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I have come to beleive in the idea that there are essentially two types of operating sessions out there. Basically these are system based operations and scenario based operations. In a system based operation, the layout is treated as a whole, many things are happening in many places all along the line at the same time. Switchers are switching, drags are dragging and turns are turning, its a tapestry that takes many operators to complete. On the otherhand, we have the scenario based operation. The most perfect example of this to me is the good ol fashioned "Timesaver". While designed as a stand alone switching game, it is easily incorporated into a layout. With a Scenario based operation, the focus is on a single operator or crew completing a single or handful of tasks. For the "Lone Ranger Operator" these are probably the easisest to setup and maintain, particularly if your layout isn't quite finished as of yet.
One thing that both the Scenario and System types have in common is the need to randomize car movements so that things ar not predictibale and don't repeat themselves to point of becomeing boring. Some folks just "shake the box" bringing their cars out of storage and setting them down haphazardly. Thus the opject of the scenario is to assemble a train in a specific order using the track and rolling stock at hand. They may just make the order up as they go along, or use some playing cards, giving each piece of rolling stock a number that corresponds to a card. Then the cards are suffled and drawn, the order the card is drawn is the order that the train is asembled.
There are a multitude of operating systems out there, all of them have their advantags and disadvantages, and a lot of them require one to seek out a personal preference. What you are looking for is something that you find simple to understand, easy to set up, and not to much of a problem to keep track of. On a small layout like mine with less than 20 freight cars, most of which are coal cars of some type, its not going to be all that complicated. I will have a few operating rules that will be designed to 'slow things down' and as such make a small layout feel much larger.
I began using a carcard /waybill system, then decided that it was really distracting and complicated to try to keep up with while I was running the train. Also being outdoors, there was no place to store cards for spotted cars, or for the ones being picked up, not to mention trying to keep all the waybills appropriately turned and not dropping the packet of paperwork to be scattered by the wind. My solution was to use the car cards as a 'generator' and developed a generic switchlist from the data they provided. I also constructed a "Dispatcher's Board" with a row of card pockets for each switching area, and a pocket for each car destination. This kept my car cards in order, as well as giving me an indicator where each car is (or supposed to be) when setting up an operation.
