Ops Paperwork - Car Routing

As I've mentioned before, I'm doing my best to make operating the Valley Line as prototypical as possible. To that end, you'll get the following at the start of a run:

• Conductor's Notes (info about your train) & Engineer's Notes (info on your engine)
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• Wheel Report - tells you what cars are in your train, including road name, car number, and destination.
• Waybills and Empty Car Bills - one for each car in your train - tells you the consignee (industry destination) for each car (waybill) or how to get the car back to its home road (empty car bill). 

Most of you are probably familiar with train movement paperwork (Forms "A" and "19"), so the focus of this post will be car movement paperwork - and that starts with something called the "Conductor's Freight Train Wheel Report" - or "Wheel Report" for short.

Wheel Reports

The wheel report lists all the cars in your train as you leave the originating terminal and tells you the destination of each car.

• If a car is destined for a consignee on your route, the wheel report will tell you which town and consignee (and the specific spotting location, if any).
• If a car is destined for a consignee not on your route - or (more commonly) is an empty being routed to its home road - the wheel report will tell you where, and to what train, to hand off the car for further movement to its final destination (in the example above, note all the cars to be handed off to HDX-7 in Middletown).

Waybills

Like many others, my "waybills" are actually a combination of two parts:

1) the waybill form itself, which tells you where the car is destined (other than its home road) . . .

and 2) an "Empty Car Bill" (you may refer to it as a "car card") that has the car information as well as home route information for the car when empty.

In addition to the "bills" (waybills/empty car bills) you receive at the start of your run, you'll get others at each town along the way. So let's get going and see how it all works together . . .

From left to right: beverage/tool cup holder & throttle plug, throttle holder, bill box, bill sorting rack/slot, track diagram, clipboard hook.

As you enter each town along your run, the first thing you'll do is check the bill box, handily labeled as "BILLS" and located on the freight house wall fascia.

• The bills will tell you which cars are ready to go and where they're headed. If there is no bill for a car, it's a "Hold" - it can be moved if needed, but must be returned to its original spot before you leave town (be sure to check for any blue flags before moving such cars in case they're being actively loaded/unloaded).
• Take only cars headed where you’re going or that need to be transferred to another local with which you interchange.
• Consult the gateways map and route/interchange information on the back of your clipboard. (See "Interchanging/'Swapping' Cars" below).
• Spot cars destined for consignees in town as directed by the bills.

In addition to the bills, the local agent may also leave a switchlist with special instructions - e.g. to respot an offspot car, etc. There may also be additional switching instructions/tips included in the bill box (see below):

ProTip: Many local freights are "turns" - which means they start at point A, go do their work, and then return back to point A. In those cases, instead of picking up cars destined for point A (or headed in that direction) on your outbound run, you may want to leave those cars for pickup on your way back (inbound run). This tip often helps you stay within tonnage (and most importantly, run-around capacity) limits.

Interchanging/"Swapping" Cars

One of the most distinctive features of operating on the Valley Line (or, frankly, just about any New Haven RR line during this era) is that cars often have to be interchanged - or swapped - from one local freight to another to get to their final destination. This intensive and significant amount of car handling was the main reason why the NHRR was often referred to as just "one giant terminal railroad." Incidentally, it's also what made the railroad especially vulnerable to truck transport - and ultimately contributed to its downfall.

My layout follows the prototype in this way as well. The "Home Routes & Gateways" map above (and spelled out in more detail in the "Local Routes & Interchange Points" section) shows:

1. How cars get routed off the layout, and
2. Where cars can be swapped from one train to another to get to where they need to go.  This information is on the back of your operator's clipboard.

For example:

Say you're the crew on HDX-7, southbound from Hartford to Middletown and you've entered the town of Rocky Hill which is located along the way. According to the bills, you have two empties and one load to pick up:

• One empty is routed to its home road via Cedar Hill
• One empty is routed to its home road via New London
• The load is destined for a location off-railroad, but routed through Hartford.

Using the "pro tip" above, you leave the load - for now - for later pickup on your northbound run back to Harford and you pick up the two empties.

• You see from the map that Cedar Hill is served by PDX-1, PDX-2, and HDX-12. You interchange with HDX-12 in Middletown. So, the empty routed for Cedar Hill is left at Middletown for later pickup by HDX-12.
• You see from the map that New London is served by PDX-1 and PDX-2. You interchange with PDX-2 in East Haddam. So, the empty routed for New London is left in East Haddam for later pickup by PDX-2.

Heh - unfortunately, HDX-7 only serves East Haddam on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays (you know this from consulting your "Conductor's Notes"). So if it's a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, you'll leave the car in Middletown for you to pick up and take to East Haddam "tomorrow."

This may seem a bit overwhelming & complicated at first - and that's not surprising. Even real railroaders didn't qualify on their jobs until they did them under supervision a number of times - and you shouldn't expect anything less. Fortunately, you can't really mess up - nobody's gonna complain if you spot a car incorrectly, or send it to the wrong destination (heck, even that's prototypical!).

The main goal of all this effort is twofold: 1) to learn about how the New Haven Railroad moved the freight in the Connecticut Valley during the late 1940s, and 2) have FUN simulating those operations.

If I meet that goal, the op session is a success - no matter where the cars end up! :^)