This is a revision of my mixed train question. (Still new to MR)
If a short mail train with a few daily passengers were to exist, in what order would these cars be placed:
Two REA express wood reefers(GACX with GSC trucks) i.e. Walther’s 932-25490
Two 60’ heavyweight baggage cars
One RPO
One coach.
What would the most likely diesel motive power be in the 60’s?
What distance would it likely travel without stops, or would it travel greater distances with several stops?
And are there ANY railroad scenarios in which additional reefers, either old style or modern could be added? Branch lines, bridge routes, failing Class I? Speeds are restricted on this line due to lack of maintenance funds, so don’t worry about the trucks… And the downtrodden passengers are willing to put up with whatever…
Sorry Chuck I’ve got to ask ('cos I don’t know[:I])… would wood (sided) cars still be in regular traffic in the 60s?
Another thing I’m thinking about is whether… um [%-)]… okay -
I suspect that a train like the one you are after would be made up in distinct cuts. Maybe REA/RPO/MTHs at the front, then a passenger car or two (What happened to combines/when?) and then some expedited traffic such as reefers… or the other way round…
I’m thinking that the reefers will be cut off at one location to go to their destination and that those particular cars may not come back (the same or next day) on the opposite working. I guess that something similar might happen with the REA/RPO/MTHs.
I’m also wondering whether the passenger cars - or any of the cars - might be wyed at one end of the journey or both?
I like to think that the RR might have put different locos on the point on different trips… 'cos then I get an excuse for more locos! [:-,]
On the speed / track condition issue… this will only apply if the train is only working exclusively on the line with the poor conditions and slow order(s). If it is going to interchange it will have to be capable of working under the other roads’ conditions.
Chuck. Hope you don’t mind my extending the questions being asked. [8D]
RPO on the head end, coach on the rear, everything else in the middle. If the "baggage’ cars are actually mail storage cars then they might be on either side of a full RPO (the entire car is an RPO).
E6, E7, E8, E9, FP7, PA, GP7, RS3, AS16, H-24-66.
How long is a string? Stops could be anywhere from a mile apart to 250 miles apart.
Short answer is no. Just like was said on the other thread. Of course it your railroad, you can do anything you like. Only way I can see it is if on the weekend you don’t run any freight trains and so the only train you run is the “mixed train” and ALL the freight that has to move that day rides that train.
Here are some questions you can think about to help drill down your plan. Why are you so hot to put reefers on this train? Why not just put them on the freight train? What are you thinking your railroad is gaining? The passenger cars go to the passenger terminal. The freight cars go to the freight yard. If you put freight cars on the passenger train then you have to go get them at the passenger terminal, move them to the freight yard, switch them up and then do something with them. Why would you put all that extra handling just to get them to the exact same place a freight train would bring them to?
Most traffic rides one maybe two connections out of a yard a da
Thank you Dave. Yet another series of valid points regarding the REAL railroad situation in the '60’s. No wonder trucking was winning out.
Being a freight railroad, I was thinking more along the lines of tacking on a coach to an existing fast freight, just to appease a few riders when we cancelled dedicated passenger service. The car might return westbound on another daily freight.
So then this lone car or cars get’s dropped off at the aging station, at which point the primary freight train continues on to the yard.
I had the idea that express trains of meat or mixed reefers operated at some time in history? If this train ran a daily schedule, could not a car or two be added just as an olive branch to these vocal advocates of passenger service?
That is correct, solid trains of reefers cars weren’t uncommon, particularly in the steam era. Bananas going north from New Orleans to Chicago on the Illinois Central. Apples from Washington on the Northern Pacific going to the Twin Cities and on to Chicago on the Burlington. Similarly sides of beef would be coming from the west going to plants in Omaha, Chicago, Kansas City etc. to be made into steaks and hamburger.
No. First as noted in your other post, passenger cars need to be able to be connected to the engine for steam heat. Also the slack action of a long express train wouldn’t be very comfortable for the passengers, and generally freight car trucks aren’t designed for high speed passenger service.
