Good evening all. I just came in from the train room a little while ago and was kind of laughing at myself about the way I used to be so particular about the how I would make up a steam era freight consist. I would always start out with a stock car followed by a reefer or two, then a box car, a tank car and end with a couple of gondolas and a flat car. Why I did it this way I don’t know but what broke me of the habit was that one day someone suggested that I could turn it all around the other way and would actually be more correct to the way trains were set up. Now I do more research by looking at old photos in my train books and watching steam era videos and just lash cars up at random and am having more fun than I ever did before…
It all depends how they get dropped off. If the classifier is good, then it will limit your switching moves…dangerous goods rules the exception. David b
Loaded stock cars were usually at the head end because they needed to be set out frequently for feed and watering. There was also less slack action at the head end, and the livestock does not like slack action. Loaded ice reefer cars were also usually at the head end (behind the stock cars if any) because they were also frequently set out at an ice rack for reloading the ice. But if either types were empty, then it could in anywhere in the train.
Tank cars, if loaded with hazardous materials, would be placed in the train away from the engine and caboose. Some RR’s specified at least 3 to 5 cars away, no matter the blocking. Same goes for explosives or other dangerous loads.
Some trains specified “No Open Cars”. The NH’s all LCL freight, “The Speed Witch”, was one such train. That means no hoppers, gons or flats were allowed on this train.
Most mainline freights would have been blocked for yards enroute. I have several NH Freight Symbol books that specify what order these blocks of cars would be in. The cars would be kind of random in each block, but each block was to be in order. A train from Boston to Maybrook, NY would include cars for the Erie, NYO&W, L&HR, etc., but a train from Boston to Bay Ridge, NY on Long Island would have a lot of PRR-bound cars. IOW, if a PRR car came to Boston loaded, you wouldn’t send it back empty to Maybrook, you’d send it to Bay Ridge. So even road names matter more than one might think, provided you have a RR with multiple outside connections.
When I worked as a conductor, the order of the consist was pretty much the same from day to day. I worked on the B&P RR which is the old B&O Buffalo division. On a northbound freight out of Punxsutawney, we had the cars for Dubois first out, then Johnsonburgh, then Bradford, Salamanca, and Buffalo. We kept the crude for Bradford on the rear so that we could leave it on the main for the Bradford yard crew to handle without having to pull it from the siding, and then run around it for spotting. Our pickups from these spots bound for Buffalo went into the consist ahead of the Buffalo’s already in the train. Dangerous cars had to be buried 6 cars deep for loaded dangerous, and one car deep for mty’s.
For some reason, I like the “look” of flat cars directly behind deisel locos. Seems to make deisels look better? Bigger? Even empty flat cars look good behind early Geeps, RS3’s and 11’s. Not the case with steam. I don’t get it, either…
The program that I am writing will handle the car makeup based on the schedule. For example the hotshot perishables train will usually have twenty fifty foot mechanical reefers which would weigh 600 grams . Add 25 grams for the caboose and its 625 grams total tonnage for the train. The program would send a power request to the nearest yard who would assign the necessary power to the train. If not enough power is available a power request would be sent to the Modesto roundhouse foreman to send extra power which would be a light engine move. Since this is a hotlshot larege C-C diesels would be used with additional tonnage rating to easily get the train over the 2.5 percent grade. Locomotives are assigned a tonnage ratign based upon their actual pulling capabilitiy. All this will be done by the system when running in full CTC (Dispatcher mode).
I haven’t seen a reply for passenger consists, so here’s what I do, based on experience & observation for continentals: in either steam or diesel, after the tender would be (a steam genny, if diesel), baggage, RPO, then coaches & dayniters, a club car for light meals, more coaches, a dome car, dining car, then sleepers. A domed observation car at the end of the train.
It depends on what the freight train is doing. As noted, a mainline freight (not dropping off or picking up cars) would normally be ‘blocked’ as far as each block of cars was going after arriving at the next town. Stockcars and reefers would often be towards the head of the train, but if there were enough cars would be run as a solid train of all reefers or all stockcars.
In a wayfreight, generally cars would be set up in the order they were to be set out. Since my layout’s freight trains are run as wayfreights, that’s the way I set them up.