How do you do your switching session ?

Hi There

Since I am  in Ho as well  O .  We used the card system  at one persons house .  The other guy made switch lists . 

I think the switch list was easier . 

There are Ho websites that talk in more detail about both. 

The switch list way is like a play .   You tell the Engineer where to pick up & drop off train cars on a piece of paper . 

your layout is the stage .  your train cars are the actors .  Your Buildings are props .   Your list tells the Narrator where to tell the engineer to move the actors on the stage .

The list can be be very simple or more complicated. 

I hope this helps .

Our local HO club uses a program from JMRI called PanelPro.  It has a section for operations.  You enter towns, sidings, routes, trains and cars into the program and it will generate switch lists.  There are videos on YouTube that will guide you through setting up the program.  It can be used for any scale.

Neal Jeter

Thanks WRGMILW do you have any links to those websites ?

Lionlman I’ll see if I can find some videos.

@boomer0622 posted:

I have always been a rounder but now I have a L shape point A to point B layout.    I'm very new to this type of operation so other than putting a piece of masking tape on top of the cars indicating where they should go.  What system do you use ?

If you use special cards or forms would you share a picture of them to help me get started.

Thanks,

Doug

You might want to check out Albion Software's website.  And then beyond that there is a Group of users that converse intermittently.  This group is called Shipit on Groups.io. 

Model Railroader Magazine has a forum that has useful.      THE NMRA  has a website .   

Once you see some of the clinic information, Micro-Mark sells kits for car cards and waybills if you want to go that route.    Or  you can make your own.

I made my own car cards (with pictures) and 4 sided waybills, all using excel. It took a little trial and error to get the cards the size I wanted, then after that you just type in the car type, destination for each round and the spreadsheet does the rest. You can use these to create a switch list, or just figure it out in your head. I also eventually created a list of trains that would carry the various cars to different places on the layout. I have tried a few versions of the train list, with longer trains, then with more, smaller local trains. Longer trains proved to be more difficult to operate on the layout, so the smaller trains (max 10 cars) is my current favourite.

You then run some test sessions, keeping track of time, so you can figure out what the various "jobs" are in a session, in case you want to have more than one person running trains at a time.

Below is a picture of a car. I edit and resize the pictures so they are 150 pixels high. This ensures they fit properly on the excel spreadsheet car card sheet I designed.

I create a holder that can be attached to the train table at each siding. I use paper clips to attach the siding card holders to the layout skirt. You can attach permanently  with glue, screws or pins, if your layout front allows for it. The cars in the siding card show what cars are on the siding at this time. You have to look at the waybill to determine if the cars need to be shipped, or have already been received for this session.  The siding and train cards are printed on a thicker stock of paper, in a colour printer, with 2 cards fitting on an 8-1/2x11" sheet of paper.

Below is a sample train route. On the left is an overview of all the various trains and the train number, direction and what towns they pass by. On the right is a route schedule, showing the towns in order, the siding location, siding number & direction they face and what industries are on each siding. This helps plan what cars should go on each train. Some towns do not have a "run-around" track, so you have place the car on a train travelling in the correct direction, in order to make a "backup" switch move. This adds more complexity to an operating session, as you may have to deliver cars for various small towns to an intermediate town siding, where they will be shunted and placed on another train to get to their final destination.

Below on the left is a Train card, that has a number of car cards inserted into it, with a current waybill showing. On the right is the waybill (set to turn 2), which is placed in a car card. My car cards have a picture of the car, making it easy for visitors to identify each car visually. The design of the car cards print 3 cards on an 8-1/2"x11" piece of paper. The waybill goes into the car card, then the car cards are grouped and placed in another holder that represents the train. These holders are the same design as the siding card holders, just named differently. The waybill is printed double sided, 6 waybills per 8-1/2"x11" piece of paper. I have designed a tab in the spreadsheet for each 6 waybills, where you type in the car type, then the town, industry name and contents for each of the 4 cycles. The receiver in one cycle automatically becomes the shipper in the next cycle, so typing is minimised.

There are various books that describe the car-card system. I simplified the design a bit, and used a computer to print out the waybills. Some companies supply blank cards, and you fill them in by hand, which works the same. My switch list is created by placing the car cards into the Train card. You could also create an actual switch list, which I presently do not do. Either way, the switch list is used to create the train that goes from the start to the finish point. On my train card I list the order of the towns, so the train can be blocked to make switching at each town or siding industry more efficient.

You can start with something simple, created by hand. Then try it out for a few cars on a few trains. I have evolved my system considerably over the years. I am still trying to find a balance between simple, fun to operate and a design that can easily be picked up by a visitor.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions.

Thank you Joe K,  that’s especially the kind of informationI was hoping for. I appreciate you taking the time to share all that info.

