In the steam era passenger service on some low traffic branch lines was provided by tacking a passenger car or combination passenger/baggage car on the end of the train. What was usual practice regarding the train caboose - none, in front of the pasenger/combi or behing the passenger/combi? [:)]
The answer is “Yes”. All of the above, sometimes in the same day on the same RR.
If I had to choose I would go with no caboose or caboose on the rear (although any could be possible).
Dave H.
Almost without exception: NO caboose. The conducter and flagman would normally occupy the last coach/combine of the train. There were rare practices when the passenger car was immediately behind the locomotive, but then a caboose was needed at the end of the train. I presume in those instances only the flagman was in the caboose: the conductor needed to collect passenger tickets, and he could do his paperwork there as well or better than anywhere else on the train. (Realize that I have no knowledge of non-North American practices.)
Mark
Philip has the right idea. Practices varied from railroad to railroad, and from one division to another on the same railroad. My book, “The Model Railroader’s guide to Passenger Equipment & Operations” (Kalmbach) includes two photos giving examples of mixed-train makeup. On page 12, a Paul Larsen photo from the summer of 1952 shows the Milwaukee Road’s Mineral Point-to-Janesville, Wis., mixed train made up as follows:
4-6-0 no. 1062
Heavyweight baggage-coach combine
Two covered hoppers
Bay-window caboose
On page 50, a Bill Middleton photo of Great Northern mixed train 61, running from Minneapolis to Hutchinson, Minn., with this consist:
NW5 road switcher
Boxcar
Tank car
Boxcar
Two tank cars
Heavyweight baggage-coach combine
On the GN train, the combine was serving as the caboose.
The Santa Fe had a special category of equipment for mixed trains classified as “coach, baggage, and caboose.” Most were older wood or early steel combines, and most were painted red to distinguish them from standard coach green passenger equipment. They served as cabooses but lacked cupolas or bay windows.
Other roads, such as the Cotton Belt and the Frisco, built special mixed-train cabooses with baggage and coach sections as well as typical cupolas. (See the May, 1960 “Model Railroader,” page 54, for drawings of the Cotton Belt car.)
There were also makeshift cars, such as the wooden baggage-coach combines the Rio Grande narrow gauge outfitted with cupolas to serve as mixed-train cabooses on its Pagosa Springs branch. There are lots of interesting and offbeat prototype examples to inspire a modeler’s creativity.
The sidebar on page 50 of my book discusses mixed train consists and goes into some other issues not covered here.
So long,
Andy
Oddly enough, one factor is the weather. [%-)]
In the examples Andy notes above, the GN car at the end of the train had a stovepipe sticking out of it, indicating that it had it’s own heat source (a small stove) so didn’t need to draw steam from the engine for heat. If the car didn’t have it’s own heat source, it would need to be put right behind the engine, so that it could connect up with the steam line coming from the locomotive. The freight cars would then be behind the passenger car, with a caboose at the rear.
Mark, I can think of at least a couple of Canadian shorts that used cabeese behind mixed consists routinely. The Newfounland Railway was one of them, and I believe the railways in the Canadian Maritime provinces often ran that way. I can’t honestly say I have seen photos of such arrangements further west…wait, I think the railway running up to Churchill, or one of the northern ones also runs with a Caboose…pretty sure I saw a short documentary on TV a few months back.
-Crandell
Crandell,
Thanks for finding some exceptions to my general statement, because the only examples I’d seen with both passenger car(s) and caboose at the end of the train was on western “movie” trains. Prudent railroad managers didn’t want to haul unnecessary cars in a train, but I can imagine instances when the “extra” caboose was included: perhaps because the passenger car(s) didn’t travel the entire route of the train, union agreement, etc.
I like the look of a train ended by a caboose, with the passenger car(s) directly behind the locomotive, but this wasn’t nearly as common as the passenger car(s) and no caboose at the end because who wanted that extra car (caboose), or bounce passengers around if there were any set-outs and pick-ups along the
As usual Andy beat me to it. I just studied this last summer. But I can add that the nick name for this equipment was Cabbage.
The Mid Continent Railway Museum ran a mixed freight train durring the Snow Train, and their caboose was tacked behind a old Great Northern coach…
Phil
…Mixed trains to Mina, NV…
Pages 268 and 269 of Signor’s Southern Pacific’s Salt Lake Division has photos of SP and Tonopah & Goldfield mixed trains (1945-50 era). The SP photos show the two passenger cars (combination baggage/rpo and coach) at the end of the train without a caboose (standard SP practice). The single T&G mixed, however, has both a coach and caboose at the end of the train [B)] , but without any non-caboose freight cars, it begs the question as to where those cars were normally placed. However, Myrick’s Railroads of Nevada and Eastern California, volume 2 has a mixed T&G train pictured on page 283 consisting of locomotive, box car, combine (baggage/coach), and then the caboose at the end.
Mark
Most freight cars did not contain steam lines for sending steam back from the engine, which was used in heating (and other things) passenger cars. So if you had a passenger car on a mixed that needed steam heat, you put it behind the engine. If it had it’s own heat source, or it was warm weather and it didn’t need heat, you could put it in the rear in place of a caboose. I suspect railroads prefered to use a passenger car as the last car, rather than using a passenger car, freights and then a caboose, but sometimes they had to do it.