Thank you Eric for this presentation. I have been using the Car Order system successfully on my N scale D&H through a couple of dozen op sessions. I learned it from the same folks you mentioned. One thing we do differently that I think is an improvement: when a manifest arrives at the yard I pull off x number of cars as a block from either the front or the rear of the train and then pull car orders to match the cars I pulled. This eliminates cherry picking. The car orders are arranged by car type on a rack so it's easy for the YM to pull. The number of cars taken off the manifest match the number of cars I have to add to it. That keeps things balanced with respect to cars flowing into/out of yards and train length fitting in staging tracks. I use way more car orders than I have spots for. When I had only one order for each industry spot it did not generate enough traffic. If an industry had a car spotted at it then you could not generate another delivery to that industry until the car was picked up, returned the yard and the order come up again. I like to be able to deliver a car and pick up a car or two at the same time. The industries that have more orders than spots also have an off spot location and an off spot order box. It adds a little more interest to our ops. Thanks again for the presentation. I think the Car Order system is a great option for generating traffic.
Thanks Eric - for 43 years I've been trying various ops approaches for my N scale railroad, but none of them were that much fun. Thanks to your jogging my memory about the car order system here, I'm now making up car order cards as we speak, and looking forward to finally being able to enjoy it! Really appreciate you, and the OPSIG!
I operate in N scale but I don't have to read the car numbers on the cars, I only have 1 car per road name. So I if I have a car card that says to pick up a Santa Fe boxcar I just have look for a car with the logo or the ATSF reporting letters.
Thanks Eric, I've just completed my own Car Order system, built in Excel, that is for my small operations based layout. First-mile/last-mile based. THanks for recording this. I just recently joined the OPSIG too.
Nice job Eric! I'm curious how you balance cars that come back to a yard from a local on the manifest or other outbound trains. Ideally I say put this car on a NB or SB train, but sometimes I just tell the yardmaster make up a train with X# of cars that will go to staging to clear out the yard!
In theory, the westbound and eastbound manifest trains will help move those cars out of the yard to rotate them around the railroad. I've got the option in the future to add more manifest trains if needed, but because I haven't finished all the switching districts, it's too early to know how many I'll need.
Yes, locals are limited to 10 cars and the manifests are limited to 15 cars. This keeps things moving and keeps the trains at a reasonable length for my railroad.
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Thank you Eric for this presentation. I have been using the Car Order system successfully on my N scale D&H through a couple of dozen op sessions. I learned it from the same folks you mentioned. One thing we do differently that I think is an improvement: when a manifest arrives at the yard I pull off x number of cars as a block from either the front or the rear of the train and then pull car orders to match the cars I pulled. This eliminates cherry picking. The car orders are arranged by car type on a rack so it's easy for the YM to pull. The number of cars taken off the manifest match the number of cars I have to add to it. That keeps things balanced with respect to cars flowing into/out of yards and train length fitting in staging tracks.
I use way more car orders than I have spots for. When I had only one order for each industry spot it did not generate enough traffic. If an industry had a car spotted at it then you could not generate another delivery to that industry until the car was picked up, returned the yard and the order come up again. I like to be able to deliver a car and pick up a car or two at the same time. The industries that have more orders than spots also have an off spot location and an off spot order box. It adds a little more interest to our ops. Thanks again for the presentation. I think the Car Order system is a great option for generating traffic.
Thanks Eric - for 43 years I've been trying various ops approaches for my N scale railroad, but none of them were that much fun. Thanks to your jogging my memory about the car order system here, I'm now making up car order cards as we speak, and looking forward to finally being able to enjoy it! Really appreciate you, and the OPSIG!
Thanks for the zoom call last night. Learned a lot.
Glad you enjoyed it
I operate in N scale but I don't have to read the car numbers on the cars, I only have 1 car per road name. So I if I have a car card that says to pick up a Santa Fe boxcar I just have look for a car with the logo or the ATSF reporting letters.
Thanks Eric, I've just completed my own Car Order system, built in Excel, that is for my small operations based layout. First-mile/last-mile based. THanks for recording this. I just recently joined the OPSIG too.
Oh good, you did hit record!! This was a great presentation on another method of operations.
I ended up re-recording it after the Zoom session was over.
Eric would you check the Carcards without numbers Group email reference please - it does not seem to be working- thanks
Nice job Eric! I'm curious how you balance cars that come back to a yard from a local on the manifest or other outbound trains. Ideally I say put this car on a NB or SB train, but sometimes I just tell the yardmaster make up a train with X# of cars that will go to staging to clear out the yard!
In theory, the westbound and eastbound manifest trains will help move those cars out of the yard to rotate them around the railroad. I've got the option in the future to add more manifest trains if needed, but because I haven't finished all the switching districts, it's too early to know how many I'll need.
I may have missed something in the presentation. Is there a "Train order" card to tell the engineer where to drive the train and where to stop?
Yes, I have instruction cards for each train that goes out. I didn't show those during the presentation.
Do you limit how many cars are set out by the manifests? Seems like you could set out an entire train without some sort of limitation.
Yes, locals are limited to 10 cars and the manifests are limited to 15 cars. This keeps things moving and keeps the trains at a reasonable length for my railroad.