I was wondering what other types of cars were sometimes included in a passenger train. Did it matter which line it was? Did it change when Diesels began pulling the trains? I was wondering what I could add to my ACL passenger train or a Southern passenger train.
Thanks for the help.
TomS
There were of course Railway Post Office cars. Locals could include just about any kind of freight car behind. Dairy cars could be seen on some, too. The Rio Grande reworked a steam tender and an Alco PB into steam generator cars to provide heat for the passenger cars rather than buy diesels with the steam generators built in.
Tom,
REA cars were very common.
Express cars are the most likely addition. There are two competing interests: heating the cars, and keeping the passengers as far as possible from the noisy and dirty locomotive. Before steam heating, any freight cars could be run at the front, along with the baggage and express cars. Smokestacks on the passenger cars are a hint that they had coal stoves and could be thus separated from the locomotive. During the steam-heating era, only cars with special piping to pass the steam through, like baggage and express cars, could be at the front. The modern head-end-power trains have a similar limitation. Amtrak however puts their boxcars at the rear, if they still run any.
There were “express” cars that were usually placed at the head end of the train. These look like low profile freight cars but have passenger car trucks and had the specialty “piping” to run steam as well as head end power to the rest of the passenger cars in the consist. There was often a “special” crew/dormitory car near the front of the train, usually just behind the RPO/Baggage car, especailly on long distance trains.
Thanks for the info so far. Did these cars match the paint schemes of the passenger cars? I wonder if Lionel made these cars to go with their passenger trains.
TomS
Express cars could be owned by the railroad and painted in their colors. REA cars we painted in REA colors.
Amtrack is still running Road Railers on the rear end of their trains up here.
Also, Bowser makes nice models of them.
Thanks,
I’ve seen Amtrak “Merchandise” Express cars at both ends of trains as well as the road railers bringing up the rear as John mentioned. The Auto train would also have the car carriers in the consist.
Bob, I don’t know about now, but when I rode the Southwest Chief in 1997 there were seven express baggage cars immediately after the two Genesis units when we left Chicago’s Union Station (then baggage, coach dorm, coach, coach, lounge, diner, sleeper, sleeper).
At Glorieta Pass, we met the eastbound Chief, which had six express baggage cars at the rear. I guess it was a “switching thing”>
This is probably off subject, but in Chicago every year for Christmas, the city puts a “Santa” car on one of the ‘L’ lines… so somewhere inbetween in the consist there is a flatcar added with lights, reindeer and Santa’s sleigh with bags of presents ect… Maybe not applicable to your layout as of now, but perhaps this idea can fit in with holiday layouts in the future…
Tom,
After giving your questions more contemplation, I have come to the conclusion that you are completely dissatisfied with your ACL and Southern passenger trains. Your ACL pictured below.
So being your friend I want to put you out of your misery. Just pack up both sets and send them to me. You will feel much better once they are out of your sight and your problem is solved. [:D]
Certainly additional head end cars would be appropriate. Baggage, RPO and Express cars of all sorts. You might consider using cars of adjoining railroads such as the Seaboard and Norfolk and Western, Or how about adding a Thru sleeper from any Railroad?
Another posibility is to add a Norfolk and Western J 4-8-4 to your Southern cars and represent the Tennesean as it exsisted in the first half of the 1950’s between Bristol, Tenn and Birmingham, Al. Add a Pennsylvania GG-1 to the ACL cars and run your cars to NYC.
I am learning more then I could even imagine.
Frank - I have contemplated your offer and I think I’ll pass. [;)] Thanks also for the email on that car. I will have to look for it.
Tom
Chris, I wish I had examined the Amtrak boxcars when they ran them through here, to see whether they had HEP connectors.
By the way, the two oddest HEP arrangements I have ever seen were a circus train with old heavyweights wired together with spliced wires–no connectors–and a UP re-engined E9 pulling a power car, with an ordinary extension cord tied to the outside of the train to get 120 volts up to the locomotive’s cab.
So it was prototypical for another railroad’s passenger cars to show up in a passenger train? That sounds good to me.
Jim
Jim: Passenger cars were usually transferred on an end-to-end connection; NYC and Pennsy probably didn’t share cars between NYC and Chicago. However, I think Pennsy carried all sorts of cars between New York and Washington – probably for Southern connections.
At one point the Canadian Government legislated co-operation for CPR and CNR between Toronto and Montreal and possibly beyond. The railways were going broke competing for the service, so they were forced to combine trains and run a “pool” service, with trains carrying cars from either line. In 1960 in Monteal I bought a ticket at the CN station, but was sent to the CP station to catch the train.
Railways also passed cars back and forth when one might have a slack period and the other a busy season.
Pullman painted some cars in railroad’s schemes, but kept the right to run them somewhere else.
Canadian Pacific in the 50s ran express reefers at the front of passenegr trains. IIRC, there were painted in a wine colour similar to the coaches.
I don’t think CP ever ran non-silver cars on the Canadian; they had some old heavyweight sleepers dolled up to match the Budd cars, but no freight.
You’re all forgeting that MILK CARS used to be part of the passenger consists. Also for horse race fans, thoroughbreds are transported in special stable cars ( go read the book “Seabiscuit” for a photo of one ). One last : the real-life prototypes of the Aquarium cars were built from old baggage cars for transporting fish from the hatcheries. Adding all of these is how we run ours, and it makes for an extra bit of operation on otherwise colorful but still static trains. Plus, you get to educate the kids with a little rail history.
I have a presentation that covered the tangled history of attempts to get run-through transcontinental trains. All sorts of interesting connections and cross-connections Penn- SP/RI, NYC-SF that would see a car or two of eastern roads on western trains and vice versa.