into individual industries and think about the traffic flow for each industry.  I was unable to read the names of your industries in your original post, so I'm going to throw out some typical examples of industries.

Back in the 1980's the company I worked for was located in South-Central Los Angeles.  There was a company right behind us that made tanks.  I remember that they specifically made pressure tanks, to hold compressed air.  Some of their tanks may have held propane, co2, or any other gas that an industry might use in compressed form.  They may have also made fuel or oil tanks of the nonpressure variety, but I don't remember for sure.  Typiucally about every couple of weeks they would received a couple of mill gons loaded with steel sheet and steel shapes such as angle iron, channel iron, "z" shape, etc.  They would unload the steel and put it on racks for use, but the now empty gons would stay on the tracks.  As they manufactured the tanks, scrap metal pieces would be thrown into the gons.  Since the scrap was just thrown into the gons, it took a lot more space than the neatly stacked fresh metal.  When they were ready for the next shipment of metal, the scrap loads were ready to go out.  The railroad would pull the scrap loads out and put in fresh loaded gons for them to start the process over again.

A furniture factory might receive bolts of cloth, foam and/or cotton padding and hardwaqre in boxcars, plywood and dimensional lumber on bulkhead flats.  The finished furniture might go out in the same boxcars that the raw materials came in on, but the bulkheard flats would go out empty.  Much of the furniture might also go out by truck.  L-c-l, or l-t-l is much cheaper sent out by truck, but if they had full car loads to go to a large distribution warehouse elsewhere in the country, they might use boxcars loads to send the furniture out.

A food distribution warehouse will probably not  send out anything by train, but might receive car loads of product.   Typically, boxcars loaded with can goods and bags of beans, flour, or rice.  From the time of the advent of the interstate highway system until the mid 1980's to now, most perishables would have been moved by truck.  With the increase in fuel costs, more produce has been moving by train, but mostly from a large cooling plant to another large refrigerated plant in another part of the country where it is distributed by truck.  Tropicana sends 5 100 car juice trains to NYC weekly and I think two more to somewhere in the upper midwest every week, but they also have a warehouse in the City of Industry in Southern Cal where they send up to 5 car loads of "Tropicana Pure" in cases of  bottles perhaps 3 times per week on U.P. trains from Bradenton Florida.  Those car loads come in on a mixed freight.  I'm not sure if they have a similar operation in other parts of the country, but they could have similar warehouses in the Pacific Northwest, or Northern California.

I would suggest that you start by putting on the customer's hat and figuring out what products you would receive by rail and what would be sent by rail for each industry.  Then put on the railroad manager's hat to figure out how you would route those shipments in and out.  Just play with your trains moving loads in and out of your layout, until you have an idea of how the layout flows.  Once familiar with the flow, you can then figure out how to do the paper work, car cards, etc.  You don't necessarily need to run trains on a schedule.  Time sensitive freight trains generally run on a schedule, but often most freight is sent out in a train operated as an "extra."  If the product is perishable in at least some of the cars on the train, it will be expedited, but not necessarily run as a scheduled frieght.

Try adding trains

I agree with Russ, it seems the critical thing is to establish what each industry would recieve and what they would send, how frequently and how it would get there (remembering some products are time critical and would go on fast trains).

You also need to figure out the frequncy and pattern of your trains. This is determined by things such as the capacity of the track, when trucks have to be dropped off at interchange points and when they arrive.

Hope this helps

Iain

love the track plan

I just wanted to let you know that I love the track plan. It's got all the features of a great switching layout with some mainline action as well. I can see you spent a good deal of time with the concept as well. What I like the most about is the fact you can keep multiple operators bust at 1 time while still keeping the design simple.

As far as the cars are concerned, I like the ideas posted by the others listed above. As far as prototype operations go, nothing is set in stone. As mentioned above, certain industries receive certain cars, so that's a good starting point. But, if you add or have any "team tracks" or "stoage tracks", then just about any type of railcar can be used. Team tracks can be used to offload ANY type of car for ANY customers not located trackside. Storage tracks can be used to hold "other" types of cars or such as "MOW" equipment including ballast cars or gons filled with "rail" or ties. These items add another element to your layout and fit in anywhere even if they do not directly relate to your industries.

Another tip, is that the railroads are always moving certain types of trains such as: "run through" trains. You can always add these to your layout simply by adding some TOFC cars to your layout and having a TV train added to your lineup. Just because your trackplan dosn't include them dosen't mean you can't run one. Passenger trains too. Throw a station in there somewhere and run a passenger train.

Be creative. It's your railroad so the only one that needs to be pleased is you! You are the owner/operator.

But, what's not mentioned, is the often forgotten caboose. Do you plan on using them or are you set on present day operations? A caboose or two thrown into the mix either on a train or storage track will add another sense of realism. A caboose is still used today in certain operations, but back in the day, it's what made a train complete.

Again, love the plan. Keep up the good work.

adding cars, consist allocation.

Hi all, I have seen a few systems in my time, and I have only recently adapted a specific system through other friends ideas. All the comments on this site have much detail and time consuming reading so I will be brief. One small club (HO DCC operation) has an 'L' shaped layout 3m x 3m, (oops feet please) 10' x 10', with small yards for pure shunting from one side to the other and using 30' single axle gondolas and box cars. A series of specific cards set out the order of lading and transport to the site on the other side of the layout. Two teams of 2 men operate the layout, and change sides once the consist is complete. I add here that real model loads are actually loaded into the vehicles physically, using tweezers. 

