Back in the days of mixed passenger/freight trains, what was the ride like in one of these passenger cars stuck onto a freight consist, or on some of the lines that allowed passengers in the caboose? It seems that passenger operation was usually thought to be a little gentler and smoother on the ride, and starts and stops. Would it have been similar to the ride in a regular passenger train? Or, would it have been more like riding around in a bouncing boxcar?
Can’t speak from personal experience riding on a mixed freight but a caboose rode much better and was much better sprung than a boxcar. I would suspect that cabooses used in mixed service would be the same. Some cabooses rode really well but again, I can’t speak of cabooses used in mixed service.
I’ve never ridden on a caboose, but I’ve been in plenty of them, and they all had one thing in common: spartan comfort. I did recently see a mixed consist race past me in Germany: a class 110 electric followed by 8 coaches and about 20 intermodals. Judging by the power and the average speeds over here, I think they were doing about 70 mph. Over here, where freight traffic has been dwindling, but regularly scheduled passenger trains run, it makes sense to just tack those freight cars on the end and drop them at the appropriate destination. In the States it’d have to work the other way around, and I don’t see that happening.
I’ve never ridden on a caboose, but I’ve been in plenty of them, and they all had one thing in common: spartan comfort. I did recently see a mixed consist race past me in Germany: a class 110 electric followed by 8 coaches and about 20 intermodals. Judging by the power and the average speeds over here, I think they were doing about 70 mph. Over here, where freight traffic has been dwindling, but regularly scheduled passenger trains run, it makes sense to just tack those freight cars on the end and drop them at the appropriate destination. In the States it’d have to work the other way around, and I don’t see that happening.
Most mixed trains, including the Suncook Valley’s, which I rode four times in the summer of 1945, used a combine baggage-coach and the crew, conductor and trainman or trainmen, rode with the passengers, generally reserving a facing pair of walkover seats one side or the other closest to the door to the baggage compartment or to the vestibule. Usually a table would be set up between the facing seats so the conductor could get his freight waybilling work done. On most systems of size, this would be an older car. If the car had a wood stove, as on the Suncook Valley, it could be at the end of the train like a caboose. Often, however, it would be located directly behind the locomotive to improve riding qualities for the passengers by reducing the effects of slack action. If the car required steam heat, like the lightweight straight air-conditioned coach on the CN’s Moncton - Charlottetown mixed, which I also rode, or the old combine and modern sleeper on the Missouri Pacific’s Wichita - Herendon connection for the Colorado Eagle, a rare case of two passenger cars on a mixecd, and one a sleeper, the passenger equipment would have to be located next to the locomotive.
Several Western railroads had “Drovers’ Cabooses” which were longer than regular cabooses and sometimes even had births as well as seats, for caretakers who would water and feed livestock on stock trains, and these often ran in addition to and sometimes in place of, a regular caboose.
Regular cabooses used in passenger service were used on a minority of mixed trains. Georgia Railroad had one. Didn’t ride it though.