Thoughts On Interesting Proto Paperwork

You want me to fill out what?!? Where?!?

Amongst my friends, I am known as a paperwork "junkie" who gets the biggest kick out of tracking down and buying the most mundane piece of railroad-issued forms and whatnot. Of course, if you ask my girlfriend, she just shakes her head and asks me why I feel the need to buy more dusty old train papers to fill up the basement with. And then of course, there are the model railroaders who find realistic paperwork (and the operations that go along with them) as needlessly boring and "anti-fun"....The common cry of "I work all day, and all I want to do is come home and run my trains, not push paper" is the often heard (and IMO, weak) reply.

Sometimes, in my search for LV or CNJ paperwork, or even other RR's forms for inspiration to design my own for my layouts' ops, I come across paperwork that never, in a million years, could be used to even REMOTELY represent or assist a job or activity on my layout. Not everything can be "scaled down" or even justified for use in realistic operation, since we just don't have to recreate certain activities that the real railroads did (I'm not about to do seat and baggage checks on my passenger trains, are you?!?). After all, there is a limit to what can be simulated on even the most prototypically-operated layouts, and I've operated on some pretty paperwork-centric layouts, let me tell you.

One of my favorite "prototypically useless" forms is the "Nothing to Report" form -

I have nothing, absolutely NOTHING to report! Now let me go back to sleep!

Yes, it's a real form, and I've seen many variations of them, but the point is, there is no need to model this kind of paperwork, no matter HOW realisticaly you like to operate your layout, unless you LIKE to keep your operator friends away, that is...........

But I digress........The reason I wrote this entry today was that I recently came across two LVRR pieces of paper recently that while they certainly fall into the "can't be modeled" category, can still be brought out once in a blue moon just to have fun with. Whats that you say? Paperwork is FUN?!? Why bother going to the trouble? Well hold on to your trainorders there, Negative Nelly, and let me show you.........

Sir, please pull your locomotive over to the siding and show me your FRA Blue Card

OK, I know this is for issuing a citation to trespassers and autos parked where they shouldn't be parked and whatnot, but c'mon, there's no denying you can't have fun with this one with your buddies. It's definitely one of those every once in a blue moon kind of jokes you can pull on one of your crew, or a visitor, just to have fun with. Not convinced? OK, fine, here's another one I found on eBay that can actually be a bit more useful during a session.

Did I just hear the sound of breaking glass?

This is 4x4 card is something akin to "situational cards" that some people like to use on their layout to add "excitement" (not for nuthin', but I find a regular op session has enough excitement with bad DCC decoders, broken turnouts and other such insanity to keep things "exciting"). But if you ARE into that kind of thing, this is perfect. You can go around randomly slapping these on cars to make sure your crews are paying attention while switching. If nothing else, it's another "gag" card to pull out when things are going well (ie: boring) to spice things up little bit. Right now, the LVHTRy operations crew doesn't need any more distractions!

So, I guess my point is, extra paperwork can literally be fun. You can either copy and paste an image (like I did with these) and make multiple paste-ups to copy, or recreate them in Word or Excel (I've done that to for samples that were already filled out, or damaged in some way). Personally, I think I'm gonna bust out the traffic violation card at a session very soon, just to get some good laughs at the expense of someone other than me (for once!)!

"Write" On,

Ralph