I was reading that the last train to run in my area on the San Antonio Aransas Pass RR in the late 60’s was a So Pac “combination passenger and freight” train. I was curious if this “combination” was common and what the configuration and probable order of the cars might have been.
Links to pics would be nice!!
thanks
“Mixed” trains were quite common on branchlines. The Georgia Railroad ran them until the mid 1980s with a coach ahead of the caboose.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=231503
Ontario Northland still runs the Little Bear up in Canada.
The ON train is the Polar Bear Express, which is one of a select few frontier trains which will stop anywhere a paying passenger asks the conductor to stop and the only train I know of to be described as a mixed train. Ride it if you can. I’m told it is worth the effort to go up into the wilds of Northern Ontario to ride on it. Other passenger trains are operated by VIA in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec which will stop virtually anywhere a paying customer wishes. QNS&L also(?) has passenger service on its line in Quebec and Labrador. The Alaska has service of this nature as well, with the only cargo being passenger’s gear.
Thanks! I’m new at this but I would have guessed the passenger car(s) would have been up front.
Your guess would generaly be right (to avoid slack action) if the train was equiped w/ a caboose. The Santa Fe had some psgr cars specifically intended for mixed service that were painted in mineral red rather than green and served as the caboose at the rear of the train.
CNR Prairie Mixed Freight Train
The following cars are part of a 16-car consist of a prairie mixed freight.
<combine_7379.jpg>
This Combine car was originally built for the Canadian Northern Railway in 1915 as Second Class Smoker #6755. It became part of the Canadian National Railways system when amalgamation took place in 1923. The car served on crack passenger trains, riding behind the baggage car and in front of the coaches.
In 1965, 7379 became work car #72782. In 1987 the exterior of the car and the smoking section were restored so that the car could be used in a movie “The Gunfighters”, part of which was also filmed at Fort Edmonton Park. In 1979 the car was painted as an Alberta & Great Waterways passenger car and used in the movie “Silence of the North”.
The Combine was refinished inside during the summer of 1995 and the exterior was repainted in the summer of 1996. It was used in an episode of “Jake and the Kid” that was filmed on the property in July 1996.
About Combine Cars
Sleeping cars had their own smoking rooms, but coaches did not. In 1940, 7379 was converted into a baggage-smoker or Combination Car. Cars such as this one were added to trains for extra baggage storage and to provide an enlarged smoking room for the coach car passengers.
The car seats 32 passengers. At night, boards and mattresses were placed across the seats as sleeping accommodation for the dining car employees.
The other half of the car is a typical baggage car used by most Canadian railways. It contains a stove, and a desk used by the mail-express clerk or bagg
UP in the final years of the Butte Special operated an interesting mixed train. Southbound the power and five to seven passenger cars departed the depot shared with the NP and headed for the yard where the freight cars were added behind the passengercars and the train headed to Salt Lake City. I have seen this train powered by E-units and Steam Generator equipped GP-9 units. It was probably one of the few mixed trains to operate a sleeping car.
TTFN AL
We had a long thread on one of the forums last year about this topic, and it seems to me more like there was no one accepted way of doing it. Practice varied by railroad.
The only mixed trains I rode on (in northern Alberta) had the coach immediately ahead of the caboose. Since the train did switching in the various places it passed through, having the coach at the front would have subjected the passengers to being jerked back and forth several times every time the trains made a setout or pickup.
Regards
Ed
The only time I ever rode a mixed train was on the T&NO deadheading from Kaufman, Texas to Beaumont. (I was an extra board telegrapher.) There was no caboose. The crew occupied a combine on the train’s rear. It was a night-time run. The combine had a coal stove for cold-weather comfort (?) and open windows for hot weather air conditioning. This was in early 1950, as I recall.
On some of their midwestern branchlines, the CB&Q had special combines equipped with coupolas for mixed train service.
The Western Maryland Ry ran a mixed train from Durbin to Elkins WVa back in early to mid 20th century titled appropriately; the ‘Durbin Mixed.’
During steam, an Alco/Richmond class H7 2-8-0 or class H8 2-8-0 headed a combine, a number of boxcars, gons, 55 ton hoppers, flats and so forth plus a NE style caboose. On some runs, when perhaps there was only a boxcar & combine, they’d dispense with the caboose.
During the diesel era, substitute an Alco RS hammerhead with the same type consist. They needed the steam generator capability for heating the passenger/combine.
Definitely an interesting type of train filling a niche need to an otherwise inaccessible area. The photos I’ve seen are picturesque.
Mark
Hi guys, PBENHAM mentioned the Polar Bear Express-this is a summer only all passenger consist,the little bear is an all year round mixed train-a great selection of pix of both can be found on Mike Robins` site-key in Ontario Northland on your search engine and go from there.
Mixed trains on this side of the pond were more likely to have the pass. car(s) next to the loco to maintain vacuum brake connections (trad. Brit. freight stock mostly lacked continuous brakes until relatively recently)
Hope this helps,all the best,nick
Unless you are an ancient railfan like myself you’ve never seen a mixed train in actual revenue service. Branchline passenger trains always held a certain fascination for me, I guess because by the late 1940’s they were fast vanishing and it was obvious that they’d soon be only a memory. Lucius Beebe’s book, “Mixed Train Daily”, chronicled these relics of the past and was a favorite of mine. Unfortunately I lent my copy to another railfan about 40 years ago and never got it back when he moved away.
