Basic MS Access Car Card and Waybill Generator v1
This car card and waybill (CCWB) generator is a simple generator that creates the pocket style car cards and small 2 cycle waybills that fit in the pocket. It will also generate a small selection of reports. Because it is a basic system it doesn’t do a lot of the detailed inventories of non-rolling stock equipment and doesn’t have any forms for updating look up tables.
Start Up
The application should open to the form frmMenu, which is the main menu. To edit the look up tables you wil have to click on, open, the “Navigation Pane” on the left side of the Access window. Use the drop down menu to navigate to Tables. You can edit the following tables to change the drop down menus. Double click on the table name or right click and “Open” . In general any field with an “ID” in the name cannot be edited, it is autofilled:
CarType : It is set up to use AAR types. The general description (GenDesc) is used to sort the car types in some of the menus
Commodity: Add commodities as required, there are 165 in the default list.
EngType: It has an “EngCode” which is a short description that will appear on engine cards. “EngDes” is a description and “GenDesc” is only used in sorting some menus. I have loaded most rod steam engines and EMD diesels as defaults.
OverheadCon: The consignee (receiver) on overhead waybills My suggestion is make it the agent for your railroad and then the Agents for the connecting and interchanging railroads. i.e. My railroad is the P&R and I interchange with the PRR and B&O, so I list the Agent P&R, Agent B&O, Agent PRR.
OverheadDest: The destination for overhead waybills. My suggestion is make the destinations the interchange points and stations represented by staging. i.e. My railroad has a staging yard that represents Anna and an interchange with the PRR at Bess and the B&O at Cloy, so my destinations are Anna, Bess – PRR and Cloy – B&O.
OverheadVia: The block code for overhead waybills. See the discussion of blocking further in these instructions. My suggestion is to make the blocking codes for each overhead destination. They can be abbreviations shorter than the destinations or a 4-6 character alphanumeric code.
ViaSation: The block code for originating or terminating waybills. See the discussion of blocking further in these instructions. My suggestion is to make the blocking codes for each overhead destination plus the major locations where locals or industry jobs originate. They can be abbreviations shorter than the destinations or a 4-6 character alphanumeric code.
Rosters
There are three separate rosters, freight cars, passenger cars and engines. The engine roster has some different fields. All of the fields are “text” so you can enter any combination of letters and numbers. Even the car and engine numbers are set to text so an engine number of a car body set that was sub lettered can be entered. i.e. The for the set ATSF 266A-265B-266C, the initials would be ATSF and the numbers 266A, 265B and 266C. The only three
The car type is a drop down menu from the “CarType” table. ReturnSta is the “when empty return to…” station. “Family” is used for ORER reports. It allows subsidiaries and predecessor roads to be grouped together. i.e. If I model the 1970’s, PRR, NYC, and PC would all be in the PC family, and B&O, C&O and WM would be in the CSX family. If I model in the 2010 era, then UP, MP, WP, CNW, SP, SSW, SI, CMO, MSTL and CHTT would be in the UP family. Capy is capacity (weight or gallons). Service is if its restricted to a certain loading (passenger , plastic pellets, steel coils, etc). Weight is the actual weight of the car for maintenance purposes. Make is the manufacturer (Kadee, Rapido, Atlas, Athearn, etc). Model is the manufacturers model number. The value is either purchase or replacement price. Description is up to 255 characters to record any special information. This information may be useful as insurance documentation. Passenger cars have the same fields as freight cars.
Engines have additional fields for decoder information, address and consist. Return station could also be used if the engine is assigned to a particular terminal. Capacity can be the engine rating in tons or cars, service can be passenger, freight, dual, switch, local, etc.
Printing Car and Engine Cards
First select the car or engine cards to print by making sure the CC Printed box is UNCHECKED for those to be printed. Any cars or engines that show to have been printed will not print again unless you uncheck the box. That way new cars or engines added to the roster will always show to be printed. When all the cars have been selected, close that form. Car and Engine cards are printed 8 to a page.
