Railway Routing on the Ohio Interchange System

Bruce Carpenter had virtually given up the hobby of model railroading back in the 1990s when he got a jolt of inspiration that lead to the design and building of his BNSF layout. He tells MRA’s Allen Keller that he’d participated in clubs and even tried modeling alone, but had lost all interest and had thinned his collection to almost nothing when he and a friend received an invite Ohio Interchange group in Springfield, OH. What he learned from that session about railway routing provided a spark – and a plan.

Today, Bruce operates up to 50 trains and 900 cars in one 4-hour session. And he credits a unique card railway routing system that is easy for operators to learn and use and keeps his railroad operating efficiently, especially given the fact he seven different railroads are allowed to interact and interchange on his layout.

Bruce gives a closeup view of his color-coded card railway routing system that allows cars to be routed off his system and returned.