I recently received a number of old hardcover books illustrating various railroads through the 1900’s to the early 1920’s. The railroads represented are those in the Western US and on their secondary lines.
The steam engines range from the 4-4-0’s to some 4-6-0’s and early 2-8-0’s. I am surprised to see passenger trains of relatively few cars, many passenger trains were only 3 or 4 coaches. Mixed trains pulled by the larger engines of this time-frame were often only 5 or 6 freight cars and one or two passenger cars.
Are the pictures contained in these books correct, trains were that small typically? Was there really that much difference between what was running on the main lines and the secondary lines?
Early in the last century, the ONLY way to travel or move goods was by rail - unless you were willing to settle for the hassle of owning a horse. There were motor vehicles, but very few suitable roads once you got away from the more densely populated parts of the country.
Labor was relatively inexpensive, while passenger fares and freight rates were both relatively high. Thus, a small locomotive and a few cars would actually make money in a world where ‘alternative transport’ was a meaningless noise.
OTOH, the earliest Mallets hit the rails before 1910, and PRR routinely ran freights that needed three or four 2-8-0s to move them at track speed. Mainline (and heavily industrialized branch line) traffic was far heavier than that on a two mixed trains per week country branchline. And, for sheer traffic density, go back to that bucolic branch just after the harvest was brought in - long trains, the biggest power the rails could support and meets at every siding, for about three weeks. Then, back to sleep until next year.
Today, we take our present-day road system and high-capacity road transport for granted. That wasn’t always the case.
In 1910 trains were the primary means of transportation. The only real competition was from boats, but they were limited to the waterways and were slower. There were shortline railroads and branchlines to very small towns all over the country and they usally ran several each day. But there was less population, so short trains could carry passengers and mail. Early morning passenger trains might also carry milk to the city. All of this started changing with the increase in automobiles and trucks. Most shortlines and branchlines show declining passenger trains through the 20’s. Also as roads became better, trucks started carrying more short haul traffic. 1900 to the start of WWI was when the railroads peaked in terms of mileage and passenger service. After WWI both declined. Short haul freight traffic where a freight car might be used for across town or 2 or 3 miles up the line declined with the coming of trucks in the 20’s. On the other hand locomotives were increasing in size and power and could haul heavier longer trains long distance. All in all a fascinating period in railroading history.
I have a couple photos of a yard during the day in 1900 and there are about 30 locos waiting, pulling in or pulling out. Many railroads had many engines to handle all the traffic. Bigger yards, many more locos.
I have some books by Abdill that show trains in the 1800s with a dozen or more cars pulled by a 4-4-0 but the track was level and did not curve very much.
I have seen on picture that has a 4-4-0 four cars with another loco pushing from behind up a grade that included a bridge. The pusher would release at the top of the grade and back up for the next push.
Freight railroads did the same with double headers and a pusher when necessary.
Train length varied a lot. In my area, there was a short line that ran a 4-4-0 with one car four times a day about a distance of 30 miles, usually the car was a combination car, passengers and freight. This was a from a book on history of my area in the 1800s. The line was electrified about 1901 and became a trolley until buses, cars and trucks took over.
Sometimes engineers called storm kings had as many as twelve steam locomotives in a row pushing a snow plow. I have a photo of a string of locos behind a snow plow, some that had derailed. Every one communicated by whistles.
i read recently that the Virginia & Truckee ten wheelers 26 and 27 (built 1907 and 1913, Baldwin 56" drivers, 18x24 cylinders, 61 tons) were rated 6 cars: mixed loads and empties, freight and passenger running north out of Carson City, anything more than 6 required a helper. They would have been pretty typical of motive power in the day before the superheater and mechanical stoker.
The western U.S. was still very sparsely populated in the early 1900’s except for the California coastal areas around Los Angeles and San Francisco. Train travel was the only way into the interior in many instances. Passenger traffic was very low because there was no where to go and no one to visit or conduct business with away from the coast other than widely scattered ranches or traveling for two or three days to reach the midwest.
If you search Google Books you can find all sorts of older railroad texts and manuals that have ben digitized.
One of them is a book by Droege on freight terminals. In that he gives several charts on freight terminals which list the average train size coming into the terminal (page 112). The average size was somewhere in the 40 car range. And those were major classification yards on major class 1 railroads.
Obviously if you go to a branch or shortline, the number of cars handled would go down. I have a picture of the entire MP Fredonia Local in one frame taken in 1980. Its a GP9, 1 car and a caboose.
As for passenger trains being suprised at a short train is a model railroad thing. If you actually figured out the average size of passenger train in any era, even today, I would be suprised if it was more than five cars. That’s because MOST passenger trains are short haul commuter trains. The Pennsy ran the Broadway Limited twice a day through Phillie (one each direction). They ran literally hundreds of commuter trains that were in th efive or less car range. But publicity agents tend to like to photograph the high end trains, just as modelers tend to model the high end name trains.