Diff’rent Strokes to Move the… Trains?

“Now, the world don’t move to the beat of just one drum
What might be right for you, may not be right for some”
—”It Takes Diff’rent Strokes”, Alan Thicke

You may be wondering what a quote from the theme song of an early 1980s sitcom has to do with model railroading.

Well, apart from the fact that the show was contemporary to my layout’s timeframe, it also relates to choosing how to “move freight” on a layout.

I belong to the Railway Operations and Industries SIG mailing list. (You can too). There was recently a very long thread that started as a discussion on car cards vs. switchlists, but quickly, uh, expanded. And while it was interesting and informative, it also was indicative of the many different points of view on the topic, and related ones.

I can think of many options: Switchlists (hand written or generated by computer); car cards & waybills; tab on car; swapping “like for like” (take a boxcar, leave a boxcar, etc.); “take this train and pickup and drop off whatever you want”. Then there are the train movement methods: Train cards; Full signalling systems to simulate CTC; Timetable & Train Order (TT&TO); Track Warrants; “Mother May I”; and so on. Every one has pros and cons, and every layout owner likely has what they would describe as a good reason for why they chose the method(s) they did.

It can get a little defensive, honestly, with debates about how prototypical a certain method is or isn’t (“real train crews don’t deal with waybills”, “I work hard to make my layout look prototypical, I don’t want a big tack on top of my rolling stock”), debates about how much paperwork is/isn’t involved (“I do enough paperwork at work, I don’t want to do it in my hobby”, “All I need is a switchlist”), and debates about ways to simplify for operators (“colors make it easy for my crews to figure out where to send a car”, “crews should know the layout well enough to know where a town is without colors”, “TT&TO is too complicated”).

Who’s right and who’s wrong? No one. And everyone. No two layouts—even if they ostensibly model the same thing—are alike, no two layout owners are alike, and so there is never going to be a one-size-fits-all solution. I think ultimately you have to build your layout (and its operating scheme) for yourself, and not try to make concessions others, because you’ll never please everyone, anyway. (To that end, I’ve decided to stick with car cards & waybills to determine where cars go and probably some variation of track warrants for train movement.)

My advice is decide what works for you. I’m pretty confident you’ll find someone who likes it enough that they’ll play trains with you. (Or at least doesn’t hate it enough that they won’t.)

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