Is there any particular order that steam era rolling stock should be pulled, or was it just what ever and how ever ?.
Tracklayer
Mark,
They were usually sorted out at the classification yard so the “order” would be determined somewhat there. There were also some safety restrictions about explosives (chemicals), as well as live stock, and where they were and were not allowed to be in the sequence of cars. For instance, I beleive for any chemicals that were classified as “Explosives”, the railroads required that there be a 6(?) car length between the tanker and the locomotive - for obvious reasons.
Another issue had to do with full cars vs. empty cars. Empty rolling stock was not allowed at the front of the train because it would have more of a tendency to derail if the brakes had to be applied quickly.
Tom
Thanks Tom. That answered a lot of my question.
Mark (Tracklayer)
As mentioned, the train would often be pre-blocked so that the crew of a local freight turn would have the cars in the order they were required along the route. There were also restrictions on where tankcars could be placed in a train: I’m not sure exactly how far away, but definitely not next to the caboose. I think that most roads, at least in Canada, placed loaded stockcars at the head of the train to minimize the effects of slack action on the livestock. Of course, as a local switching turn worked its way along the line, they might rearrange things as they picked up and dropped off cars. Individual railroads may have had restrictions on the placement of empties in a train, but I’ve seen lots of pictures with empty flatcars or gondolas right behind the tender. I often run an empty car of these types in such a fashion, although all of mine have been weighted to at least 6 ounces.
Hope this is of some assistance.
Wayne
Most preblocking was actually pretty minimal during the steam era. Since labor was cheap and yards were only about 100 miles apart, yard crews tended to only add cars to trains that were going “thataway”. Once a car got to a yard that was near it’s destination, the cars would be set aside and further blocked. Switch crews spent more time “properly” blocking local freights, since they actually had to set out cars along the routes. Some local crews would head out of a yard, and spend some time shuffling cars around in their train, because the yard guys didn’t get the order right! I get a chuckle with large layout owners spending lots of time preblocking their trains. The real roads didn’t waste their time doing all that work, so why should they?
There were some real preblocking standards though. Loaded stock cars always went first, partially for the slack action, but also because of the expedited nature of the cargo. Railroads had to get the livestock delivered and out of the cars as fast as possible (there were mandated times, but I won’t het into them here), and having the cars at the heads of trains made getting to them easier. The same goes for loaded reefers, which had to be iced regularly and delivered fast. Empty cars were generally added to the ends of trains, and flat cars (whether loaded or empty) were usually kept to the back half of a train.
Empties could go in the front of a train also. You just don’t want a big block of empties with a big block of loads behind it.
Dave H
The reason I asked the question to start with was because of an old book I have filled with photos of steam era locos pulling a variety of freight in various ways. One thing I seem to see throughout the book are stock cars up front and tank cars in the middle of the train as some of you have said. There for a long time, I ran them beginning with reefer cars, then box cars, then a tanker or two, then gondolas, flat cars and finally the caboose. Oh well. Live and learn…
Thanks guys.
Tracklayer
I have heard that Reefers were usually at the head end of a train, so they could be “iced”
more easily… true or false ?
Bob
As mentioned above loaded stock cars on the head end. “Dangerous” cars (generally tank cars) loaded w/ flamable or poisonous lading had to be at least 5 cars from the eng or occupied caboose. Cars loaded w/ lading subject to shifting (pipe, lmbr on flts or extending above gondola ends had to have a “cushion” car (typically a box car) between it and an eng or occupied caboose. Some cars (scale test cars, B/O, MW outfit cars and such were frequently “rear end only”. Other than that, no sweat.
I can’t remember where I read it or seen it, but I recall something about some steam era railroads having rules about putting wooden roofed box cars no closer than three cars away from the locomotive to prevent sparks from the exhaust from setting the car on fire.
Ray, you’ve got some interesting points there. I wonder about when the railroads started getting more ‘efficient’, for lack of a better word? Was it in the early diesel era or maybe sometime later, like in the '70s?
JaRRell