car numbers

I knew this would come up when I wrote up this switch list. I’ve been careful to call out specific car spots on the layout to set out (deliver) cars to or pickup cars from. Only cars on the current train are eligible to set out and only cars at existing car spots are eligible to pick up. No off spot cars to deal with at present.

I’ve omitted an AAR car type from forms for now. I want them to rely on car numbers. Since they only have to look at their own train and specific car spots, that’ll do. But I did include cars’ reporting marks.

Seaboard Air Line used (at least) two styles of “reporting marks” over car numbers:

I don’t know the history of this case, or of reporting mark “variances” in general, but since the car on my students’ train didn’t have an “SAL” near the number (or anywhere) they couldn’t be sure they had the correct car. So they asked and it led to a discussion of what the reporting marks signify and why it’s important (at least to the prototype railroads) to know who “owns” the car.

Car reporting marks are the tip of the railroad ownership iceberg. Empty car routing, per diem charges, interchange, and trackage rights lay just below the surface. Then tariffs, fees and billing structures. But deeper down lay the labyrinth of corporate common carrier and private owner entities, land grants, mergers, take-overs, stocks, bonds, monopolies and failed enterprises. The history of the business of railroad transportation. How can I start to introduce these topics?

Jeff Allen

clerks

Most discussions of model railroad operations methods are clear about our goal being to run trains authentically, and to either eliminate paperwork entirely or only maintain enough to act as a brake on the sometimes hectic pace of operations.

But as someone who has converted several paper-based recordkeeping systems to computer-based replacements, I observe that there is something fundamental about the nature of the information and its meaning that becomes obscured in the changeover. Yes, of course, this is sentimental, but I think students can develop a more intimate understanding of data structures and relationships if they have a chance to operate a paper-based system.

Jeff Allen

ownership

One of the key concepts in the Railroad Tycoon games is the player’s ability to purchase individual industries, which are subject to unpredictable market forces as well as managed expansions and contractions, and see profit or loss contribute to his or her balance sheet.

I wonder if I can construct a mechanism for students to purchase “existing” industries or establish new ones using “cash” earned via test performance in a capital market that fluctuates in value according to an “index” of class test averages (or something similar).

Students could even form partnerships to pool their cash to make investments, share profits, and squash the competition.

Explicitly, I want to create an opportunity for students to learn about capital, markets, and general concepts of economics using the model railroad as a sort of animation of the wheels of industry. One challenge is how to handle the passage of time in a way that makes investment returns work appropriately. I could map the school year to a “fast calendar” so a period of, say, ten or twenty years fits into a semester.

That idea doesn’t work very well with trying to maintain precise period fidelity (which I’d also like to do) but maybe I can devise some cute trick for signifying the passage of time by updating a single new car at a used car lot.

Jeff Allen

"Since I have more people

Get some HO scale RC trucks and let some kids run them in competition with the railroad? I recall seeing the trucking companies expanding in the 50's but at the time I couldn't imagine the impact they'd have on local railroading........DaveB 

Special Case

While I support the idea of studying railroads, one has to remember that the railroads are a special case.   the rate they charged were not market driven, they were determined by a commission.  Service was mandated and they had no choice in what commodities they hauled.  The rate structure was the same for all commodities between points with no regard for for route.  Companies could not  negotiate a rate with the railroads.   All this changed post Staggers when regulation lessened (railroads are still regulated industries, just not as much).  Most railroads have been in bankruptcy and some have been mutliple times.  If you look at the histroy of railroads there are probably as many roads that have gone belly up as there are that survived.

The interesting comparison would be a railroad pre-Staggers vs. a road post-Staggers and see how the relaxation of regulation affected how the railroad did business, especially compare to other industries.

...

Railroad Tycoon II Platinum was the pinnacle as far as I'm concerned...

special case

Dave H-

Exactly! I suppose I'll need to convince the social studies teacher to complement what I'm doing with a few history lessons! The relationship between strategic "businesses" like railroads and civil government is complex and of central concern even today. 

Frank Norris is buried in our neighborhood cemetery about a hundred yards from Charles Crocker. Norris wrote his novel The Octopus in 1901 based on the activities of the California railroad monopolies which resulted in those ham-fisted regulations. 

DaveB-

I think the intricate relationship between trucking and railroads is exactly the kind of thing I want kids to develop some curiosity about. From the specific costs and benefits of the different engineering and logistics paradigms, to the contrast of taxpayer-funded highways vs. privately built railroads. From horse-drawn drayage on pre-railroad highways, to a support role in getting goods to the railhead, to a competitive threat, to a conscious partner in the evolution of containerized freight. 

Good feedback, thanks!

