Questions, Answers & Tips - 4
6: Wax paper will protect construction kit plans from
damage and allow the plans to be used as a jig to assem-
ble kit components. (Tom Waters photo.)
6
available. Forms are different from railroad to railroad, but in
general there will be a row of columns across the page for car
number and reporting marks, car type, destination and com-
ments. Some have a column for contents, some do not.
A conductor will list the cars in the train, starting at the caboose
end, and fill in the destination data based on waybills. In the pre-
computer era these were rough-and-ready forms. Each conduc-
tor wrote them for their own on-the-job use, with whatever ab-
breviations were needed to save time yet leave the list readable.
The important thing to remember is that the switch list is a
railroader's tool. It isn't a specific operating system, or some
arcane thing based on knowledge of rules. It's a handy way to
keep track of cars and get the work done without having to
memorize a lot of things.
There are great details on making up and using a switch list at
Dennis Drury's October MRH article on using JMRI for ops is at:
.
– MRH
Wax paper
When building wood structures, put wax paper (6) flat over
your plan, and hold it in place with tape, weights or pins.
Then start by placing parts on the wax paper, adjust them
TIPS
for fit, and tack them in place with a small bit of white glue.
Use wood glue to join the parts.
After your assembly is complete you can turn the work over
and gently peel the wax paper off the back. If there is white
glue on the back of your project, just dampen a Q-tip and
rub the glue until it softens and wipes off.
– Tom Waters
Post-It line-up
I do a lot of custom painting and sometimes need to change
numbers on freight cars or passenger cars using individual
letters. The problem is that getting individual letters to line
up and go straight can be quite difficult and fiddly.
MRH-Dec 2013
