At the recent ProRail operating event, there were as usual many fascinating discussions among attendees, not only during sessions, but also in the hotel at breakfast, or even in the bar in the evening. One of these involved several of us comparing our own and others’ waybill processes in connection with operating sessions. (For comments on the ProRail event, see my post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/04/prorail-2026.html .)
I was reminded in one of these conversations to repeat something that happened a few years ago at the annual Bay Area LDSIG / OpSIG meeting (Layout Design and Operations SIGs); I’ve described these meetings more fully elsewhere: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-bay-area-layout-design-and.html .
One of the people in the audience for my talk at that meeting, which was about prototypical waybills, including a description of the system I use on my layout, asked an interesting question. He asked, “How many waybills do you have to make for each operating session?” I’ve mentioned this question (and my answer) previously, in a blog post (you can find it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/04/waybills-part-114-managing-fleet.html ).
But for convenience, I’ll repeat what I answered. I replied, “I think you’re actually asking two questions. First, probably what you meant, would be ‘How many new waybills do I have to make?’ but implied is a second question, ‘How many do I actually make?’ and I’ll reply to both.”
The answer to the first question was, “Zero,” because I have quite extensive files of existing waybills, certainly at least one for every car in my fleet (almost 500 cars). [I have shown my waybill file system several times, including this one: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2011/11/waybills-15-managing-bills.html .] Here’s the current file box (a commercial product for baseball card collectors), with bills filed by industtry:
The second question is, in some ways, more interesting. The answer is, “Usually a couple dozen waybills,” for several reasons. First, I do find typos occasionally in older waybills, or cases where I made a factual mistake of one kind or another. These are readily corrected from the original Photoshop tiff.
Second, nearly all freight cars in my fleet have at most four, maybe five waybills in existence; but there are up to 20 possible destinations inbound on the layout, and an enormous number of possible destinations outbound. Additional destinations can readily be added to suit conditions.
Let me mention in passing that I feel strongly about replacing the widely-used “four-cycle” waybills that are commonly encountered; all too often one may be doing switching work and find something like this (drawn from an actual layout, which I won’t name):
I have commented elsewhere about how my system works (among many examples is this one: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/05/waybills-28-waybill-cycles.html ), so won’t go into it here, except to observe that from the original steps in development in 2010, up till now, I have found the new system perfectly flexible and workable in use, to me attractively prototypical in appearance and function, and easy to create, modify, or correct. There do now exist hundreds of waybills in this system, but rarely have I made more than a dozen at a time, so it has never been onerous to maintain or add to the files.
So in a scene like the one below on my layout, with Consolidation SP 2829 switching a nearly empty ballast hopper across Nipomo Street in the town of Ballard, I know that every movement like this is directed by and follows prototype-looking paperwork, and that was exactly what I wanted to accomplish with my waybill system.
I’ve mentioned many times in this blog, and in numerous clinic presentations, that it isn’t my specific waybill design that is important. What’s actually important is the idea of replicating the prototype process and appearance. It can be done in many ways. My waybills are just one of them.
Tony Thompson
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