Back in the early 1960s, Ed Ravenscroft (MMR #4) was a pioneer in prototypical operations. Card systems existed then too, but Ed considered them too complicated. He chose instead to develop his own system which he used for decades, even after he retired, moved from Chicago to Arizona, and built a new layout. His Glenco Skokie Valley was large pike, and was operated with groups of friends. Ed's car forwarding system used common thumbtacks with colored heads and some code letters, which rode on top of each freight car.

My assignment for the April Operating Session on the Apple Valley Model Railroad was the two Ritter Lumber Company trains.

On the layout’s upper level, the Carolina and Northwestern runs from Hickory Yard to Mortimer Interchange. The Ritter Lumber company operates from Mortimer to Spruce Pine and then the two logging camps, Camp 7 and Camp 12.

The normal power is geared steam locomotives, however they were all misbehaving so Southern Railway Alco RS1 #405 filled in.

Is there any convention on how directions labels should be noted?  What do you use for direction (if anything)?
I'm talking about compass points (N, S, E, W) as they relate to the movement of trains around the layout.
I assume layouts based on real prototypes (especially point to point) would probably use the geographic directions.  But what of continuous loop designs that fold back on themselves?