Did passenger car lines ever mix roadname cars like the freight lines do? Would you ever have found perhaps a few Santa Fe passenger coaches in the same train line with perhaps some California Zephyr passenger cars?
No simple answer here. You have to know which railroad, which line and what time. NYC and PRR cars did go west of Chicago on certain transcontinental routes. ATSF and UP cars did come east also.
It depends on the railroad and the era. In the East, the Pennsy and New Haven had quite a few Washington-Boston and trains like the Montrealler and East wind that had mixed consists. Usually that would be head end and sleepers, but PRR P-70 coaches could be found on the New Haven.
Generally, because coaches were for short travel, and sleepers over night, coaches could be dropped off rather than continued empty on a transcontinental train.
But not the random mixing seen in freight trains because they came from random shippers all over the country and went to random destinations. Empty foreign road cars were returned as soon as possible to avoid per diem charges and as many as possible out going shipments were made in home road equipment.
Up until the 40s railroads in the Northeast had agreements to pass on passenger cars to certain destinations. For instance, you could board a car in New York or Washington and ride it to places like St John, New Brunswick, Canada or Bar Harbor, ME. The Canadian destination cars would have traveled on NYC, Boston & Maine, Maine Central, Bangor & Aroostook and Canadian Pacific. Some of these could have been Pullman pool cars, but I have seen photos of New Haven cars traveling behind MEC locomotives. Railroads in Maine ran ‘camper specials’ which take kids from southern New England going summer camps in Maine to a railroad station close to their destination.
Santa Fe never had tracks to New Orleans, but it had run-through sleeper service from the west coast via Missouri Pacific.
Sleeper carried on “Grand Canyon” or “San Francisco Chief” (depending on year) between west coast and Clovis, New Mexico. Then on “California Special” WB or “Texas” EB between Clovis and Houston, Texas, then on Missouri Pacific day train between Houston and New Orleans.
Of course, the California Zephyr you mentioned had cars from CB&Q, DRGW and WP generally with big Cal Zephyr name on the letterboards and smaller owner names on small boards near the car ends.
Early Amtrak trains were always a rainbow of color as equipment got shifted around. For example, you’d see locomotives from one road, and usually cars from another. For example, I’ve seen photos with PC E units pulling cars with GN, NP, SF, or even B&O ancestry. Speaking of the PC, when they were still running their own long-distance trains, many of their cars were still in the old colors…but sometimes with PC logos. That is, you’d sometimes get former PRR stuff with gold PC worms…until the cars were retired or repainted.
[#ditto]I don’t know, but it would seem that the sleepers for cross country trains might have been mixed some as well as rpo and baggage cars.[%-)]
I can’t say whether a Santa Fe car ever ended up in the California Zephyr (CB&Q, D&RGW, WP) but SP, GN, and UP cars did, especially sleepers. Plus PRR had a car assigned to run west on it.
Rick
Walter’s intuition is correct, except that storage mail (baggage-like) cars are more likely than manned RPOs for interchange, and there were also express box cars and express reefers frequently in interchange service.
Here is a listing of foreign cars oberved on SP Train (The Mail) #21 on August 3, 1954, originating in Ogden but after leaving Sacramento for Oakland.
UP 3036 – 69’ HW baggage express – working(?) mail
CBQ 8742 – 50’ baggage ex troop sleeper – storage mail
RE 4229 – 50’ baggage ex troop kitchen – storage mail
REX 6434 – 42’ refrigerator express – storage mail
REX 6522 – ditto
REX 1789 – 41’ refrigerator express – express
NYC 6632 – 49’ milk – express
UP 1931 – 60’HW OWR&N baggage – express
UP 9210 – 40’ box express – express
GN 2053 – 43’ refrigerator express – express
GN 2053 – 69’ HW baggage – express
PA 2687 – 42’ refrigerator express – storage mail
PA 2936 – ditto
My intuition is that foreign road cars were more likely on long-distance secondary passenger trains but that foreign sleepers would be more common on long-distance premier trains.
Mark
That’s why I think secondary passenger trains are more interesting than the premier trains: more variety and operation.
Mark
The Illinois Central used to have a streamliner called the City of Miami, but the IC was a North-South line from Chicago to the Gulf Coast, so the City of Miami’s cars had to be interchanged over two other lines to get to Miami and back to Chicago.
Don’t know exactly how they got there, but can testify to seeing yellow Union Pacific passenger cars (sleepers?) in New York City’s Sunnyside Yard in 1954-55. Didn’t pay much attention at the time ([banghead]) since my primary interest was in track configuration.
In less than ten years, all those track sketches were surplus to requirements.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Passenger car interchange is one of the more interesting and seldom used aspects of model railroading. Too many modelers think of passenger trains as running a fixed consist from start to finish. In reality cars got switched into and out of trains quite commonly particularly on secondary trains. Mail cars could be picked up or set out in route. A train could be split in two in midroute with half of it going to one city and the other half to another. The two halves could be rejoined for the return trip. Most of the interchanging of cars was with sleepers which were forwarded to another road so passengers did not have to change accomodations in the middle of their trip. Coaches on the other hand might be lent to another road to meet seasonal demands. Some of the most interesting passenger train photos I’ve seen had mixed consists of differing roadnames.