October 2025 op session

The B&O Wheeling Freight Terminal came alive again with an October operating session. Crew positions were held by three local modelers and me. We all kept busy and I forgot to snap any photos.

I guess it’s a great moment to describe a step taken to prep the layout. As mentioned in a few previous operations posts, the HO scale Wheeling Freight Terminal uses switchlists for freight car spotting locations.

The inbound cars are divided into two large sheets that are clerk inventories. They document the car location, reporting marks, last three digits of the car number, car type, and destination. Here’s a closer look at part of an inventory sheet.

Destinations are chosen randomly from a stack of cards that have spot locations on each card. The stack is shuffled a few times before completing the inventories of inbound cars.

Here’s the stack of cards ready to use. These are index cards that have been cut in half. The card colors are random and do not have any layout location relationship. I ran out of one color and picked another.

Here are a few from the stack with the various spot locations. Nearly all inbound freight house cars have a track and spot location. The team yard is more relaxed, although tank cars, coal hoppers, and automobile box cars have dedicated locations.

I basically use the top card of the stack as the destination for the first car on the list. If a freight house interior track comes up as a destination on a card and a gondola, flat, or tank car are next on the list, I’ll add the freight house destination to the next box car on the list. Gondolas, flats, and tank cars cannot be unloaded inside of the freight house. There are a couple exterior tracks near the freight house where those cars can be spotted. There are destination cards for the freight house front and back track locations which can be used if a gondola, tank, or flat car is next on the inbound car inventory.

Here’s another look at the inbound cars. Keep in mind that I model 1926 so there aren’t computer print outs with these details. It doesn’t take long to complete the destinations on the inbound car inventory sheets. There’s about fifty inbounds for each session.

One of my rules for building and operating the Wheeling Freight Terminal is to keep it simple. I hope my explanation of assigning the inbound car destinations was clear. Please leave a question or comment if I need to clarify anything.

I promise to snap a few photos at the next op session. I thank Tom Devenny, Val Pistilli, and Steve Wysowski for making the layout come alive. It’s always a joy to watch crews working on the railroad.

---

Thank you for visiting my blog. You can share a comment in the section below. Follow the instructions so your comment can be posted. All comments are reviewed and approved before they appear. Please share the blog link with other model railroaders. To subscribe to this blog, add your email address to the function at the bottom of the right column on the main page.