The last mixed train that I actually saw was on the Norfolk & Western’s Abingdon to Damascus, VA branch. I followed this train from town to town in a 1953 Chevy convertible with the top down (the better to smell that sweet coal smoke) for more than an hour on a balmy summer day in 1956. A beautiful cap stacked N&W 4-8-0 was on the point and a combine trailed the 20 or so freight cars that were in the consist.
Another memorable mixed train that I saw in the 1940’s was on the NC&St.L’s Cowan to Tracy City, TN branch. This left the Dixie Line’s Nashville to Chattanooga main at Cowan and climbed through Sewanee to the top of Monteagle over very steep grades and one reverse curve after another. From there it ran along the Tennesse mountain tops through several more small towns to its final destination. I had the great pleasure of seeing the train at Monteagle one day doubleheaded by a pair of (once again) cap stacked NC&St.L consolidations.
However my fondest mixed train memory is of the Georgia Southern & Florida’s (Southern Railway Syste
Quote “I would have guessed the passenger car(s) would have been up front.”
I understand Texas used to have a law that required all freight cars to be carried IN FRONT of any passenger-carrying cars. Safety reasons. When a car jumps the track a speed, the cars behind it generally keep coming and plow into and through it. A hundred or a dozen freight cars are heavy and massive compared to a passenger car.
I rode a mixed train on the Moscow Camden and San Augustine in about 1964, behind steam. Seven mile run each way from the Carter Brothers lumber company in Camden to the SP interchange at Moscow, Texas and return. Wooden combine/caboose with “JimCrow” segregation signs in the divided coach accomodation, which were ignored.
Good book on Santa Fe mixed trains is Coach, Cabbage and Caboose
When a mixed train arrives at a town, the engine has to uncouple from the caboose to do the switching . If tthe caboose or combine is next to the engine, it has to be pushed back and forth on every switching move. Don’t think I would want to be knocked around like that - couplings usually are a bump type operation. Much rather be sitting stationary rather than be involved in the shifting! Especially if it’s possible to be by the depot so the conductor and passengers can pass the time in more engaging and meaningful routines.
Art
In the late seventy’s early eighty’s Central of Ga used to have a passenger car from Augusta, Ga to Atlanta. The only shot I have of it I am shooting on the shaded side. It was at the end of the train. Phil
There is a Federal law on the books which states that if you have a mix of cars with graduated release and direct release,the cars with graduated release must be in front of the ones with direct release. I’ll bet most of the coaches in mixed train service,if they were on the rear,were set up for direct release,which for comfort purposes they should be.
Kalmbach’s recent book on modelling passenger train operations points out a key factor is how the passenger car is heated. If it is set up for steam heat, it would have to run behind the engine to get steam from it (either from a steam engine or a diesel with a steam generator). If the car had it’s own stand-alone heating system (like a coal stove) it could and usually did run last in place of a caboose.
I would assume whenever possible, the passenger car would be run last, so that the passengers wouldn’t have to be jostled around with every switching move the engine made with the freight cars in the train.
BTW the Burlington had some 40’ heavyweight passenger cars designed for mixed train service on branchlines.
An interesting variation on the mixed train could be described as a mainline mixed train. A prime example would be UP 117-118 between Denver and Kansas City, which ran with a baggage car and coach right behind the power and a full intermodal train behind the coach. After May 1, 1971, Southern ran 7-8 and the Piedmont (Washington-Atlanta day train) in a similar manner until they were discontinued.
Trains such as the East Coat and West Coast Champion, the Southerner, the Silver Comet, during WWII often had one or PRR box cars modified with steam heat and communications cord connections and stabilized trucks to handle high priority frieght right between the power (GG1 north of Washington, diesel south of Richmond, diesel through to Washington in some circumstances but sometimes an RF&P 4-8-4 Washington-Richmond instead, and of course the diesel on the Southern south of Washington) and the baggage dormitory that was usually ahead of the coaches on these then all-coach lightweight streamliners.
But during WWII at age 13 I also rode the Suncook Valley, with its single 2-6-0 or 4-6-0. I remember it clearly as a 4-6-0, but photos tell me it is a 2-6-0. Anyway, they had one combiniation everything coach, baggage, mail and seats. Open platform on the passenger end and none on the bagge-mail end. I think the short mail compartment, 15 feet of the car, was between the baggage and the passenger sections. Usually I was the only passenger and had the run of the place. The line reversed direction at one point between Concord and Pittsfield, NH, and the locomotive would thus run backwards for part of the trip, but always at the front of the train, because there was a run-around track. And this meant that sometimes the combine would be adjacent to the front of the locomotive, sometimes adjacent to the tender, and sometimes at the rear of the train. Coal stove for heating. Walkover black leather seats. Grey-green exterior. One time I rode the train, the combine was in for shopping and the crew at first was unwilling to let me ride, because the rented replacement was a B&M regular baggage car with only wood fold-down longitudinal bench-type seats, but I convinced to let me ride with my 25cent half-fare ticket. Most business was coal for a sporting goods factory in Pittsfield that was making military stuff, and often hopper cars were the only freight cars carried, but sometimes one or two box car