Doug

I use a switch list.

I actually wrote an article for OGR for a game I created a couple of years ago, I never did get a copy of the magazine and can't recall which month it was in.  It uses an App I have on my Ipad called "Spinny Wheel" with all my rolling stock, industries, and how many cars I'll be moving all generated by the App.  I currently have to fill in the switch list by hand once the App does it's thing, but have been wondering if I could get a program to print it out for me instead.

If the App picks a car that is already on the layout, I mark it down in the "Pickup" side of the list.  If a siding is full or can't take the number of cars the App has said need to go there, I'll mark some/all of the cars in the siding to be picked up as well.  A quick walkaround will tell me everything I need to know.

The tedious part is filling in the data for each of the 3 wheels used to play the game, but once that's done all you have to do is spin the wheels!

What kind of "paperwork" works best depends on the size of your operation. The PER is a very simple switching Pike with eight [customer] car-spots and off-spot storage space for a few more. The screen-play for this stage and actors is nicely done with a set of abbreviated switch-lists.

The East End has three stub-sidings forming a modified Inglenooks switching-puzzle:

The West End has one siding:

The track at bottom left is the East End lead.

The other necessary element is Interchange which is a fiddle-track in the adjoining room:

In this pic the train from Town has been broken down and the next step will be assembly of a train based on one of eleven switch-lists in the tablet seen at top right. These lists are worked through in sequence which eliminates the situation of no cars available or no siding space available. Even with this very simple track-plan and just twenty one cars in play there is considerable variation of drilling and car-move operations from one session to another. An operating session takes from twenty to fifty minutes.

Thanks Bob & Lew for your help, I'm beginning to get the idea of how this works.

I plan to use Eugene Villaret's "Realist Revenue Operations for Model Railroads".  The sub-title is Authentic Big Time Operations for Layouts Big and Small.  Uses a home-made spinning wheel, probably similar to Bob's phone one but on paper.  It is used with car cards.  I'll need to get the book out to get the details again.

ADDED: looks like everything is copy righted so I'll just add that the spinning wheel makes things unpredictable so I think it would be more fun.

Here's a plan of my layout, about 95% correct, I've made a change since this was drawn, found I couldn't fit 2 sidings in at Portsmouth Lumber so had to go with 1.  Also, the plan shows 2 staging tracks, I added a 3rd track which is stub ended, I use it to store cabooses or steamers that are not Seaboard (ACL, N&W). :

I spend a good bit of time switching in the yard, could almost use another person.  Usually spend 2-2.5 hours running trains.  I've acquired enough passenger stuff that sometimes I just put a train on the layout and let her roll, especially while I work on something else.

I can store over 24 cars on the 2 staging tracks, but I usually store 14 on the longest and use the other for moving cars around to make up a train.  I have 2 nice 3-tier roll around carts that just fit under the layout edge which holding all my offline RR rolling stock.  When 1 is to be in service I pull the carts out and place the cars on the track at the left edge end of the yard, I can maneuver 5 cars at a time even thought that piece of track will hold 7 or 8, just have to make 2 trips.  When finished any offline RR cars simply go back to that track and then the 5-fingered crane moves them back onto the carts.  It's not near perfect and I have a time making some moves possible, but it's my RR so...........

Like most, I have too many engines.  I tend to keep the steamers on the layout because I don't like handling them and dealing with the tethers.  I have all my freight diesels on 1 shelf of 1 of the carts.  My passenger diesels are on a shelf underneath the Mianne benchwork.

I run 3-rail equipment on code 148 2-rail track, all engines (close to 30 now) are BPRC (Battery-Powered, Remote Control).  As of now there's ZERO wires on my layout.  If I ever get around to working on the buildings I may light them and may repower the Atlas turntable.

While looking for Villaret's book I ran across another great book on operations but geared more for larger layouts and clubs.  No single author but written by the Operations Special Interest Group and titled "A Compendium of Model Railroad Operations from Design to Implementation".  Several chapters on how real railroads operate, then discussions on different types of procedures for a model railroad.

Not cheap but a really nice hard cover coffee table book when you are done with it.

I like this thread. It's interesting to learn about the various ways operators run their sessions and the systems (elaborate, simple and in between) they use. For my sessions I use a system similar to one I found on youtube. Rather than insert the explanation here I have copied my ogr thread, if you are interested.

"Operating Sessions: 3-16-17 update"

Boomer0622: Just checked out the J&C Studio Archive.  Impressive to say the least!  Very professional too.  I like what I see!

A Healthy and Happy New Year Boomer, and the O Gauge Family too!

Joe

Jim,  Yes,  John has done a great job with that website it is very professional.  

Thanks Ron & Pennstnut for the info you shared, I never knew switching could be so complicated and interesting.

Happy New Year to you also.

Doug