Car Cards

 I use Car Cards and Waybills (CCWB) to forward my freight cars. I’m in the process of printing a new batch of Car Cards for the entire fleet. I agonized over the format, and in asking around I received a lot of very strong opinions.

In short each car card gives the cars reporting marks in large, legible type.

It’s Road Name again in large, legible type. 

And finally a short description of each car.

My goal was that when an operator was faced with a sea of similar cars, he is able to find the car that matches the car card, easily.

I know it’s popular to put a photo of the car in question on the car card. Personally I would rather be in hell with my back broken, than do that, besides my life is already hell, and my back is already broken!

This process gave me a chance to see the fleet. Catalogue the damages from prolonged storage. Re-pack them a bit more carefully. Cull out some cars that are too modern. Over the time I’ve been away from a layout I’ve spent learning about cars in general, and discovered numerous paint and lettering schemes that are, in fact, representative of cars that are much to modern for my 1952 era (How did I ever get so many silver Swift reefers?).

For the most part I made several smart decisions when building this fleet, most from a position of ignorant bliss.

With plans for the new layout progressing on every front, with the glaring exception of actual benchwork construction, car cards are a way for me to work on my layout,  without WORKING on my layout. I’ve been moving to the next step past Car Cards, waybills.


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