I’ve been looking for photographic examples but wondered if freight trains were ever (often?) parked in passenger train sheds or ran through A/D tracks through sheds like the Milwaukee Station’s type. (Not necessarily AT Milwaukee, literally). Thanks. I’ve purchased the Milwaukee Everett St. Station and may be able to use the shed (one section anyway) but it would cover some freight stub tracks if I do…would this be completely ludicrous or justifiable? I’m “proto-lancing” but don’t like to get too ridicuolous either. Thanks.
I think if at all possible, they wouldn’t run freights thru the passenger tracks / sheds. Generally if a station is/was on a mainline, tracks would be built bypassing the station so the freights wouldn’t interfere with the coming and going of passenger trains (and endanger careless passengers.)
St.Paul Union Depot was built on the Milwaukee Road mainline along the river in downtown St.Paul, on the west leg of a wye that connected with the GN/NP and other lines. Most of the tracks were stub end tracks with train sheds, but there were thru tracks that Milwaukee trains (and other trains that used trackage rights on the Milwaukee to reach the Milwaukee Road depot in downtown Minneapolis, like the Rock Island) used to load and unload passengers. Outside of those tracks, right along the river, they had tracks used for thru freight trains. I suppose it’s possible at some point a freight might have been detoured thru the passenger track / shed thru tracks because of track maintenance or a derailment etc. but I would think it would be a rare thing.
I suppose you might see the tracks along the edge of the tracks under the shed being used to unload express packages or US mail. But you might be better off using something like the Walthers “butterfly” platforms for your passenger tracks.
Yes,some times it was necessary due to space limitations in larger cities…However,if possible a by pass track would be used.
Thanks Stix and Brakie. This is all as I figured but if anyone comes across any photographic or career based anecdotal examples I’d love to see them. It’s always fun to be able to hold up a photocopy to a rivet counting visitor and say, “Well, here’s ONE example…” 
What would be a prototypical visual clue to place on the layout showing a freight detour to be taken through a passenger shed? Signal configurations? Painted sign? Something to show to layout visitors why my reality is being realistically “bent”. I’ve already considered butterfly platforms to be more fitting, but would like to play with the shed ideas a bit more just in case… What would be the maximum realistic distance to place a large shed away from a terminal or side/through Union Station? (feet/scale miles)…
Richmond, VA
Freight train along the passenger platform.
Charlotte, NC
Passenger train on one side of the platform and freight train on the other side.
It was quite common to put passenger platforms along the main track or have the main track pass through the area. It was less common in train sheds. Concerns are clearance of freight cars to platforms, clearance of freight cars to the overhead shed, danger to the passengers on the plaform from banding dragging, protruding lading, sand, coal rock blowing/falling off the cars.
So a main track might be possible.
A/D tracks, no.
Classification tracks, hell no.
Freight dclassification tracks no, unless the station is no longer used as a train station. For example the tracks under the St Louis Union Station trainshed are now storage/display for various equipment. Not really class tracks, but not passenger tracks either and the station is no longer used as a passenger station (its a mall/hotel).
It would be whatever signals you use to tell any train on any main track what route its taking through any other portion of the main track. Since its the main track, EVERY train would pass through the station, its not a detour. The only signage would be for whatever speed restriction you put on that track.
99.9% of the times I have seen a main track through a passenger station they have used “butterfly platforms”.
Since the people are going WALK from the platform to the station building, I doubt putting the shed miles from the station would be very handy. Normally the station building is immediately adjoining the shed, they are essentially one and the same. So the answer is normally zero feet. You walk out of the station and are under the shed.
Thanks very much Dave. I guess artistic license isn’t going to fly this time. I’d like to make use of the single shed kit that came with the station kit, but I’ll have to see if I can find another purpose for it elsewhere. Storage? Coach yard repair shed from an abandoned older station site? Would anything like this be prototypical? I’d considered short railroad supplied bus service to the main station but that seemed like too much of a stretch. I might be able to saw the shed in half lengthwise and mount it against the backdrop over the A/D tracks and set out stub, convincingly…
Not over A/D tracks.
I work in a building that used to be a freight house, a big open ended train shed with brick walls, a brick head house and it used to have pairs of tracks inside for transferring freight and LCL. The roof trusses were recycled in the late 1800’s from an earlier pasenger train shed.
So get some Walthers brick wall sections with big windows or loading dock doors and put them along the sides, then use the building as a freight shed. 100% prototypical for the 1950’s.
Thanks again Dave. I got thick headed about the A/D tracks. I’ve got it now. The freight house conversion sounds good. I’ll consider that. I’d like to make use of all of that styrene “wrought iron” somehow. Are you a UP employee?
I cannot testify as to the old Milwaukee Road station in Milwaukee WI (I have memories of it but never railfanned it as a kid), but the current Amtrak depot sometimes sees through freights run through, and it essentially connects up to the same tracks.
There is a cut off south of the depot at Canal Street and west of the depot at “Cut Off” for freights that should make this un-necessary (the same cut off and Cut Off was there in steam days which is why I suspect freights running through the old Everett St Station were rare if not unheard of) and most freight take that route even today.
They typicallty do not like to route a freight through the Amtrak depot when a passenger train is due to arrive or depart. there were far more arrivals and departures in steam days which is why a freight trying to get through Everett St would have endangered passengers even assuming a spare track could have been found for it.
Why a freight is sometimes routed through the Amtrak depot is unclear but presumably has to do with congestion in the yard.