My layout is in a 20' x 13' shed the layout being 2' wide with pure yards with a dual track connect at one end. I am still DC, so each yard is independant electrically, so operation is same as above with 2 teams of two men to make up consists per a card system. The cards allow for consists of 12 vehicles to be selected from about 30 on each side, so shunting is extreme and picked up from specific areas. The consist is then driven to the other side and each vehicle is shunted to designated areas. (I must add that there are no blocks as it is wired for DCC, with one loco operation on each side, and a switch to change from 1 controller to the other.)

Each system takes a minimum of 1 hour from start to finish, and we all need that proverbial coffee and chair when finished.

For all operation any card can be selected from a shuffle of only about 10 cards specifically identifying vehicles, with locations; so the vehicles initially must be placed on the layout at the locations for building that consist.

It works very well.

Thanks for the help

Thanks to everyone for the help and comments. Chuck was able to come over to my house last week. I am a bit thick headed but he was able to give me a lot of good information.

Steve commented about the track plan. It is one from Model Railroader that I adapted to my room. It is the Black River Junction plan.

Removed the Black River Junction track plan just in case there was a copyright question.

I turned it to fit in the corner which gave me a 12 foot length instead of the 8 foot. There was a "yard" a right angle that I had to bend a bit. I also added another "yard" on the other side that extends around to the door.

I know exactly what products are going to be delivered and what cars are needed to haul the products in the era I am modeling. That was not the problem.

What was the problem was the trains themselves. Chuck pointed out that I had to have trains. And each train must have a departure point and a destination. Among others Iain is right on the money, I need to add trains. I need to figure out how to get a car from point A to point B and what might need to be done as it traveled along.

I had noticed that I needed to make some changes to Easy Model Railroad Inventory. So I have been doing that too, as I assembled a train and took 5 cars to Coleman Place and spotted them at the A&P warehouses. Two boxcars at the dry goods dock and two reefers at the refrigerated dock. The 5th car, a boxcar, is off spot.

I figured out how to print Empty Car Requests for visible shippers and have added the necessary functions to Easy Model Railroad Inventory.

I will have the next few days available to complete adding cars to my layout. Thanks for all the feedback, I will have more results in the next few days.

Black River Jct.

I've looked at that Black River Jct. plan many times. I like the simplicity of of it. I see that Kato track was used. Can anyone who used Kato sectional track, let me know how it was to work with? My lhs does not carry Kato sectional track. I can't seem to find any info (or templates) about this brand. This track plan looks very simple to put together and would be perfect for someone just getting into the hobby as well. I would like to show this plan to my brother, who is building a layout, for the first time, for his son. But he would need a starting point. I want to figure out if the Kato version is the same configuration as Atlas sectional track (especially the crossings). I think it would be easier for him to build it according to the plan first, then add on as time (and interests) grow.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Empty Car Requests

Hi Bob-

I saw this quote and it really jumped out at me.  Did you do something along the lines of the workaround I had created in the files I sent you?  I'm curious to see what you designed.

~rb

Adapted an existing file

I already had the Consignee> Consignee Product> Waybills. What I needed was Shipper> Empty Car Request.

I was even able to copy the windows from the consignee relationships and just plugged in the new file and field names.

It turned out to be very simple.

What about access to the back of the layout?

4 x 8 or 4 x 12 layouts work in the middle of the room, as soon as you shove them into a corner trying to reach 48 inches across a layout is going to be a problem.  Also you should post a link to the layout drawing unless Kalmbach gave permission to post their copyrighted material here.

Russ, it's not shoved into

the corner. Look at the plan again in my initial post. Or look at this photo. It is an old one but does show how the users have access from both sides.

Nice photo!

Any chance of getting some new ones to go with it?

Steve

Last look at the engine terminal

Ratled:

Here are some pictures of the engine terminal you asked about.  I will be removing all of the engine servicing buildings and companion scenery pieces in the next day or two. I am going to use the two tracks for staging. There was no other option at this end of the layout. The background buildings, Supreme Foods and A&P will be staying. Different access points.

There are a few others on Photobucket. There is a link in my signature at the bottom. Check the 2011 Progress album. I also posted them on Facebook.

As I was adding cars for the first time I discovered what I planned to happen was not going to happen. I figured out a way to have a staging area at the other end of the layout. I added a hinged section wide enough for two tracks. The tracks are not powered and the door will be locked when in use.

But there was nothing on the other end. After some thought I decided though I liked the 2 stall engine house and fueling facilities I needed to have a staging area.

If you look at the track plan I uploaded in my initial post you will see though the engine terminal and background industries share the same leg of the layout, at the top left, they are miles apart when accessed by rail.

Slowly but surely I am getting the correct type of cars at the correct industries. At the same time I am learning as I go, not only with the layout but with Easy Model Railroad Inventory. For example I figured out that I was going to have more industries than I thought requiring empty cars for shipping. I have even moved and/or renamed some industries.

Wish me luck.