Empty Grain Box (XGB)

Here's a random 40' boxcar sitting in my HO model of Stacy St. yard in South Seattle set in 1973. It needs to be weathered more, but that's another subject. Add ACI labels, take off roofwalks - also other subjects. But for today, have you seen the 2020 print edition of "Great Model Railroads" by Kalmbach Media? The first featured layout, by Clark Propst, has a really interesting sidebar about how he made his car card and waybill system more realistic by letting his conductors decide which empty boxcars to spot at which grain elevators along his modeled midwestern railroad (M&SL) branchline. Since you're reading this, you're as addicted as I am to over-thinking model railroad operations, so bear with me.

All he did was write "XGB" on the car card behind the waybill pocket. And, to quote him, "Instead of getting a sleeve for every empty boxcar, trains are issued a single sleeve with a slip that tells the conductor how many empties are to be dropped at each elevator on the branch. This is more prototypical than forcing the crew to spot a specific car." He uses plastic "sleeves" to hold both the "car card" information, and, inserted on top of that, the single waybills that he uses. So, if a conductor receives a sleeve with instructions to spot 3 mty cars here and 5 mty cars there, he finds 8 mty (XGB) cars in the yard and puts them in his train. He doesn't care which ones, and nobody else does either. When his run is finished, the grain elevators now have mty cars to load, and their car cards are sitting in the respective car card box on the front of the layout. In between sessions, he can insert waybills showing where the now loaded car needs to be shipped next.

Since I use the preprinted MicroMark car cards, the "X" seems a bit redundant with the "EMPTY CAR" already printed on the car card, visible when there is no waybill present. Now, what if I simply crossed out "RETURN TO" and replaced it with a list of viable uses for car. I could write "Available for:" and then list out "grain, lumber". The conductor of a local would get a "train brief" in a plastic sleeve, with the number of mty grain and lumber cars needed that day at various spots, make up his train as needed, and go. Better yet, if the yard had a yardmaster on duty, the yardmaster could make up the train using that train brief, and then give the train brief with car cards to the conductor. Along the line, the conductor could make his/her own decisions about which mty cars to spot at which spots. If either one of them wanted to write up a switch list, I suppose they could, but I'm not sure why it's needed, since they already have the train brief and the car cards in hand.

I'm liking the flexibility of this idea. The train brief could also have information on any other blocks of cars that would be included in that train, such as loads billed for specific towns and spots. Presumably the yardmaster would have those blocks ready to go by train time, which the train brief would help guide. In the past I have relied on a "train instruction card" which said simply "pick up cars destined for x, y and z." Now I'm thinking of turning the train instruction card into a sleeve like a car card, with the standard blocking instructions for loads and specialized empties, and the ability to hold additional slips of paper indicating the empty car orders for generalized empties, such as grain and lumber. If there were too many, or not enough empties available during an op session, well, that sounds like a real railroad, doesn't it?

What do you think of this idea? Here's a photo of my "variation" on Clark's brilliant idea: