The car forwarding system I've made is nothing new, but I thought I'd show it any way to make sure I haven't missed anything important. If I have please let me know!

I know car cards and pockets can be bought from various places, but I wanted ones that were a little bigger than what I've seen. So I bought a box of those book pockets libraries used to put inside book covers for check out, and use those for my car pockets. 

Hopper cars don't have any forwarding instructions on them, because they flow in a constant cycle: Mine to assembly yard, to division point yard, and back again in reverse order.

I have various kinds of two sided waybills as seen in the next picture...

Here's the back side of the same cards...

The middle card's back is blank because once a loaded car is delivered to the destination industry, it moves according to the empty instructions printed on the car pocket. Such empties may be confiscated however and moved to an industry (same or different) that has sent in a car request to the railroad shipping clerks for an empty to be loaded. In that case the delivery waybill is put in the car pocket, and the car is switched accordingly.

I know that some systems have waybill cards with 4 different destinations on them, and the card is just flipped one way or another as the car moves around. But I wanted to have a little fun looking for empties on the system and assigning waybills to those empties, just like a freight clerk might of done in years gone by. I also wanted empties to be handled with return destinations back to the originating railroad as done in real life, without the need for a card in the pocket. 

In addition to the waybills, I do have a few bad order cards that will be placed randomly in car pockets at various times just to mix things up. Here's one example:

As I was getting ready to write this blog post, I had some new ideas for engines and cabooses. I didn't have the chance to print any of those cards up yet, but here's an idea of what info they will include.

The card on the left is for the Tubs Holler Coal Hustler - a local switching train. It indicates to the yard master which direction the train leaves the assembly yard, and from which direction it will return. It also indicates which end of the train the caboose is to be tacked on prior to departure. The engine(s) assigned to the train are indicated by the card placed in the "train" pocket.

The caboose pocket will be added to the other car pockets that make up the train, and indicates who the conductor for this particular train will be. Depending on how many people are operating the layout at any given time, the conductor may or may not be the same as the operating engineer for the train. 

Since this is my first stab at a car forwarding system, I'd really appreciate comments from those who have used such a system before. Thanks!

Paul Krentz

Free-lancing a fictitious portion of the N&W Pocahontas "Pokey" District