Jeff Allen

"Frank Norris is buried in

  Is  S.Behrman buried between them? .......DaveB 

Starting the economic story

Firslty I want to say that I am highly impressed by your teaching methods Jeff. How I wish I had a teacher like you in any subject. I would have been 10 years further up life's learning curve when I hit the street if I'd been your pupil! 

I was thinking about the economics and business side and where to start. As others have stated, the railroad sector is pretty weird economically and takes some figuring out at the macro level. So maybe a way to start could be at the micro level in your ops sessions with a couple of questions. One might be: How does a railroad make money? That could literlally start with "did the ops session we ran today make a profit? Revenue, operating costs, overhead, profit. Importance of daily cashflow and how it may be very out of sync with monthly profit, but can kill you quickly if not well managed. Simple examples - how much profit did we make by delivering each to the correct spot on time? How much did it cost us if we mis-routed a car? What was the impact on our customers of getting it right or wrong? These are things that could relate to any small business a student might start when they leave education. 

Once you have some parameters to maximize cash flow and profit at the micro ops session level, you could grow into the macro view. Why did entrepreneurs want to get in the railroad business in the first place? How do you grow such a business profitably when the market conditions are favourable? How do you measure risk for such major capital investments? How do you raise the money required? What does good management do when the market tanks (e.g. because of trucks), or the regulatory framework makes the current way of making money no longer viable?    

These are things that relate to all businesses large and small and help students understand the big picture of labour and capital globally, no matter what career they pursue.

Just my 2 cents...        

Keep up the amazing work! 

Pete

brilliant

Wow, that's such a perfect idea. I was fooling around with the seed of it when I was thinking about reporting marks and car ownership, but you brought it into focus for me. Wow, that's great! You're right, it is a completely natural entry point. I love it, thank you!

Jeff Allen

Making a profit

You're welcome Jeff! One of the things that intrigues me about North American railroading today is that I am surrounded here in Waterloo Ontario by shortlines that make a profit. Having come from the UK where freight railways have not been sustainably profitable under private or public ownership, this intrigues me! So much so that my O scale layout models such an operation. I try to think about the business side and how to maximize operational efficiency and thus profit in my operating scheme. It's pretty rudimentary but I get a kick out of it. 

So, maybe you can have a few simple parameters to start with: How much per hour or mile does it notionally cost to operate the train? Concepts of Capex, opex, overhead, profit margin. Then how much would you need to charge each customer to make a train "profitable" in a session? Concept of market pricing. What does a customer ship in your freight cars? How much can they afford to pay for rail freight? How will you get them to pay in time so that you can pay your staff and the loans or leases on all that equipment? 

I am fascinated to see how you roll this out to your students and how they react!

Pete 

The concepts on "Many In -1 Out" WOTIF & spreadsheet work

HI Jeff,

As well as the profit-trail, try explaining manufacturing and the railroads that service those industries using the   goods flow concepts of "Many in>  1 out"  eg automobile manufacture - then "1 in> many out" - here read many directions" - automobile  distribution or "1 in> 1 out" eg dedicated service from 1 to to only one other site.

Some industries are a combination - "Many in> 1 out"  (steel manufacturing to the blast furnaces iron-making stage) - then  "1 in> Many out" steel-making shop and then rolling mills (different grades of steel from the steelmaking shop, then rolled into coil or plate that get sent different directions.   

Put a $ value on each input and each output for each factory site on the layout. Have a look at the Railroad Tycoon Help card, if you can find one to copy or the Railroad Tycoon manual.- look at the cargo chains eg Livestock> Wool> Textiles or coal> Steel> armaments and the $'s attached to each carload for a guide. Introduce the concept of "Added value". These were worked for full car loads. 

If you can get a Excel spreadsheet or similar set up with different pages/tabs,  try some "what-if" modelling based on # of cars moved and a Fictional $/car from each factory on the layout  and a fictional cost for all incoming cars (Assume that your railroad has loaded those incoming materials at a $ cost and that even an empty incoming car costs $y to place at the factory) - get someone to write up how many cars are being delivered (both empty and full) and how many are being taken away of the trainsheets from your schedule. That class member becomes the railway clerk for that session), do it for several running days with each running day on a separate tab and then have a session to compare the total $'s for each day- look for variations and some reasons behind Then... 

Introduce the WOT IF concept - Play with "What happens if your pencil factory has a 20% increase in orders?" How many more cars are needed and much extra does it make your railroad? Simulate this on another page than your actual schedule so that you can compare final dollar outcomes. What happens to the revenue if a specific turnout fails and no goods can be delivered/picked up from the factories on that siding? How much does this cost your railroad. 

