When making up a consist of freight cars, do you mix in a few of the same road name as the loco, or does it really matter to you ?.
Tracklayer
Well, I dont deliberately avoid the same road name as the loco, so I suppose I do.[:D]
I have a hodge-podge of road names on my rolling stock and only a few in the NYC line.
Tom
no it doesnt matter i model the UP & SF and the only UP thing on my rooad is the caboose and the loco
the rest is a mix of northern, eastern, southern, western roads [:)]
OzJim
Mixed here!
I have cars & locomotives from lots of different RRs I do however try to favour the CPR[:D]
Gordon
A typical consist on a real railroad would have a mix of cars including the home road so it only makes sense to have some of each.
That’s what I do. I model modern, and in the prototype, you will see UP cars on UP trains, so that swhat I do. I switch my mixed freights around the yard so they are more randomly arranged…
Since I don’t have any cars in my roadname (Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western - reporting marks, SLOW), I don’t have any cars in the consist that are of my roadname… (Hmmmm, gotta get those decals done…)
Every train that we run has at least one home road name on it …and the caboosi are also home road
I always include cars from the road of the locomotive I use.
Cars are of diffrent roads, Loco and caboose roads match.
Look at the real thing…You can see just about anything…I like to run a lot of cars from here in the midwest…Cox 47
Well I have a whole bunch of locos, mostly UP and SP, but i only have about 10 freight cars so I use anothers club members cars and he ONLY models Hill Lines, and its not uncommon here at the BC&W to see a consist of NP GN BN MW&S MRL or SP&S behinf a UP or SP locomotive.
Most of my freight cars are CP, so that would be a yes! And all of the cabooses are CP, so it’s a pretty solid train! We do have a few SOO cars, though.
Doesn’t that depend on the loads in the cars and where the cars coming from and going to? I mean wouldn’t it be silly to put a car load of grain into a train going to the steel mill just because the reporting mark on the car matched the loco? What would all those cows in the feed lot do if their grain was shipped to Birmingham?
Of the 300 or so freight cars on the layout at any time, about 20% are homeroad (D&H - 1970s-1980s). Trains are made up depending on shippers and destinations, so there’s usually several homeroad cars in local trains. As the D&H was a bridge line, many through freights may not have any or just one homeroad car.
According to the research those guys from the NEB&W have done, a bridge route would have only about 25-30% home road cars in a train. A big time trans con (or any non bridge route I guess) would have about 50% home road cars. When you think about it that makes sense. The railroad whose rails the car is sitting on has to pay a per diem to the road that owns the car for every day it’s on their rails. It saves money to have a great number of home road cars on your railroads rails. By the same token if your railroad can interchange with those "other ones’ you will collect a per diem for every day your cars are on thier rails. Get a copy of the Allen Keller video on Tony Koester’s Allegheny Midland. Tony discusses making operations realistic by making simple, logical business decisions.
i have a mix of lots of roadnames, but i’m going to only buy BNSF , BN ,or Santa Fe cars if i can help it from now on … and maybe some Norfolk Southern open hoppers[:D]
Good evening Tracklayer,
I’ve only made it a point to run cars of the same road as the engines if I’m running a passenger train. I have generally mixed and matched freight cars unless it’s a coal train or a log train.
However, I agree with the other posters about running cabeese with the same road as the locos.
I have never seen a train with the loco from one RR and the caboose from another except in the case of a merger or take over. I have all C&O locos & cabooses except one N&W Loco & caboose which is used to bring in exchange cars. It will come on the layout with about 5 cars and leave with about 5 others. Oh almost forgot 1 B&O GP38. After all the C&O did BUY THE B&O around 1960.