Car cards and waybills software

To get started in operations, i wish to thank the yahoo car cards group, trainboard, and the redlands model railway group who have some members wanting to try it out. Shenandoah software offers software for printing them, or you can make your own with common programs such as microsoft excel. The basic idea is that cars moving to the left north on the unrr have waybills in the left box, setouts for the town in the center compartment, and waybills for cars moving right south on the unrr go into the righthand compartment. Essence of model train operations model railroad car cards. The car cards shown here are about the size of a business card, making it easy to hold a small stack of them in the palm of your hand, but some. After my presentation at the fall gateway convention, a voice from the back of the room asked if i could convert it to an article for the rpo. Quaker valley software produced a set of programs to print car cards and waybills compatible with those available from old line graphics and micro mark as described by tony koester in his march 93 model railroader magazine article. Nov 28, 2004 basics of operations, car cards and waybills for your model railroad layout. Each waybill has four destinations written on it, but only one destination is visible when itis placed in the car card pocket. Car cards can help you in producing car cards, waybills, form 19s, form 31s, and switchlists for your model railroad. Apr 10, 2009 the car cards are made, manually, from standard 3 x 5 cards in several colors denoting house cars, opentops, coal carriers and company service including locomotives, passenger stock and full brake vans when the cars go into service, and remain with their cars forever after i have some dating from the 1960s.

The picking up and traffic between industries on the layout seem to be the hardest thing to keep track of and chances of overloading a siding are. They follow the same dimensions and general form factor, although i have tweaked the design a little to customize it for my own purposes especially of the shipment waybill insert slips see below. The mitrains and waybills programs only print the car cards and waybills. Car card system for model railroad operation prints beautiful car cards, waybills and features a cataloged inventory database list. The ideal is to have at least one compartment for each track on which cars can be set out. Data for the waybills was entered into excel and mailmerged into word. See tony koesters article in march 1993 issue and david barrows writeup in december 1996 of model railroader.

Model train layout built for operations and realism. Car cards enables you to utilize your computer and printer to produce some of the nicestlooking railroad paperwork around. There are two car card waybill styles to choose from. Free card is a windows program for simple car card operations. A complete freight car forwarding method following the mcfall system old line graphics. The waybills were also created in word starting with the same vertical business card template, but modifying it to make the waybills shorter than the car cards. And its so widely used, many of your visiting operators will be already familiar with it.

Car cards and waybills are used at usamerican railroads since decades. Understanding model railroad waybills and operations. The car card and way bills page program will allow the model railway owner to maintain a database for his rolling stock as well as generating paper work for operating his layout, with the car card and way bill system. The purpose of waybills is to tell the train crew where their cars is destined. On an impulse i bought the starter set and some extra cards.

Any additional restrictions for handling can be added to the front or back of the card. After completing a move, you move the card to the back of the deck for that car. They follow the same dimensions and general form factor, although i have tweaked the design a little to customize it for my own purposes especially of the shipment waybill insert slips. Excel car cards and waybills model railroad hobbyist. In addition, physically managing a stack of cards while running a train, holding the cards in one hand, the controller in the other, and a radio in the other, is also a challenge, such that some guys use special aprons for use in operation. Computergenerated car cards and waybills are a gift to operators. Prototypic operations or sessions with carcards and waybills for model railroad explained. If you have anybody who is familiar with spreadsheets or databases you can easily make computergenerated waybills and car cards. Basics of car cards and waybills for model railroad. I also use excel or another spreadsheet to create timetables, train order forms, clearance forms, switch.

This is the same as a manilla folder, you can even use a folder cut to a4. Each car on the line has a car card stored in a drawer near its location. The specific design of the car cards and waybills is inspired by the ones we use at the club created and printed using the shipit model railroad software. Car cards are a means employed to identify, locate, and track cars, but they do not specify where the car is going or what it is carrying. The sizes are orientated at commercial products, which can be bought in usa. In the car cards and waybills above, the 2x4 vertical waybill has a text logo.

Many of us have tried various other methods, including computerbased software systems that generate switch lists, etc. Mar 24, 2016 prototypic operations or sessions with carcards and waybills for model railroad explained. Car card system for model railroad operation sunset west. I scaled the waybills to slip into the standard car card pockets so they can be rotated front to back. In my system it would generate waybills with everything but the car number filled out. The car cards shown here are about the size of a business card, making it easy to hold a small stack of them in the palm of your hand, but some operators prefer larger ones. Union pacific geneva subdivision recommended for you. Basics of car cards and waybills for model railroad operation. On a layout of any size, making up car cards and waybills is quite a chore, even with preprinted supplies. This photo shows a car card and waybill i made years ago and was based on what i believe was the original car card system. I scaled the waybills to slip into the standard carcard pockets so they can be rotated front to back. Empty tank car waybill tank cars are private cars in owned or leased service that are returned to the shipper on a freight waybill as opposed to an empty car bill. You could also create a code to streamline the process.