 Is it better to make/move a lot of "one thing"? But what about those customers who want a bit less of "something else"? How long can they/are they prepared to wait before going elsewhere while your railroad is moving the "one thing" at the expense of all others? What happens to the factories and the tracks to service the "something else" when those customers buy their "something else" for other factories elsewhere that are not serviced by your railroad? How does that lost business affect the railroad's bottom line?   

When does it become worthwhile to send out a 1/2 box-car load? Look at "expedited delivery" where the "panic button is pushed" and one car "has to go NOW!!". Show how this can affect the planned shunting moves and the effect that it has on the schedule for the day. (BTDT - been there, done that, and got the T-shirt when I shipped 7 ton of air on each of six semi-trailers one Saturday morning to move steel 800 miles to be rolled Monday so another plant didn't stop on Tuesday. The cost of that plant stopping on Tuesday far outweighed the cost of shipping 42 ton of air both in penalty clauses to my company and possible lost new orders. The air was moved because I couldn't load the semi-trailers to their maximum carrying capacity. What caused the panic button to be pushed.. well that's another story, but not for here.   

 One one of the running days trigger a 10-minute "strike" when nothing moves - use this period to introduce/discuss  industrial relations and how an unresolved dispute can escalate into something that costs big $'s. On that day look at how much didn't get done - Explain the concepts of lost productivity and discuss how you might make up what didn't get done. Introduce the concept of the "Rate-limiting Process" and the ability or inability to make up lost time for this process - Can you shunt faster?/What's the impact on safety?/What might happen if something goes wrong (mis-aligned switch through derailment with locomotive/track/car/cargo damage/loco crew injury/fatality. Who pays for it  Company? Customer? Worker? Family?)      

New idea - Consider adding a single raillcar/loco-hauled passenger car as a passenger service - How much can you make from the "passenger train" with say 20%/50%/80%/100% occupancy at $x/seat. How much of a fare discount can you  offer to hopefully make say a 50% full train into a 100% full train. What does this cost if the dicount strategy doesn't work? How much does running that passenger train cost in terms of lost productivity in freight because the shunt loco has to get out of the way of this "hotshot" passenger service. 

Hopefully this ought to give you something to chew over,  

Industry Management

Somewhere in one of the posts or replies was a comment about "Have each student 'own' and industry".  One of the key aspects of this as it relates to the railroad is the ordering of commodities and asking "the railroad" (represented by one or more other students) to ship it to their location.  This would start to expose the concept of the larger supply chain involved.  The responsibilities to "make something" and "make money" could possibly interest the students.

--Rich S

something to chew over

John,

Wonderful feedback, a trove of good ideas. Let me know if you ever get to California and I'll have you give a guest presentation! 

The passenger car idea is especially appealing. I haven't introduced passenger service at all yet but do have a spot planned for a small depot. My thinking so far only had to do with the variety of operational interest created by having freight traffic yield to superior passenger trains - it hadn't occurred to me to fold in fares, ridership levels, opportunity costs, etc. Nice!

Rich S,

That's it exactly, the making of products and the making of money are both very interesting to my students! The more elements of both I can incorporate into the model system the more engaging and educational it will be for them. Learning about each industry by taking an active role in running it, at least via simulation, would be worth implementing if I can do it elegantly enough to keep it fun. The aspects of material procurement and logistics are naturals for creating the behind-the-scenes forces that show up as traffic. Great idea.

Jeff Allen

P.S. This thread got bit by a bit of a blog bug and although it has been restored it is still missing a post or two. I'll try to put them back tonight. 

Sid Meier

(This post got deleted from earlier in the thread by a forum bug. I'm reposting it not because it is particularly important but because I'm trying to keep my thoughts on this topic more or less together, if not well ordered!)

Computer game developers really know a lot about what motivates us and keeps us engaged. Over the past three decades I’ve logged a staggering number of entertainment hours interacting with their carefully constructed puzzles that escalate in complexity with a very calculated understanding of exactly what level of difficulty I will find “just right” in challenge level - not boring and not overwhelming. Usually there’s some sort of reward system that triggers my need to “get the next gold ring.”

Some folks worry that these developers are modern pied pipers peddling highly addictive products. While that may be true I can’t help noticing that they are doing exactly what I want to do: motivate students to stay engaged in learning using activities that are “just right” in challenge level and have a built-in reward system that keeps them working hard.

One of the most high-profile game developers is Sid Meier. He launched the Railroad Tycoon series of business simulations that provided a rich and highly detailed economic model for period- and geography based, supply and demand driven goods markets served by railroads you owned and managed in competition with other railroad owners. The pinnacle was Railroad Tycoon III, which was followed about 10 years ago by an interesting but more streamlined (i.e. less detailed economically) game called simply Railroads!.