Plus freight trains go to freight yards, not passenger stations. Railroads often kept yards near the passenger stations in big cities for their passenger cars, but their freight yards might be miles away from the depot.
You could make a mail and express train that would basically be baggage-RPO-baggage with a rider coach on the end. In that situation, a couple of express boxcars or express reefers might be included. Really, in the sixties you’d be more likely to see the reverse of your scenario, i.e. a passenger train with a couple of freight cars tacked on, rather than a fast freight with a passenger car or two stuck on the end.
If a railroad had a mail contract and was using an RPO, it wouldn’t be sticking them on a freight train. They had to get the mail to the station (or directly to the post office station) quickly
Thank you again for your thoughts STIX. I was thinking the same thing about slack, heat, and power.
We are making a joint layout setup with another club at the Oklahoma City train show next weekend and our club officers asked us to run “theme” trains at our scheduled times. I was trying to come up with the longest specialized consist I could think of with the cars I currently own, not just my usual manifest freight.
I have decided to run two separate trains during my hour. One will be a 12 car reefer express; the other will be a short olive green mail/passenger train that stops briefly at each and every station I come to.
And for my home layout, I’ll just add a short mail express to my operating schedule. The problem is I designed my layout for industrial switching with car cards and way bills, and I have no depots. Thats something else I’ll have to think about some more.
I’m reading John Luecke’s book “More Chicago Great Western in Minnesota” now, which is largely showing a collection of pictures he got access too of the CGW in it’s last decade (1958-68). The typical passenger train for the CGW during that time - even long-distance ones like Mpls-Kansas City, would be something like:
Express/mail trains are “passenger” trains as all the cars are passenger-car-equipped by having steam lines, signal lines, high-speed wheelsets, etc. Thus, steam heat from the locomotive could serve a lonely rider coach at the train’s end. Typically, express box cars, express reefers, mail/RPO cars, and baggage/express cars would be at the front of the train, with rider coach or even a complement of passenger cars such as sleepers, diners, coaches, etc. at the rear.
Mixed passenger trains have a combination of freight cars and passenger-car-equipped cars. Typically, the freight cars were at the front and the passenger car(s) at the rear. Since the steam line was absent on the freight cars, the passenger cars had to have their own heating source. Of course, if/when the passenger cars were connected to a steam-line-equipped locomotive, they wouldn’t have to independently heated but a caboose would have been necessary at the train’s end. Such trains couldn’t go as fast as “all-passenger-equipped” trains when the freight cars didn’t have high-speed wheel sets.
If you got permission from the government to cancel/kill passenger service, the LAST thing you would do is continue it.
One of THE worst arse rippings I ever heard was one a General manager gave a trainmaster because the railroad got permission to close an agency and the trainmaster held the agency open an extra couple days. When a railroad get permission to get rid of a huge cost it will do it.
Here’s the prototype thing to do, put the passenger car on the slowest train possible. Run the train into the freight yard and put the passenger station in a run down room of the yard office next to freight yard, way outside of town. Put the passenger car on trains so there is no way anybody can make a useful one day connection. Such as arriving the big city at 7pm and leaving the big city at 5 am.so using the train involves a 2 night stay in the city. The really creative ought to be able to schedule the days of service to make it even more inconvienient, such as Wed or Wed-Thu off days (you leave Smalltown on Monday, arrive Bigtown on Monday night, do business Tuesday, the train doesn’t run Wed-Thu, you finally leave Friday morning, morphing a 1 day meeting into a week long trip) Wait a year, then petition the ICC to discontinue service because nobody rides the passenger trains.
In a major sense, this wasn’t an unusual first-half-twentieth-century practice. On lines which no longers supported a pure passenger train, mixed freight/passenger trains were used. Some routes justified an RPO, so there were trains with a mixed freight and RPO consist. The Mina Mixed on the SP is an example: