Mixed Passenger/Freight Trains

I didn't think that the NYC would. The others look good. Looked like a fun day! Nice layout and trains.

I believe Lionel has marketed very few mixed trains in its long history:

1958 catalog: O27 Burlington passenger passenger set (ALCO A unit, REA reefer and 2 passenger cars.

1959 and a few catalogs after that......the General sets ( moving livestock and passengers).

1994 New York Central passenger/freight set.....headed by an ALCO RS unit, 2 passenger cars ( one, a combine) and a few freight cars.

anyone think of others?

Peter

I like a mixed train, especially on a small layout. A small locomotive (maybe a Consolidation, or a Mogul, or an RSD-4), a few freight cars and one combine or coach is a prototypical consist for many, many branch lines on the railroads. A couple of boxcars, a hopper or two with coal or gravel, a tank car with fuel oil or gasoline, maybe a reefer with some fresh produce, or meat, or beer, or all three, and a flatcar with a new tractor or combine - that's the heart of small-town rural America in the steam and transition eras. 

I like them, too, Bob.  On the Milwaukee Road they used to call them "patrols", and the  Road had some specially built combines that were designed just for mixed train use.  They were the only streamlined cars that had been built with oil lamp lighting, coal stove heating and they had open platforms.   The open platforms were not for passenger observation use, but were designed for trainmen to hop onto and off of, just like they would on a regular caboose.  Love to see some of those come up in "0" gauge.

Paul Fischer

Marx made several different mixed train sets, in their early six inch series, and with

the #1829 Hudson and ATSF tin and plastic F-units.  I can't recall any with the popular

#999 2-4-2, or with the several other different road names available on the plastic F's.  The later sets had the silver ATSF cars with Marx freight cars, and I can think of

none with the #1829 diesel switcher.  I think Montgomery Wards sold one called "The Switch Train Set", that contained six inch passenger and freight cars.  No authority on Flyer, but I think they had a worktrain set with

the 0-8-0 swithcher, a work train including a crane, and a coach.

Peter, K-Line and Lionel's circus trains are mixed freight and passenger, for folks in the Pittsburgh area, I have my circus train running most nights at Kennywood's Holiday Lights show.  

Jack 

Well I'm the last guy to run prototypical considering I just buy anything I like.... hence I have a UP Challenger pulling my NYC Passenger line all the time.  But every once in a while I'll add in four to six of my ATLAS Steam Era Reefers because they just look so good! 

I think once or twice I've had my WWII military flats trailing those cars loaded with gear too!  Not to mention running some freight, though it might be close to the locomotive and not the tail end, gives me a reason to run a caboose when attached to the rear of the train!  

Mixed trains were in fact prototypical, especially on branch lines in the years when passenger rail was on a steep decline. I believe that in my area The Jersey Central even did it. It could also be said that a passenger train running a mail car was a mixed train. Good to see Peter setting something up to entertain the folks.

Now that I have the 3rd Rail N&W "M" I can more accurately model the Virginia Creeper. Now that you've mentioned it, I may go ahead and get it staged for this weekend.

Gilly

During the later passenger years, the Rock Island mixed Intermodal cars with their passenger trains to gain revenue for the operations of the Passenger trains.

I do it all the time.  I like seeing the lone single or pair of passenger cars behind a caboose on a short freight train.  My 1st O gauge layout was built with that in mind.  Just an O36 look with a couple of spurs that would roll under my bed.  I got a 0-6-0 Dockside, a couple of freight cars, caboose, and a combine car to run on it.

Very interesting concept and one I've never thought about.  I LIKE IT! Since I model rural WVa, PA and MD of the late 40's & 50's I'll certainly start running a mix.  Thanks Peter for starting this interesting topic.

Lionel had a US Army troop transport set that had a steam engine and I think a tank car, flat with 2 jeeps, and two madison style cars.  I don't remember when it came out, i think maybe mid 90s becuase i remember coveting it in the cataloges when I was younger.

Here's another thought for a "mixed train" concept:  I've seen freight trains running in none-passenger train served territory with a business car tacked on the back end.  It's not uncommon for a railroad, when they need to get an executive to a specific location, to handle the car in this fashion.  The addition of the railroad's business car in the RR colors, can make a nice variation to the typical freight train.  Most of these cars are self-sufficient in terms of having their own, on board power supply to even include car heating in winter.

Paul Fischer

Good point, and depending on the terrain, i.e. a "roller coaster" railroad line, that business car would usually be placed right behind the motive power on the headend.

You might want to get yourself a copy of "Mixed Train Daily: A Book of Short-Line Railroads" by Lucius Beebe,

By our Farm we had 3 major railroads running within seeing distance, Milwaukee, NYC, and UP. During late 50s, early 60s before they no longer hauled on these tracks and went to just freight, the NYC and Milwaukee had 2 or 3 Heavyweights and the rest freight cars 1 and 2 times a day going by. The UP had smaller and smaller consist of passenger cars, but only once saw several freight cars included. Also very few matching consist or colors, a mixture of Pullman Green and their Road Streamlined passenger cars. Very few times seen a train go by that consisted of all matching passenger cars. I wish I had all the 8MM film I shot on the trains, and local turntable, but all was lost in a fire.

Branch line trains are a key.......I suspect there would be times a Doodlebug pulled a freight car.

Peter

Peter, I just can't do it, this would keep me awake for several nights in a row. Just can't. You being a doctor can understand this. Not good for your health. 

I believe you are referring to the 2000 "D" Day set

http://www.lionel.com/Products...951&CategoryID=0

Today, I think Ontario Northland (or it might be CN now) runs a mixed train from Cochran to Moose Factory in Ontario.    I have been told it is the best if only way to get to Moose Factory from civilization!

Yes I have mixed. My Christmas freight has 2 Christmas Passenger cars at the end for the elves to warm up and have some hot chocolate or eggnog between stops from loading and unloading gifts!

Here is my mixed Christmas train. Mine is mostly because of the new Tree Topper car this year.

The only time I do this is with my Lionel Pennsylvania Limited 4-4-0 General passenger set. It had two add on cars, both of which were freight, so instant mixed train.

It's under the tree, and I'll see if I can get a shot or two of it for this thread.

Funny, I did that too...

Very often I run a train of a handful of early 20th-century freight cars with an open-platform combine and maybe a coach.  It makes for a very handsome, completely prototypical consist behind a 2-8-0, 4-6-0, etc.  No matter what region you live in, there was probably something like that very near to you.

I agree with that all the way.I would go with the 2-8-0 or a gp9 2 boxcars a flatcar another boxcar tankcar a gon and 2 passenger and a cabosse.Lord know I have seen alot of mixed trains in western cowboy movies.

"Mixed Train Daily", the Beebe book cited above by mwb, has long been one of my

"bibles".  Beebe and Clegg found these railroad operations so interesting, they

traveled the country recording them right after WWII, for which we can give thanks. My mother used to ride from Shelbyville, Ky. out on L&N's Bloomfield branch

to visit her aunt on a mixed train comprised of assorted freights and a "Jim Crow"

(center baggage door) combine.  At the end of this train's operation it was pulled

by a diesel switcher, I think a Baldwin.  An old issue of MR has an article with photos

on doing a layout around a Wisconsin line running mixed trains, powered by diesels.

With the thread running on mixing unmatched passenger cars, and mixed trains, you

can get an idea of what runs on these rails here.

Another great source of info and photos is "Slow Trains Down South", by Mallory Ferrell.  I just got Vol. 1 (of 2) and am blown away by the quality of the photos.

I remember, in the '50s, seeing a mixed train on the eastern shore of VA, one passenger car dragged along by the way freight.  In the late 60's, the SOU Piedmont left Washington with one EMD cab loco and 1 or 2 passenger cars, but south of Manassas it had 3 locos in front of the cab unit and a string of freight cars behind the passenger cars.  Some people consider the AutoTrain to be a mixed train.

Here's a mixed train that I ran at the show yesterday. I can see a train like this in the mid 50s, doing branchline service in upstate New York........

an ALCO RS-3 with a stem generator

an RPO

an REA reefer with product to be dropped off at various small towns

a few milk car empties to return to upstate milk collection points

a passenger car for the few passengers and the freight crew

Peter

here is a better pic of the motive power:

Peter

Looks like a great way to run trains. Like all the photos.

When I do this (not a question of if)  I'm always at odds, do I put the passenger cars up front because I like the aesthetics or do I place them in back because that is likely a wee bit more "prototypical"? 

Like to sneak 1-2 boxcars in behind the engine on passenger consists.

Consider that in the winter, if passenger cars were not next to locomotive (where subject to the shunting motions), they would have to have a stove or other source of heat.  Box cars don't have steam lines.