Enhancing operations with waybills: Part 2

 Livestock.

There is actually quite a bit you can do with livestock cars. What you can’t or shouldn’t is probably more important.

Livestock shipments in the steam era were the highest priority shipments on any railroad. Even more than passenger trains. 

Okay, the simple things first. Loaded stock cars should always be blocked on the head end, directly behind the locomotives. When switching, loaded stock cars should NEVER be in the “Handle”, that is when you are backing into a spur to spot or pull a car there should never be loaded stock cars in the cut of cars you are switching with. Loaded stock cars should be switched the minimum to get the job done. The slack action of switching can injure the animals. 

At the yard loaded stock cars should be set aside on a stock track if possible, but set aside. Then the general merchandise cars in the train can be broken down and blocked.

Animals can only be confined for 28 hours, then they must be unloaded for five hours rest, fed and watered. Obviously no model railroad is going to have trains in transit for 28 hours, but you might model a rest station where a portion (or all) the passing stock shipments stop for rest. 

Okay let’s get more complicated. A stock car must be cleaned, coopered, and bedded before loading. Sand was the primary bedding, obviously there were other products, but sand was the main choice and our goal is to model the mundane. So at your stock pens you need a supply of bedding sand. This can be delivered in a gondola. 

Upon cleaning the car the manure needs a place to go. On a model railroad, where the goal is to generate traffic, a gondola for manure removal can be spotted. I do have a manure gondola spot on my clean-out track.

So a “Clean-out” track or spot needs to be built or established at your stock pens. At this location the cars are cleaned, and “coopered”. Coopering is repairing the interior of the car. Protruding nails, bolts, or broken boards need to be attended to.

Livestock needs feed, so car loads of feed need to be delivered.  I have  receiving track for feed delivery, but it only needs to be a spot on an existing track.

Carloads of stock are directed to the rest station or stock pens with CCWB. I use “Action Bills” to re-direct the cars to the clean-out track after their stock has been unloaded.

On my layout a stock extra makes its way across the layout picking up loaded stock cars. These car loads are all billed to the general manager of the Union stock yards in those off-layout cities my stock loads will eventually reach. So each stock extra is, in a sense, a unit train. All the cars are going to one consignee. This is done to limit the amount of switching. Strings of loaded stock cars that needed to be classified was simply not done, in general. Each car has its own waybill, as was normal in the Steam era. As this stock extra stops to pick up a car, ONLY the engine makes the pick-up, with no other cars coupled. The car being picked up gets coupled to the train, next in line to the engine, and the stock extra moves on. This limits slack action. Stock extras pick up loaded stock cars, they do not set-out MTY cars. MTY stock cars get set out be another local. The too and fro movement of picking up a load and setting out an MTY would cause too much slack action.

Now a game many railroads played was stock arriving to be rested was in one railroads car , and after the rest period it departed in that home roads car. This was done to capture some of the line-haul revenue. Livestock Waybills have multiple spots for multiple car numbers, and I have seen several prototype waybills with multiple car marks and numbers on the bill. So your rest station switch job could be spotting home roads stock cars at the clean-out track and storing them for an arriving train.

Stock cars are supposed to be cleaned before returning them, but this didn’t ALWAYS happen. You could give priority to home road stock cars at the rest station, so you had enough clean, bedded cars for the outgoing stock. Depending on the customer or road, cars that were returned dirty might get cleaned and the bill sent to the road that returned them dirty, but I wouldn’t lose sleep over this.

Different species need different cars, so your stock station switch job might also need to divide single deck cars from double deck cars. If you know you have a bunch of beef cattle in the stock yard, your switcher needs to get single deck cars ready first.

One quirky thing, sheep can not be loaded or unloaded in the dark. So if you DO pay attention to day/night on your layout (I do not), this is a factor you could include.

Hogs. If you choose to model the shipment of hogs their holding pens must have a covered area, or the entire pen could be covered, so the animals can get in out of the sun. Hogs are very susceptible to overheating when kept in direct sunlight. So at your stock pens, hog pens could have rudimentary sheds.

Fumigation. Stock cars that have some sort of insect or disease infestation might need to be set off somewhere, quarantined, and the car cleaned and fumigated.

Quarantined Stock. If a load of animals becomes sick, or is determined to have a communicable disease these stock would be quarantined, that is set off in a pen that is not directly adjacent to other animals. This might not be possible on your layout, but if you have at least three pens, you could play this game.

On a large layout where the “Game” is moving cars, all these small details and procedures might be simply a nuisance. But on a smaller layout where the “Job” enhances the operation I’d recommend applying some of these procedures to your livestock operation.

Remember stock shipments in the steam era had the highest priority. Railroads had to abide by the 28/36 hour rule*, and L&D claim’s could be high. Railroads avoided these when ever possible.

*28/36 hour rule. Now I’ve mentioned several times that stock can only be confines for 28 hours before it must be unloaded for rest. Well the rule is really the 28/36 hour rule. Stock should only be confined for 28 hours UNLESS you have written permission from the shipper that it can be confined for up to 36 hours. Additionally hogs and sheep CAN be rested in their cars if needs be.