Data Sources

I designed my own car cards & waybills after reviewing several articles in MR that I had bookmarked over the years.

I started by creating my car list and industry list in MS Excel. I then created the card design in MS Excel and designed the cards to fit into standard baseball card sleeves.

Car List Sheet:

Info contained in the Car list:

• Reporting Marks
• Owner/Lessor Marks
• Length over couplers
• Car Type
• Capacity in Tons
• AAR Code
• Colour
• HOME
• Route VIA
• Home Routing Block Code
• Applicable load types

Car Order Sheet:

Info Contained in the Car Orders:

• Document Type
• TO
• FROM
• VIA
• Lading
• Special Instructions
• Hazmat Designation
• Block To

Industry List Sheet:

The industry list started with the data from Shenwares IndMan. I took the data I wanted, opened it in Excel and trimmed out the data that was too old for my use.  I also added a bunch of industries that are in my area or are known destinations for product shipped on the BNML.

As I create Car Orders, I pick and choose form this data as appropriate. I'll add to this list as I discover new destinations.

Info contained in the Industry List:

• Confirmed
• Industry
• City
• State/Prov
• Road
• Shipper/Receiver
• Commodity

Output

The cards are output 9 at a time, from another Excel sheet. To get the data into the card templates, I simply paste in 9 lines from the appropriate sheet (car list or car orders)

The colour coding for the blocking and HAZMAT designation all happens automatically, thanks to the conditional formatting features in MS Excel 2010.

Car Card Template:

Waybill Template:

The Cards

The Car Cards fit inside a standard baseball card sleeve.

The Car Orders fit in front of the card hiding the home routing info, but leaving the important car data.

Several car orders can be stored behind the car card in the sleeve to be swapped for future moves.

Supplemental Paperwork

Several other documents are provided as aids for the engineers.

These include the blocking code list, station diagrams and spotting instructions.

Blocking Codes:

Diagram and spotting instructions:

Impressive

Files

If anyone is interested, I'll post my Excel files for others to modify and use.

Interested!

Ok, here are the files

These files have enough sample data to get a user going.

When pasting into the templates:

• select the data, not the entire row
• paste 9 lines of data
• use the paste values option, so as to not overwrite the conditional formatting
  ( paste values is a right click option - see fig below )
  
   
   

Files... (in MS Excel 2010 format)

Car Card Managment.xlsx (39kb) - This file contains sheets for the blocking codes, Car Card Template, and Waybill Template.

Car List & Car Orders.xlsx (53kb) - This file contains the Car List and Car Orders List.

Industry list 1990 to present.xlsx (305kb) - This files contains destinations for traffic in Canada, USA, & Mexico.

Enjoy!

Card Sleeves

I made these cards to fit BCL standard trading card sleeves (2 5/8 X 3 5/8).

I got mine on eBay, 400 for $7.50 delivered.

http://www.bcwsupplies.com/cat/trading-card/sleeves-toploaders/card-sleeves

Thank you !

Thanks for the Excel files Bill. Card cards are always one of the things I have on my to-do list that never gets done.

I like the way you set yours up and look forward to using it.

Use the same concept for Switchlists

Switch Lists

I see no reason that the coding and data couldn't be adapted to create switch lists instead of cards.

Although I would consider RailQuik if I wanted switch lists.

I am fascinated by

I am fascinated by operations, but must admit, I am baffled by how they are conducted or run. Pretty much everything I read merely deepens the mystery for me. I can't be alone in this. 

I would be most obliged if someone, sometime, could either post a tutorial on a basic run through of setting up, and running a simple operating session. Even with just 4 or 5 cars.

. If you use car cards, what is the meaning of all the data on the card? How do you build a train? How do you route it?

of course, it may be simple, and I'm just too dense. But I read this forum every day, (a looong time lurker, I think at least 4 years) and I am still lost.

Thanks,

paul

Paste?

Bill, I Like your cards but am curious as to why "paste"? Why are you not using a mail merge to dump the data into the fields you have created. It would seam to be an easier way around it (skinning the cat). 

paste

Because I am only making a few cards at a time, paste lets me pick and choose a block of records to print.

If I was running the whole lot at once, I'd be looking for a different way

"I am fascinated by

    I think the problem is you are looking for one non existing answer to multiple situations. It's a lot simpler if you break it down to the various parts and understand how each works.   First thing to recognize is what operation is wanted or needed. Say a layout is an oval with a town on the top. Trains might arrive from right or left and depart. Thru trains that don't leave or pick up cars would not need any paperwork while trains that work in the town would need some way to keep track of what they need to do and have done. It can be as simple as a written list showing the destination of each car in the train. The cars can be checked off the list as they are spotted and added to the train list as they are picked up. Once the train leaves town and goes off scene the operations on it's list are are complete. Next session or next train would need a new list or a way to update and  re-use the old list and this is where more complex operations methods start. Car cards are just an index of the layout's cars with some data about the car. Waybills are where a car needs to go and what it's hauling. Real railroads did not use car cards, they just  typed up waybills for each car but model railroads often use waybills with a sequence of say 4 destinations and attach them to car cards to avoid all the paperwork of re-typing everything for each train. Computer programs try to simplify and simulate operations for larger layouts. .......DaveB

@Paulc

One of these days,, soon, I hope to put together a complete tutorial about how I use these cards in my operations. It will be posted here when it happens!

In the mean time, if anyone else has info to share on how they run their paperwork - I look forward to seeing too.

Car Card & Routing system

Hi Bill,

One can see you put a lot of effort into this. Thanks for posting.

Rob Teed

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for sharing your work!

Paperwork?!? We Don' Need No Paperwork!

Paul,

Operations can be as simple as coupling to a few cars, and moving them to appropriate spots on the layout, and uncoupling each where it looks like it would go. The next time, you pull those cars and swap them with new cars you have coupled to the in-coming train.

At its most basic, that's all operations is. Moving cars from one place to another, for reasons that make sense to you.

The paperwork comes in when you want to use a specific method for moving those cars, and specific places you want to move them to. This can be as simple as a spreadsheet with one column showing where the cars currently are, and another column showing where they need to go to. Car cards are a way of doing this, that was invented well before home computers became common.

Many try to duplicate prototype paperwork as accurately as possible, because it lends realism to operations, and with a computer, they have the ability to make them look authentic, no matter the era.

If you have the chance to go to a local layout and join an Operating Session, you should go. You'll have a lot of fun, and you will learn a great deal about how operations works.

Update: April 21/2015

I spent some time LOTS OF TIME over the last 2 weekends fleshing out my car order lists.

This has been a fun exercise, exploring the industries served by my line just off the layout and "inventing" traffic that will traverse the Letellier Sub. I have learned a lot about the various industries that are served by rail between Noyes and the inner parts of Winnipeg. I truly enjoyed this research and I have barely scratched the surface.

I now have 262 empty car orders and 568 waybills on file. hmmm. That's a lot of traffic possibilities

So I printed them. And now I'm cutting them.

There are 92 pages of Car orders. ..And as I cut them, I am reconsidering Joe Atkinsons' RailQuik with every stroke of the knife. Lol!

RailQuik

Suddenly, six months of development time doesn't seem so bad Bill! 

Guess what I'm doing tonight!

...still cutting  

If you don't mind the toasty edges...

you could use the laser....

Andrew