Kutler, thank you for the information, and also for your input into other threads concerning operations.
My particular freelanced shortline is supposed to be similar to the Los Angeles Junction in operation. My rr serves an industrial area in the vicinity of Houston, Texas, in the 1970s. As of now, my motive power is Santa Fe, so I guess it my shortline is a subsidiary.
I've gotten alot of the wrinkles ironed out, and have had several operation sessions which worked out very well. I used handwritten switchlists but will eventually use car cards.
Thanks again for your interest, hope to see more of you around the site.
Gary
Hey Gary:
Santa Fe is a popular paint scheme even in North Dakota, as attested by this Northern Plains x-ATSF Geep.
I used to belong to a club which used car-cards. Great for yard switching as long a you had a shelf in front of you. Otherwise they were a pain. A 30 car train of car cards won't fit in your pocket!
We used a hard stock card for the car and had destination cards attached by paperclip to each car when loaded. With all the staples, paperclips and a giant bulldog clip holding the thing together it was about 3 inches thick at the bottom. Dropping the pack was often a disaster. We worked out a system with through trains as the originating yardmaster delivering the pack to the terminating yardmaster. In a strange sense this was prototypical. In the computer age, 1952 on my prototype, when a train departed a yard it's consist was transmitted and terminating yards had an advance knowledge of it's traffic.
Trains switching enroute weren't so fortunate.
Car cards often require a volunteer to come in before an operation session and stage the cards, sometime taking a significant amount of time.
I've seen a couple of layouts which used swichlists, but I'm not really familliar with hobbiest modificatons and I've never seen it applied on anything but a small layout.
On the prototype, back in in the day.
Switchlists were prepared by station agents and yard clerks, many examples of which can be seen on websites or purchased modestly on ebay. A freight journal (or Consist) was prepared by a conductor before departure. Back then conductors performed standing brake tests on trains. They would start at the back of the train, where their caboose was. The hogger would set the brake and the conductor would walk up the side of the train, writing car numbers down as he was inspecting the train to ensure the brakes were setting up. When he got to the front of the train in addition to his list of the consist he would have noted what cars had their brakes cut out and which cars would have been set out on line. I believe he would provide a copy of that to the head end brakeman, who would perform most of those tasks as work was usually performed from the front of the train. Cars set off and cars added to the train were noted on the train journal as the trip progressed. When the train arrived at the terminal station, the paperwork would be handed into the yard clerk and the trains totals Loads/Etys/tons/length and Pays* were entered into the train register to be relayed to the train dispatcher by the train order operator as an OS.(don't ask what that means)
*A note of explaination about pays. Pays were to total amount of revenue cars handled during a trip. A train with switching might have more pays than total cars leaving the initial terminal or arriving at the final terminal. Recording pays was a measure of the profitability of a train, and this was recorded by the train dispatcher and made it's way through reports to the chief of transportation.
I'm sure the debate over switch lists and car cars(waybills) will continue for some time.