Paul,

I am attempting to use EMRI's Car cards and waybills for operations on my 2'x8' shelf layout. All the car cars, waybills, and card pockets are done with 20# paper and tape so I can get a feel for how it works without chasing down supplies and spending $$ I might not use.

I have no other experience with CC/WB operations on any other layout. This is all new to me. I think the EMRI system is easy enough to use. It (and probably any car forwarding system) will make you think a lot about what the railroad is moving and where it is going. Setting up off-layout shippers and consignees has been both tough at imes and interesting. You really have to think about why your railroad is there.

You said you have used the inventory part of EMRI and that is a lot of the work required. I say go for it and see how it works for you. It seems to do what I need on MY layout.

Has any body got this to work on Linux using wine? I'm running Ubuntu & I hate to keep using my wife's PC for this.

Doug M

A suggestion for those modeling a railroad in today's environments....concentrate more on switch lists than waybills.

In general when prototypical rail managers in today's world using software available today make switching decisions, they do so based on switchlists that tell them one thing.....where do the cars go next.   So a switch list may look something like:

1 CR       627216  L  E   PACE        BLK 4695                       STEEL   
2 NW      169983   L  E   PACE        BLK 4695                      STEEL   
3 NS       169770   L  E   PACE        BLK 4695                      STEEL   
4 CEFX    86079   L  C   LEHIGH     BAL 4427                      CEMENT  
5 GATX   204819 E   T   CSXT        ELZ 4766      HOLD       **EMPTY**
6 BS          3866   L   E   METCO2   ELI 4766                       SHEET STE
7 BS          3810   L   E   METCO2   ELI 4766                       SHEET STE
8 CSXT  498058  L   E   METCO1    ELI 4766                       SHEET STE

The list above is actual by the way.  The yardmaster can look at this track and tell you that the first three cars are blocked to a point called   "PACE    BLK".  They are loads of steel in equipped gondolas.  The 4th car is a load of cement or Lehigh.   The 5th car is blocked to CSXT but is on hold.

The point is....for the modern railroader the waybill is a behind the scenes driving factor...but they seldom need to see it or view it.  (Not so in the days when waybill paper copies were physically exchanged).

For my HO papermill operation the waybilling function has been reduced to a series of excel spreadsheets that mimic the above switch list format.  They are easy to handle, work on a pc without needing anything more than a spreadsheet, and are realistic in today's world.

Hard copy paper waybills stopped being used for most railroads in the late 1980's (last required only for hazmat loads).  Currently waybills exist in a virtual world.  They are a billing record in a computer and rarely, if ever used hard copy by the major railroads.  The important thing to remember is while the sheet of paper isn't used, all the information is still there.  So if you don't use car cards & waybills (CC&WB) you will have to have something somewhere that keeps track of the information that would be on the CC&WB.  That will mean some sort of spreadsheet or database with the car and billing/destination info.

The combination of the car card and waybill represents a prototype waybill, even though CC&WB is two pieces of paper, it represents one piece.  A lot of people get hung up on CC&WB being two pieces.

A lot of people use CC&WB but then have an "agent" position that writes out lists for the train crews to do their work form and the train crews never see the waybills (CC&WB).

The tricky part to lists is finding a program that does what you want in a way that meets your needs.  Three of the more common list systems are Ship-It, ProTrak and JMRI operations.  Ship-It is a commercial product that requires a lot of finagling to get it to run balanced.  ProTrak is a commercial product that is very prototypical so has a lot of set up required. JMRI Operations is a freeware product.  There are other not as widely used systems out there.  Actually computer list systems are relatively rare, the vast majority of modelers in all eras use CC&WB because they are flexible, easy, cheap and effective.

Dave H.