# Operations Card system



## barnmichael (Jan 2, 2008)

Some members of our club are into operations, like some of the micro-scale clubs do, just not as complex. We're looking for some suggestions for an Operations Card system that would allow the user to catalog cars and locations, and generate Car Cards, Waybills and Empty Orders. Not being previously involved in operations, I don't have much to offer, but I was hoping someone here might have some ideas.

Thanks,
Michael


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## Tom Lapointe (Jan 2, 2008)

Are you talking using a computer-generated switch list, or just want a simple paper operation? A 2-rail O scale club I belonged to many years ago (pre-dating most home computers!) had a small (@ maybe 2" X 1") cardstock "waybill" made out for each freight car (this was a moderately-large club layout with a typical roster of @ 600 freight cars, mostly owned by individual members); the "waybill" had an individual cars reporting marks ("NH 5347", "ATSF 29342", "UP 9202", "NYC 4253", just as random examples), and typical industry locations on the railroad which that specific car would typically be switched to ("Kutz-upp Lumber", "Gulf Oil", "Lotza-Roxx Quarry", "Team Track", "Lostand Foundry", etc..). Yard & industry locations around the railroad had small trays to hold these at the layout's edge; if you were running a local freight, for example, upon pulling into a given yard you would check to see if any of the cars in your train had destinations at that yard (the "waybills" were carried on the open platforms of the train's caboose!). You would then set out cars from your train at the appropriate locations in that yard & put the "waybills" for those cars in the "INBOUND" bin. Then you checked the "OUTBOUND" bin for cars headed to further destinations on your train's route, pick them up, place the "waybills" on the caboose platform, & head your train onto its next destination.  Tom


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