Passenger operations: passenger tickets, mail bags, express bills of lading, and milk cans

 I thought I’d elaborate on the entire process I’m planning on asking my Passenger train crews to perform during op sessions. On the AIR, passenger trains are far more complex that at most other layouts. There is a great deal of terminal switching, performed by the Passenger Foreman job. It’s once the actual crew gets the train, that I’m speaking of.  They have a great deal of work to do over the road.

The M&E trains (Mail & Express) are the busiest, but every train has some work to do, but let’s start with Train 27, The Westbound Mail.

27 exits east staging and pulls into Chatsworth yard, where there will be several head end cars waiting for pick-up. Additionally this train might have a passenger or two as well as a mail bag, and some express to set out at the depot. Passengers are represented by a paper ticket, a passenger ticket, that must be removed from the train packet and placed in the bill box at the Chatsworth depot. Mail bags are also represented by a paper bill which likewise must be set out. There might be an express bill of lading, describing some sort of express package that needs to be placed in the Chatsworth bill box, and finally Train 27 picks up milk cans, represented by a bill that is in the Chatsworth bill box.  This “Milk Can” will be carried to Littlerock, where it, and the entire “can car” will be set out at the creamery.

I call all these bills, collectively, “Positive procedures”. By that I mean the train crew, upon arrival at a depot, must actually look for, and actually pick-up, or drop-off a bill that represents some sort of person or package, as opposed to stopping and pretending to do something, while counting off the seconds. You must “Think”. The passenger crew man must perform a “Positive Procedure”, at each stop he must ask himself, 

“Do I have a passenger, or package for this stop?” 


It’s still pretend, but a lot more engaging. 

As this train makes its way over the layout it must make stops at each depot where this process will be repeated; passengers  board or de-train, mail is picked-up and dropped off, express packages are delivered, and loaded milk cans are loaded into the can car.

Each passenger train, in turn, will, with certain variations, repeat this entire process (Only #27 handles  loaded milk cans, while #28 drops off MTY’s. No other trains deal with milk cans.).

It’s actually a complicated process, and when you couple it with TTTO, it’s quite a bit of paperwork to deal with. It’s because of this I usually limit passengers, mail and express to only a few per train.  It is, however, quite compelling. I have found that by adding these “Positive procedures”, running a passenger train has become, at least for me,  a lot more fun.

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