by Brooks Stover, MMR/photos by the author
While modest in size, my 12×25 ft. S (1:64) scale layout patterned after the Buffalo Creek & Gauley has provided many satisfying hours of model railroading fun. I had two objectives when I designed the layout in 2016. The first was to create a series of visually appealing, prototype-inspired scenes that would offer multiple photographic opportunities, and the second was to support satisfying, laid-back operations for one or two operators. The latter objective was the harder of the two to achieve, given the limited layout size and the relatively limited activity of the prototype. You see, in 1964, the year I model, the BC&G was just nine miles long, ran just three trains a week, and the typical consist was about four cars! How was this going to be fun for operating?
In this article I describe the simple, card-draw switch list system I have developed to route cars on my BC&G. It has exceeded my expectations in that it is simple to implement and simple to use and yet creates a seemingly infinite variety of operational situations on the layout. Hopefully there are some ideas here that others with similar smaller layouts can use to create a card-draw routing system of their own.

ABOVE: BC&G 13 has arrived at Dundon to make up a train for Swandale. A bulkhead flat and a chip hopper sit on Interchange 1 while three more cars are just visible on Interchange 2 under the highway bridge. Before departing, the crew will switch the siding behind the B&O’s Dundon station according to the card draw.
The Railroad
The BC&G in 1964 served three towns, all of which are represented on the layout. Along the left wall is Dundon and the interchange with Baltimore & Ohio, BC&G’s only connection with the outside world. There are two hidden staging tracks at Dundon. One represents BC&G’s small enginehouse and yard, and the second is the B&O staging track. There are two short interchange tracks that can hold a total of five cars, and a siding behind the station with two spotting locations including the station loading dock and Bower Coal Sales. The main line leaving Dundon crosses the namesake Buffalo Creek and disappears “into the woods” and reappears at the other end of the room at the little settlement of Cressmont. At Cressmont there is a single siding serving a small dairy and farm with one spotting position.
Beyond Cressmont, the main disappears again and reappears at Avoca Junction, where the logging branch joins the main. The BC&G finally arrives at Swandale, home of a large sawmill that was the railroad’s only customer in 1964. In Swandale there are eight “spots.” There are two spots at the lumber “stacks.” At the sawmill there is one at the dock, one off-spot, and one at the chip loader. The final spots switched by the BC&G are the company store siding and the coaling track. Beyond Swandale is hidden staging representing the “out of service” track that continued to the now-closed Rich Run coal mine.

ABOVE: There’s just a single siding and a single spot to switch at Cressmont. Using the author’s system, if the first boxcar card drawn from the deck and the boxcar on the siding both have even or odd road numbers, the cars are swapped, as is the case today. If not, no work is done this trip.
In addition to BC&G, the layout also depicts the logging operation of the railroad’s parent company, the Elk River Coal & Lumber Co. (ERC&L). The ERC&L is operated as a second railroad and, like the prototype, the ERC&L cars are neither handled by the BC&G nor are they interchanged with the B&O. This adds operational interest for the crews, while following the prototype.
Car Routing Concept
With so few spotting locations and few “off-spots,” the traditional four-position car card system widely used by many layout owners today was just too cumbersome. Besides, I’m partial to operating by using switch lists, which are more prototypical. In addition, the time taken to create the switch lists from the card draw during the session adds to the “play value.” It took a bit of experimentation, but what evolved has proven to be most successful.

ABOVE: As on the prototype, the center of activity on the layout is the sawmill at Swandale. Today’s three-car train has arrived and will soon begin its work. All seven “spots” are visible in this image. There was no place to turn engines on the BC&G by 1964, so the crew will use the run-around track to switch the sawmill and lumber stacks in the distance, but not until switching the company store, in the distance on the left. If the loaded chip hopper is among the cars picked up today, that spot will serve as an “off-spot” until an empty hopper arrives.
The concept is simple. A 2×3” card is created for every piece of rolling stock. The only information on the cards is the road name, car number, and car type. The only exception is the chip hopper cars, which have a reminder note that these cars can only go to the chip conveyor or the off-spot at Swandale or, of course, the B&O interchange…