The simplest, stupidest beginner's operating scheme...

[Sokramiketes]

I would make a train so long that it couples to itself.

LOL

[wm3798]

I would make a train so long that it couples to itself.

Chris wins the internet today.
Tell him what he's won, Johnny!


Wink Martindale

[wm3798]

But seriously folks...  @Philip H is dead to rights.

For your era and your prototype, handwriting waybills, switch lists and train orders is part of the play value.

If you're like me, which gratefully you're not, it would take you 10 times as long to sort out some fancy software than it would to just sit down and write up the 12 car train you're going to run THIS WEEK.

KISS

Lee

[Dave V]

But seriously folks...  @Philip H is dead to rights.

For your era and your prototype, handwriting waybills, switch lists and train orders is part of the play value.

If you're like me, which gratefully you're not, it would take you 10 times as long to sort out some fancy software than it would to just sit down and write up the 12 car train you're going to run THIS WEEK.

KISS

Lee

This is exactly what I'm going for and why I'm pushing back against needless complication.

Hand-written switchlists are a must, even if someday they're transcribed from software. But software is NOT step 1 here, LOL. Maybe step 4. My prototype's software was running under a fedora in an office in Ridgway.

[jagged ben]

Yes.

If you were to keep all the handwritten switch lists, someday maybe you will scan them and run them through a computer program that catalogs all the cars and their possible destinations, and randomizes them to produce new switch lists for the next ops session.  That is the most you should ever have software do for this particular railroad in my opinion.

FWIW I got used to having only 'waybills' is the first ops sessions I participated in.  Just car and destination, and you figure it out, and try not to drop the pile of car cards on the floor.  (The 'waybills' were car cards that might be flipped around with an opposite direction trip for the next ops session, or sometimes rotating through four options.)   Only recently did I go to an ops session where they had you look and your waybills and write a switch list.  Anyway I kinda like the idea of starting with switch lists, as my understanding is that back in the day the actual train men would not be looking at waybills as much as switchlists that had been prepared by clerks. 

[brokemoto]

I was in a bind similar to Original Poster.  I succeeded in getting myself into it on a four-by-eight.  I had a double track main line.I wanted to have at lest one train running at all times.  I was trying to do too much.

I started by taking a four foot N-TRAK moduile that had several spurs on it. I had designed it as a switching layout that I could operate when it was not my turn to run or that other members could operate  when it was my turn to run. It did have a connexion to the Yellow Line by a PECo turnout but was electrically isolated from it. I connected the Blue and Red lines by means of n end loop to allow for continuous running.  I added  one industry and a house track for the station on the "terminal" and and several more businesses with a runaround track that also served as a team track on the other end. I allowed for a turnout to go off-layout on the other end.

As the "main"line is single track, I can run only one train at a time there and must concentrate on what it is doing.  At the "terminal" end, I have two "businesses" that get and send out cars Monday through Saturday; the bicycle factory and the freight house. There is a grocery  warehouse that receives loads and sends out empties Monday through Friday.  There are two businesses on the "other" end that get and send out one car per week each.  Those businesses mostly receive or send out the same types of cars. On occasion, I will throw in a different type for a special requirement that does not require regular delivery.  All of the other businesses get one car every couple of weeks but I do not assign any pattern to it.  The cars are delivered on Saturday and fetched the following Wednesday  There is only me.  The freight trains are usually six cars in the late morning/early afternoon and six on the night train. On Wednesday, the night train might get up to eight or ten cars, in which case the station switcher at the junction must help it up the two-point-two per-cent grade into the junction.  The Saturday freight (only one freight on Saturday) might also have more than six.   Between them, the passenger trains run.  All trains run through the "off-layout" turnout to a junction; more about that later.

It is a folded dog-bone type layout with many businesses but not all businesses always have cars at them.  Even the three that get and send out cars five or six days per week have empty sidings on Sunday.  Even writing down switch lists is more than I want to do.  It is easy to remember the businesses that get the cars every day or every week.  It is not difficult to remember when the car is delivered and when it is supposed to be fetched. The deliveries and pickups to or from the other businesses are arbitrary.  For the most part, the deliveries to them are Saturday and the pickups are Wednesday.

What I did was start with a base that is the same and add the variety with the other businesses.  Further, I finally found some power that will run through those Kato street turnouts and around those sharp street curves.

Now, if only PIKO would get back to me on those parts for the Whitcombs.