Waybill content: part 1

 I always liked complex waybills. I always thought that the waybill should tell a story, what’s in the car, where it came from, who’s shipping it and receiving it, what it weighs and costs. All these things help tell an imaginary story, at least to me. Then I started operating on a large layout, in my case Gary Siegel’s L&N EK Division layout.

Even though, after 25 years, I can still look at one of Gary’s waybills and tell you where it’s going, EVERYONE tells me how complicated his waybill system is. “Where the hell is Knoxville?!?”

If I had a dime for every time someone came up to me at Gary’s and asked me where a car goes, well I’d have a lot of dimes anyway… in talking with a LOT of operators at Gary’s about the Waybills, I learned that the waybill itself confused them. There was too much information on it. 

WHERE DOES THIS CAR GO? That’s all they want to know. 

 Operators are not dumb, but they are lazy, me included!

A while back I operated at Otis McGees layout, he uses Tony Thompson’s waybill format (Two nicer gentlemen you’ll be hard pressed to find) and I have to confess I had a great deal of trouble determining where a car goes next. I want to find out that information fast and “AT-A-GLANCE”. I do not want to read a detailed waybill to find out where to block a car.

This has sparked a debate, heated at times (If things can get heated over CCWB formats is it any wonder there are centuries old feuds around the world today?), between Al Daumann and myself,  over waybill content. 

Al wants shipper information which also dovetails on his procedures for returning cars to their home road, I simply want operators to KNOW where a car is going NEXT. What I have adopted, and operated successfully, I think, for over ten years, is a one time use waybill that changes during staging.

To route a car to an industry during a session I have one bill that reads, to over simplify: “this car goes here”.

When the car has been spotted, during the next staging period, I replace that bill with one that reads: “This car goes here”. This second bill routes the car either across the layout to another industry, admittedly a rare occurrence on my layout, or it routes the car into a staging yard.

Finally if a car needs to be diverted from its base destination for some service or function, such as icing, weighing, resting stock, repairs,  a SECOND bill, what I call an Action Bill, is placed in the card pocket in front of the primary bill. Once the car has reached this secondary location this Action bill is removed, either by me or by the person performing the function.

The return routing of a car, which Al Daumann is concerned about, is selectively compressed by me, during staging. When I route a car home MTY, it is assumed that the car is following the AAR rules. I do not actually trace a cars route to my layout to determine which way it goes home. Al Daumann does.

In any case, ALL these bills stay with the car until it has reached its billed destination.

In a sense Al, and Tony Thompson, do EXACTLY the same thing, BUT they do it using one bill. This seemingly is a simpler system. You read their bill and see where the car is going. You read their bill further and see that this car must be weighed at a particular location. You read this bill again and see that this car must have additional ice added, or that it’s livestock must be rested at a particular time, etc.

I have at least three bills, they have one. 

My argument is my bill CLEARLY states AT-A-GLANCE where the car is to go next.

I used to love to dream up shipper information and commodities, but I have never met an operator yet that cared, at least not very many! But I have met a bunch that are confused by it. 

As an example the waybills that directed my coal loads had a colored text box on their upper right hand corner with the words EAST or WEST printed in it. If it was going east the color was green, if it was west the color was blue. I modified these bills by adding a line BELOW the text box, remember the colored text box was in the same place and was the same size, that read:

To: REPUBLIC STEEL CO. Pittsburgh, PA.

During that session, within minutes of the start, someone came up to me to ask “Where does this car go?”