Dave Nelson
Like Dave Nelson I’ve seen freight trains run through the “new” (1964?) Milwaukee Union Station (it replaced the Milwaukee’s Everett Street station and the North Western’s lakefront station). Milwaukee road trains did it, then Soo Line trains after the Soo took over the Milwaukee’s line, and now CP freights occasionally pass through the refurbished and re-named Milwaukee Intermodal Terminal (it now serves busses as well as passenger trains). I think the freights routed through the station are through trains that have no yard work in Milwaukee, but I’m not certain of that.
So long,
Andy
They typicallty do not like to route a freight through the Amtrak depot when a passenger train is due to arrive or depart. there were far more arrivals and departures in steam days which is why a freight trying to get through Everett St would have endangered passengers even assuming a spare track could have been found for it.
Don’t know about all roads but,several of the Eastern roads would hold a freight train clear of the station till the passenger train arrived and departed.
Also passengers wasn’t allowed on the station platform till the passenger train arrived and stopped.
Tachikawa (JNR then, JR-East now) is a very busy mainline/suburban commuter stop that had/has? a single platform in the middle of a double-track main. (Two other routes were served by other platforms elsewhere in the complex.) On several occasions, I was on the platform waiting for a commuter EMU train when the station announcer gave a heads-up for one main track or the other - followed by a freight passing alongside the platform on the specified track.
There were separate freight-only tracks around the stations on the Yamate-sen, but that was probably out of respect for the density of traffic on the passenger tracks - up to 20 trains PER HOUR in each direction!
At lesser stations freight trains and passenger trains shared platform-side tracks. Most places didn’t have any choice - if a DMU train is meeting a steam-powered freight at a station with only two tracks, the steamer will be sitting next to one platform when the DMU pulls up to the other. I’m modeling a section of railroad where that is the usual state of things.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
The Pennsylvania Railroad had that busy 4-track mainline, east to west, crossing the Commonwealth.
Locally, in Johnstown, PA, the circa 1916 union station still services the current 3-track N&W mainline, and; it is the same mainline that traverses the nearby Horseshoe Curve.
A passenger shelter (pictured below) behind the circa 1916 union station, at a second-story station height, is accessed though an apx. 100’ tunnel, at the rear of the station, under two of those PRR, to steps up to the surface behind the passenger station.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Johnstown_PA_Station_with_Train.jpg.jpg
http://www.trainweb.org/usarail/johnstown.htm
So, in Johnstown’s case, there is no “freight parking,” except a few miles upstream near the former Bethlehem Steel yards, that look like a model railroad staging yard, and; where that mainline ran through to the passenger station.
The primary purpose of the mainline has always been freight, with a sometimes scheduled passenger through-train, where “the freight” is people. It is still a matter of dispatching and scheduling to see which track(s) have this “pit stop scene” which is repeated across most of Pennsylvania with the possible exception of hubs in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh.
Dave, Andy, thanks for your replies. It sounds like running through a shed would still NEVER occur though as opposed to freights and passenger trains sharing mainline tracks (or others?) through a passenger platform area? Andy, do you know of any examples EVER of freights and passenger trains sharing a Milwaukee style train shed? Or of a reason to prototypically “justify” this on a layout? Brakie thought it was done upon occasion… I LOVE your modeling passenger trains book by the way. If I only had more room for a true terminal! Thanks. So far the vast majority of responses nix the shared shed idea so I’m looking into the other suggested alternatives. I’ve got a few Depot and Union Station reference books so I’m still looking for even more ideas.
Conrail freight trains out of Reily St. yard in Harrisburg PA ran under the train shed on 4 track (IIRC the number) to head east on the mainline or to use the Cumberland Valley bridge to LEMO. This track was between the station building and the active passenger tracks (7, 8 and 9 IIRC) which were also under the shed. Just beyond the shed were freight tracks 10, 11 and 12 (again hope I got the numbers right-it’s been a few years) Most of the freight that went through the station used the tracks that were not under the shed.
A good example of freight trains under the train shed was B&O’s Mt Royal station in Baltimore. AFAIK the shed is still standing and CSX trains still pass through it.
Come to think of it didn’t B&O and RDG freights run under the train shed at B&O’s Chestnut St. station in Philadelphia?
Greetings,
Perhaps I didn’t catch what era you were modeling. Back in the steam era the Peoria Union Station had 2 covered train sheds. the first was 94 by 100 feet and covered 5 tracks. It lasted from 1883 to 1897 when it was severely damaged by a TP&W derailment.
A new shed was built in 1900. 102 x 480 feet covering 7 tracks. The station at that time served 13 passenger railroads. In 1927, while passing through, a Rock Island freight had some of its load, a crane, take out and become entangled with some support columns and brought the shed down on top of the freight train and a passenger train. No one was killed or injured. The shed had 7 covered tracks. It was not rebuilt. The last rail user Peoria and Eastern / New York Central left the station in 1955. The station burned in 1961 when I was two years old.
Bob Lipka
Jim, There might be two or more double ended sidings therough the terminal with platforms and coverings such as full canopy or butterfly style, but the main line would run past the outside to allow freight trains, and light engine movements, to pass without interfering with passenger operations at the depot. Even with a single passenger siding the freights would stay on the main making sure the siding switches were clear, when the schedule showed a passenger tran due (remember, they could be up to 12 hours late before being annulled). Note: at any other time one freight might use the siding to allow a superior train to pass if no station stop was scheduled. I hope this helps! John Colley, Port Townsend, WA