Hello, I’m modeling the transition era so I’ll be pulling some heavyweight passenger cars with a Hudson J1e locomotive, now here’s my question: Was there a caboose attached to the passenger cars?
Thank you.
Short answer no.
I’m sure that dozens of people could provide you with examples of one off exceptions where there was. But 99.999% of passenger trains did not have a caboose, especially a train that would be pulled by a Hudson, which was a high speed, “main line” engine.
I presume your passenger cars are lettered New York Central - the J1e was a Central loco.
I railfanned the Hudson River area during the transition era, and saw a lot of passenger trains behind 4-6-4s. All of them had purely passenger consists - ‘people’ cars, baggage, RPO, REA and the occasional express reefer. NO plain box cars, hoppers, gondolas or cabeese.
It’s not impossible that a caboose might have been towed behind a NYC passenger train on a one-time basis to deal with some unusual situation. It’s also not impossible that that bright orange SUV in the Mall parking lot might get hit by a meteorite. As a statistician, I would put a lot of zeroes between the decimal point and the one on my probability estimate.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - where a coach might sub for a caboose, but not vice versa)
Mixed passenger/freight trains usually had cabooses at the end of the train if the freight cars followed the passenger cars. More commonly, however, the passenger cars were placed at the end of the train, and the last car functioned as a caboose. Freight cars could be switched more readily and there was less movement of passenger cars if the freight cars were directly behind the locomotive. Also, there was a cost savings by not hauling the caboose.
Mark
Passenger cars were on occasion converted to cabooses for use on freight trains. This could happen when there was a caboose shortage and a passenger-car surplus. The SP made a number of such conversions. For example, the car below was originally built as a 40-foot RPO car, then modified to be an RPO/Baggage car, and in its last years, converted to a caboose. The picture below (taken about ten years ago) is the car parked under a Sacramento elevated freeway, with the car partially stripped, but still with the uglytrucks given it when converted to a caboose. In this case, the railroad had even gone so far as to paint the car sides the same color as its freight cars.
Mark
If you want to use a caboose behind your Hudson, do so when it’s pulling a freight. While certainly not an everyday occurrence, it did happen, as shown HERE (click on “NYC 5361”, in the table, to see a photo).
Wayne
That is a great example of a rare happening for sure. If they could start a train by taking slack, the great thing about a steam locomotive on a water level route is they could roll the train. I would guess this Hudson is pinch hitting for a Mohawk. In the early fifties, you could see these types of happening many times over as the varnish was beginning to go away for steam.
I got to see two PRR K4’s on a fairly long freight train going eastbound from Effingham in 1953. I don’t think they ever got that train over thirty miles per hour, but they managed to go east that day after taking slack more than once and slipping the drivers many times.
On the other hand, there are pictures of a Union Pacific Challenger on the Denver Local with four cars. I would guess that was a fast ride between stations.
CZ
It was a common/frequent practice to place passenger steam locomotives on light freight-train duty after having gone through an overhaul to “break things in” before being returned to higher-demanding passenger-train duty, even though there weren’t many large road locomotive types less suitable for dual-purpose (passenger and freight) duty than the 4-6-4.
Mark
I rode the late afternoon Regiomontano out of Mexico City to Monterrey in 1974. For at least part of the journey, it had a crew caboose behind the streamlined round-end club observation, said to be a former NYC car. So that is a DISTANT connection to your train.
I would like to thank you all for the valuable informations and the historical pictures, they were all greatly appreciated.
.
Outside of tourist / RR museum operations, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a caboose behind a passenger train. It’s possible a mixed train on some lonely branch line might have no cars to start, but would pick some up along the way, so would leave it’s starting point with a caboose behind the last passenger car.
But on a NYC train pulled by a Hudson, no. Hudsons were first used on the Twentieth Century Limited the road’s (maybe the world’s?[:P]) top passenger train. At that time the train would have been 12-14 heavyweight cars, starting with a combine and ending with an observation car. All cars except the diner in the middle would have been lettered “PULLMAN” since the Century was a ‘first class only’ train (no coach passengers, only sleeping car customers).
Later Hudsons did indeed pull freights in the forties-fifties and were reported to be very good at it. From what I’ve gathered in their later years it wasn’t incredibly rare to see a Hudson on a freight.
Surely the critical issue is the permitted speed of the stock involved? To not reduce a passenger train’s speed a caboose would have to be equipt with suitable “higher speed” trucks. Alternatively the passenger train would have to be scheduled for a limited spped run.
As for the Hudsons… I don’t know a lot about US steam but, if I were a Dispatcher, i would want a Hudson on the point of a reefer or similar hotshot that wouldn’t be so heavy on load but would be able to get a move on.
I imagine that a crew taking out reefers would be dead pleased to have a Hudson but another, given a slow drag or a lot of switching, would be dismayed.
[8D]
It’s important to remember that engines didn’t go from pulling the railroad’s top train one day to the scrap yard the next. Generally they worked their way down the ladder, so that by the fifties many “passenger” steam enignes that were still running were pulling freights and maybe filling in as needed on a passenger or mail run.
As far as the NYC Hudsons:
“They had lots of power and could do a nice job on a freight train. And used as a helper double heading with a freight hog you couldn’t beat them”
- Edward C. Krupp, retired NYC engineer/fireman
Quoted from the book “Thoroughbreds” pg. 298
A solid mail/express train could carry a caboose outfitted with high speed passenger trucks since the conductor and brakemen would need a place to ride.
A caboose could be used on a regular passenger train if there was mail/express cars on the rear of the train.
And after all this, the answer to the original question of whether a heavyweight passenger train uses a caboose still is : 99.9999% of the time, NO.
You have got me intrigued with this post. [:)]
I’m wondering if that would be with MTH’s, baagage cars, RPOs or any combination?
Would one or all be locked cars with the RR crews excluded from them (except in emergency)?
Would they more usually be run witha combine or baggage car to provide accomodation for the conductor & brakeman?
Thanks
[^]
Haven’t we managed to cut that down to 99.9989% yet?
[:-,]
None of the many photographs and consist lists I’ve seen on “pure” mail and express trains revealed the use of cabooses. There was always a coach at the end for the use by the conductor and flagman, perhaps passengers, and often for crews being “deadheaded.”
Almost always there would be both sealed and unsealed cars. Some cars were needed to receive and dispatch mail and express in less-than-carload lots along the route. Baggagemen would occupy these cars to do this work. Often there would be an RPO manned by U.S. postal employees for sorting mail enroute. Frequently such trains included express box cars and reefers. While superficially looking like freight cars, they were considered passenger cars since they were equipped with high-speed truck sets, steam lines, and signal lines to “fit” into a passenger train.
Mark
Back in the 1950s and 1960s it was pretty common on the PRR New York - Washington mainline to see a train with the passenger cars on the head end, followed by a string of express and mail storage cars, and a cabin car (PRR for caboose) on the rear. The cabin was for the flagman, as the rest of the train crew was up in the passenger cars. IIRC any working mail, express, and baggage cars would be ahead of the passenger cars and the cars behind the the passengers were storage only.
The mail express trains I seen was mostly baggage cars for mail storage,REA cars,express boxcars.These never carried passengers but,would carry deadheading crews.The cabin car would be outfitted with express type trucks,steam line and signal line.These trains didn’t have a RPO and would be switched at every major terminal…
PRR used passenger cabins as early as the late 20’s.