Generate the cards, which will open a print preview of the cards. Most printers will accept 65 lb cardstock paper (or something close). If you have a straight through feed, you might be able to print 100-11 lb. stock.
Entering Waybills
This application only prints two move waybills to keep it simple. Generally there are two types of moves, empty in, load out or load in, empty out. Either can be accommodated. The waybill is set up to have a From and To stations, a via block, a consignee (receiver), a route, lading, a car type and origin load indicator. The only fields that are supported by drop down menus are the commodity and the car type.
There are two forms for entering waybill data.
Single Waybill Form : This form displays both moves of one waybill and the fields are entered one at a time.
Table waybill form : This form displays multiple waybills, one waybill per line.
There is another way to enter waybill data that is in some ways easier, but requires a bit more skill with the Access database and spreadsheets Open the “navigation pane”, go to the tables, open the “WaybillData” table, and copy the table to a spreadsheet. You can then use the copy functions in the spreadsheet to quickly make multiple waybills. Delete the WBID field from the spreadsheet and copy the new waybill data, then “paste append”, using the option in the drop down below “paste” in the Clipboard section of the ribbon to put the new waybills back in the database
The “Via Block” is a routing code, blocks are used by railroads to denote groups of cars that will be handled together. They all get off the train at the same point. That could be a yard where they will be switched, a junction where they will change trains or an interchange. Let’s say a model railroad represents a railroad running between New York and Chicago. In the yard at New York that is a car for Los Angeles, a car for Seattle and a car for Kansas City. All of those cars might go in a “Chicago” or “WEST” block. None of them go to Chicago, but they can all be moved together from where they are to Chicago where they will be switched and change trains and railroads to go to destination. Different trains may carry different blocks. A block can be a Station, a direction, a commodity a car type, a train, anything that helps the yardmaster and train crews know which cars can be grouped together and on which train the cars will move.
Printing waybills
To generate physical waybills, create the waybills, select the waybills to print then use the print waybills button. The print waybills button will configure the waybills selected, then sequence them to print on the pages. The waybills are printed as two moves on the same side of the paper.
Load the desired paper into the printer, usually most printers can handle 65 lb card stock, the heavier 110 lb card stock requires a heavier duty printer or one that can print on a straight pass through. I generally put a mark in the lower right hand corner of the top sheet to aid in orienting the paper in the tray. I generally print just one or two sheets to start, in order to test out the paper orientation.
Mark the paper, print side 1. Put the paper back into the tray, with the paper oriented so the marked sheet is the top sheet and is rotated so the mark is in the upper left hand corner. Print side 2. Compare the waybill numbers on the moves 1 and 2 to make sure they are the same. Sometimes it can take a couple attempts to get the paper lined up correctly. Some printers reverse the order of the pages, which may require reordering the sheets.
In this simple version only two sided waybills are generated. By selecting waybills for the same car type in multiples of 12, printing them, then selecting the same number of different waybills for the same car type and printing them on the other side of the waybills, 4 move waybills can be made.
Overhead Waybills
Overhead waybills are generic waybills that just move cars from staging or an interchange to staging or an interchange. They are not customer, car type or commodity specific. Select a “To” station, select a “Via” blocks and a consignee, I use the “Agent” of the railroad for the destination. They are one move waybills and are printed 12 to a page.
Reports
There are two types of reports, roster reports and train show reports.
ORER Freight Roster : generates a report with the cars sorted by family, reporting marks and car number, similar to an Official Railway Equipment Register. Not all fields are shown on the report.
Full Roster Reports : generates a report with the cars listed by initial and number showing all fields in the roster. Handy for insurance documentation.
Train Show reports : list the equipment by initial and number and display manufacturer, model and prices to help guide your shopping at a train show.
ENJOY !
This application is not compiled to enable the user to make whatever changes the user wants. The user may not sell this application or a version directly derived from this application without the permission of David Husman.