Timetable and Train Order

Operations used from the 1840’s through 1985.

TT&TO Forms

This spreadsheet has several tabs for various generic TT&TO forms. Feel free to ad your railroad’s name in the headings on the forms or in the register change the directions from Northward/Southward to Eastward/Westward

• Form 19 – general train order form
• Form 31 – used when the train crew has to sign for the train order. If you aren’t doing this then just use form 19.
• Clearance Form A – lists the train orders a crew is picking up or is clearance to pass a red train order signal.
• Message – Form to give the crews information not in a train order.
• Train register – used to record the arrivals and departures at a station.

Time Table Planning Tool

This is an Excel spreadsheet that helps you plan your time table. There are three worksheets

• Plan – Enter the stations and times into this worksheet
• TT – Paste the times into this sheet to format the final timetable
• String – makes a grid you can use to draw a string line diagram of your time table.

1. Start on the Plan worksheet. In the center on both the top and bottom sheet enter the station names, mileposts, telegraph symbols and other info. This is informational only and does not affect the operation of the planner.
2. The bottom grid is used to do the planning, the top grid is where the computations are done automatically.
3. Lines have to be added or subtracted on both the top and the bottom grids.
4. If lines are added or subtracted to the top grid you may have to copy the formulas down through the cells.
5. How this works : On the bottom grid you enter a departure time at the origin station. In the grid below, enter the running time in minutes between stations (grey rows) and the dwell time in minutes (time the train spends at the station). If a train does no work at the station then the dwell time would be zero. The top grid reads the origin departure time and adds the running time to the next station and adds the dwell time at the next station and calculates the departure time at the next station. If a running time or dwell time is adjusted it will update all the downline departure (or arrival) times automatically. If you want to force a train to depart an intermediate station at a certain time, just add enough minutes to either the previous running time or the dwell time at that station.
6. The left side reads down and the right side reads up. On the right side of the grid, the origin departure time is entered on the bottom and the times are added upward.
7. HINT: I make a default set of running and dwell times for each class of train in the lower grid, then just copy and paste those times in the appropriate columns. Then I can adjust the start time and have a decent starting point for the running time of the train.
8. HINT: If you want both an arrival time and a departure time, you will have to add a row to the grid. The arrival time will be the previous station departure time plus ONLY the running time. The departure time will be the arrival time plus ONLY the dwell time at that station. If you add an arrival ine but only want it to show for select trains, the trains that DO NOT have an arrival time will have to have the formula pointed to the correct cells for the previous departure time.
9. Once the plan is done, copy the upper grid with the train info in it and “paste special” just the values into the grid in the TT worksheet. You will have to reformat the times to either military or clock time. Then you can format the rest of the numbers and divider lines, etc.