I still keep a computer in my classroom that runs Windows XP just so I can run Railroad Tycoon III. But with a single computer I haven’t found the time or opportunity to expose my students to it. It has a steep learning curve.

But I’ve been wondering if I might somehow adapt the concepts and mechanisms of it to the physical model we’re building - also a simulation.

the RR Tycoon economic model

The parameters that were in play on the RR Tycoon games were industries, each with demand for specific volumes of specific goods and shipping volumes of specific products, coupled with player-designed track over the landscape and player-specified train schedules with specified rolling stock and motive power, which limited what kinds of goods could be carried, to where, how quickly, and at what cost and resulting profit or loss. 

I want all of those elements, but some of the more nuanced suggestions that have been posted are really getting me moving towards a structure that allows a more diverse rendering of micro-scenarios, like the calculation of cost or profit for a specific car movement. Great feedback.

Jeff Allen

...

Sid Meier had nothing to do with either Railroad Tycoon II or Railroad Tycoon III.  When he came back to the project, he had to start his own game all over again, hence,
Railraods!"

games vs. simulations

Thanks Benny, when I started that post I intended to discuss the distinctions between "games" and "simulations," and Sid Meier's orientation on that spectrum, but I decided I was getting too far into the arcana of the computer game world. I probably shouldn't have left his name on the title of the post! 

I find simulations very satisfying and tend to prefer software that leans in that direction. The folks who took the RR Tycoon franchise in the direction they did after Sid Meier launched it were also oriented strongly toward simulations (I may have preferred RR Tycoon II as well, but I jumped from the original to III without getting much of a taste of II. It was probably inappropriate of me to claim pinnacle status for III!)

The point I set out to make, that I never did, was that the "game" emphasis that Sid Meier re-focused Railroads! on has some value, especially when it comes to attracting the attention of young minds. Brain candy, with all of the ethical complications thereof!

Jeff Allen

...

RYII Platinum puts a lot of emphasis on railroad Building - whereas you get to determine the route your tracks go without the benefits of any "instant work."  In otherwords, you have to carve the landscape with the tracks to make the grades you need to get the best route times.  I really enjoyed this aspect, whereas cutting any route from 2.0 to 1.2 realizes a huge difference in revenue.

I also liked the stock market aspect - whereas it gives you the ability to buy out your competitors quick, put them out of business and, then leave you and you alone as the ruling railroad in the land - that's fun!

Simplified Model

Jeff,

A simplified simulation model may be best for introduction to economics. the following is a sample outline

Payable
    Fixed
        Management
        Loans
        Taxes
    Labor
        Hourly
        Contract
    Misc.
        Fuel
        Maintenance
        Other Freight Car Fees
        Government & Safety regulation cost
Receivable
    Fees
        Fixed Shipping
        Switching
        Right of way   
        Small package fees
        Home Freight Car Fees

Later it may be interesting to assign people to the shipper's business so you have conflict as they also try to make a profit.

I again thank you for the extra mile you are going with your students!

Regards, John

The popular mythology of creative genius depends on beloved stereotypes of the artist in youth and old age: the misunderstood upstart who forces us to see the world afresh; and the revered sage who shows us depths of insight attainable only through a lifetime of hard-won experience. <> Martin Filler

   

By George I think you've got it

John, 

Of course! Why not take it to the logical conclusion - each student has a simplified Income Statement and Balance Sheet! Some might feel that for middle school students some of the financial concepts might almost be an attack on their innocence, but if I keep it simple enough there's merit in introducing them to these basic financial tools. 

And, separate statements for each industry a student (or consortium of students) owns should be quite practical. 

I'm reasonably handy with shared and linked Google spreadsheets. I currently use a master spreadsheet for each class to keep track of homework, attendance, test scores, etc., with separate individual spreadsheets for each student that organizes their information and protects them from seeing other student's data. If I develop a method for students to record transactions on their own (and a process for certifying and auditing the authenticity of those transactions!), then a reasonably automated system of individual statements should be a fairly straightforward extension of what I'm already doing. 

Sounds like a summer project for me! Great idea.

Jeff Allen

...

Or you can use it to teach Algebra...

They're looking for an

They're looking for an antidote to that. 

 "Why not take it to the

The danger is you'll lose their focus on the effects of layout scene operating procedures  if you take the discussion too far away from the visible rail operations. Knowing the whole chain of events is the goal but it doesn't all have to be learned in one semester.  The basics of learning what each industry makes, what it needs from the railroad to prosper, and how the railroad fits into the national transportation system and economic well being seems like plenty for starters.......DaveB