TOMA Phase One: More Operations Planning

Desk for industry clerk or agent/operator

After leaving off my last post wondering about bill boxes, I made a decision. I want to have the fascia relatively clear, functioning as a frame. While I want to use car cards/waybills, I don't want the operators to be carrying them around. So, I cleared off the dispatcher's desk, cleaned up the Word files of schematic diagrams that I had started, and made some labels for bill boxes. I printed the schematics on cover stock and mounted them and the bill boxes above the desk. Voila, the dispatcher's desk is the agent's desk.  The agent or industry clerk uses the information from the car cards to make up switch lists for the engineer/conductor to use to do the switching. 

My long range operations plan, as it stands now, is based on the one Chris Adams uses on his railroad, described on his blog HERE. I have created realistic paperwork for the 4th Subdivision including wheel reports, Form 19s, and clearance cards, but don't plan to use them in this first phase, at least to start. I do plan to use switch lists. I am working out a sequence scenario with a freight extra running from the west staging and a 1st class passenger train running from the east staging (East Branch) and meeting at Nooksack as the first step. The extra freight will turn at East Branch and then return through Nooksack also working the NP interchange. I will see how this works before adding additional steps. Lots still to do with scenery and structures here, but I can try out this approach in the meantime.