He uses foldback binder clips to hold the waybills to the car cards. However, at the barrie train show february, 2009, i found that hobbyworx had all the micromark car cards operations boxes and paperwork. Mitrains prints the car cards, waybills prints the four cycle waybills in any size, in a variety of formats. Each pocket holds a foursided white card the waybill offering four different locations. I also use excel or another spreadsheet to create timetables, train order forms, clearance forms, switch list forms, dispatcher train sheets, train registers, etc. Return freight waybills require a last contained notation on the waybill specifying the type of lading during last use record rights, reverse route. Nov 26, 2004 for over twenty years, old line graphics has offered printed sets of the forms needed for this operating system. Its the reporting aspects that work against doing car cards in word. When the empty car was spotted, the agent would cross off the car order section and fold the waybill with the inside out. This means you can run as many or as few cycles as you want. Dec 28, 2017 ive seen a number of modelers and even software programs like shipit. Running train ec1 from terminal yard with cars from jndo to the empire belt rrs north side yard in empire city. But a spreadsheet program is much easier and available free from open office. Car cards comes only with the sample prr logo shown in the cards above.

For over twenty years, old line graphics has offered printed sets of the forms needed for this operating system. Apr 02, 20 download car cards and way bills page for free. The car cards and waybills are preprinted forms, and normally the information is written on them in pen. Go to yahoo groups car cards and download from the files option a complete program from dave husman for creating car cards and waybills. And every car which has is consigned to an industry has a waybill attached. Car cards and their sisters, waybills are part of a simple system designed to enable prototypelike operations on a model railroad. The modeler would bill cars by selecting the waybills and then writing in the car number on the waybill. Software to operate using a card system model railroader. Tested card card and waybill operations on ttrak johns. Held horizontally, it has space for the deck of car cards and waybills under the clip.

As cars were spotted the waybills were distributed to the appropriate line side file boxes. I often will purposely leave a car at the industry for an extra session and have the rear car ready to pickup to generate additional switching by the next local crew. Breaking down the ec1 freight cars at north side yard for local delivery and interchange with. The top of the car card has blank lines for the cars identifying information. You can also use ms access to create car cards and waybills. Most layouts setup for operations have car card boxes at each yard and at each industrial sidingspur. A waybill is the prototype document that railroads use to direct the movement of the cars, it is the ticket for the car. I print the car cards on 65lb card stock and the waybills on normal 20lb copy paper. Also, i wanted to use color to highlight certain areas, so i turned to my computer to solve both problems. Operations methods to run model trains more prototypically. Mitrains prints car cards with or without pictures while the waybills program only prints the 4 cycle waybills. No easy way to get any statistics, or a printed roster list out of formatted car cards on a word document. A car card figure 1 accompanies each car on your railroad, whether it is parked or is travelling in a train.

The basic system consists of car cards and waybills. Car card resources model railroad operation gateway nmra. This combination of car card and waybill approximates the reallife waybills and. As i want to keep it simple, i decided to use car cards and 4 cycle waybills. All of the waybills were formed before the session began. You may do searches on searches to find a specific industry. Model railroader is the worlds largest magazine on model trains and model railroad layouts. How to set up car cards operations on a model railroad. Like the waybills for standard cars, restricted car waybills contain identifying and routing information. One aspect that has always been a primary goal is operations. Details for car cards, waybills and the color coding you can find in the american standard. You do not need preprinted forms to print these on.

It has a pocket in which a waybill figure 2 is inserted. Shipit has a car cards operations version that allows you to download and print car card information and waybills based on your own setup. Yes, creating car cards and filling out waybills is a long and tedious process if you own a few hundred cars. Each freight car on a model railroad is assigned its own car card which travels everywhere on the layout that the associated freight car does. Car cards and way bills page operated by your name here. Basics of car cards and waybills for model railroad operation part 1. Excel car cards and waybills algoma central in ho scale.

My original form of the doug smith system used car cards and shipment cards attached together to form waybills. It has the car number, information about the shipper, the consignee the reciever and the commodity plus billing information. To the right of that, i affixed a strip of velcro so throttles with mating velcro on the back can be attached. Ive tried various forms of manual not computerized printed carcards and waybills and systems, even to the point of rolling two 6sided dice to determine the number of cars to set out and pick up. The 3 x 5 inch horizontal format has 2 or 4 car positions.

Ive seen a number of modelers and even software programs like shipit. The classic version is called car cards and waybills ccwb. Mar 15, 2016 the classic version is called car cards and waybills ccwb. This excellent program uses access for a platform which you will need to have on your computer. Waybills are printed on both sides of standard business card forms or ordinary paper stock. Some waybills are removed revealing the when empty return to xxx instruction on the car card. I wanted to use the car card system but did not look forward to pasting all those clear plastic windows on the car cards for everyone that contributed cars to the operating sessions.