I personally prefer freight trains because of the great variety of rolling stock you can pull - no disrespect to passenger train lovers intended ([:D]).
Tracklayer
Freights: more variety, more frequency, and they actually make MONEY.
Freights do make more money. Why do you think RR’s abandoned passenger service. Amtrak took over most passenger trains and Amtrak has NEVER made a profit since it started in 1971.
I run both but frieght is more interesting as all of my frieghts have cars to set out & pick up. The only through trains I run is 2 coal trains. To add interest to passenger trains I started REA. My west bound stop at Clifton Forge the loco & REA cars un-couple run about 1/4 mile up the track, switch REA box cars/reefers @ REA facility then back to passenger train to continue run. Some times take on coal & water at that time. East bound has to stop at REA before getting to station so passenger train is left sitting short of the station for a few minutes. Not best way to do it but only way i can figure it out. Also beginning to practice changing power at Clifton Forge as the actual C&O did.
Freight, for the reasons already stated, but
the “Name” trains of years gone by were neat,
especially THIS one.
Baltimore & Ohio Cincinnatian
Freight trains are a dime a dozen everyday but a passenger train??? That is a little different. I run both but the passenger trains are the stars. There may be 10 industrial sites to 1 station on the layout. Boxcars, gondolas, hoppers are everywhere but the streamliners are special.
RMax1
Both.
Sorry Chip, but you can’t have both cookies and milk. It has to be one or the other… ([:p])
Tracklayer
I’m glad you brought this REA issue up lesterperry. I saw a picture in one of my train books a while back of a passenger train pulling express reefers up front between the locos and RPO. Was this a common thing ?.
Tracklayer
Tracklayer: Indeed it was,
http://www.trainweb.org/jssand/Foreign/ForeignCars.htm
It was common to find foreign road cars on Santa Fe passenger trains. These cars fit into four categories:
- Express box and express cars. These were used to transport mail from coast to coast as well as such timely items as national magazines.
- Express reefers. These transport special perishables. Greg Martin reports that commodities with a refrigerated “shelf life” of less than 7 days include fish, green onions and strawberries and of course blood and pharmaceuticals. Less than 14 days, lettuce, tomatoes, sweet cherries, peaches/nectarines, green leafy vegetables, avocados, mangos, pineapples and papayas, cut flowers, mushrooms and meat products.
- Pool sleepers. Santa Fe had arrangements with other railroads so that a passenger could travel coast to coast in the same sleeper compartment as the car was transferred from one train and carrier to another.
- Tourist cars and special operators. These include convention specials (such as the Shriners) and tourist groups (such as those visiting the Grand Canyon).
The primary interchanges were at Chicago and Kansas City.
I guess I would have to say freight because of some of the other reasons and also because I see mostly freight here in Arizona, and little passenger. Another reason would have to be the fact that I model modern, and I wanna do freight! [:D][:D][:D][:D]
Thank you for the info Bill H. I really appreciate it. I’ve been in the hobby for a long time, but still manage to learn something new like this once in a while.
Tracklayer
Freight - for all the reasons that Ray mentioned. Mayby if I had a layout with 36" radius curves I might consider passenger. With 22" curves, 40’-50’ rolling stock is my limit.
Tom
75% freight, 15% MOW and 10% passenger. A mixture makes it more FUN.
Freight mostly, but I do plan to have 1 Amtrak and a few steam excursions on my layout.
Passenger trains here.
There’s nothing finer than seeing Stainless Steel travel the tracks, especially Budd Cars which we still have a lot here in Canada to enjoy watching twice a week.
Gordon
Ah, the gleam of varnish speeding by…but it’s gone too fast, and you can’t beat a long freight with 5 SD40-2s going through the spiral tunnels!
freight…for all of the aformentioned reasons …every once in a while we run a single coach behind a 040 just for fun…
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I’m glad you brought this REA issue up lesterperry. I saw a picture in one of my train books a while back of a passenger train pulling express reefers up front between the locos and RPO. Was this a common thing ?.
Tracklayer
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Looks like Bill H beat me to the answer. But that is OK sounds like he knows what he is talking about and I never really looked into it in any depth.
I gotta say Freight… I mean the great variety of rolling stock… Plus I can never find any N Scale Passenger Cars…