Mixing Train Cars

The answer to each and every one of your questions is,,,,,,,,,,,,,,YES!

That is why many, MANY model railroaders operated "mixed freight" trains, i.e. just like the real railroads.

Arnold; the short answer to all of your questions is “yes”.  It would not have been at all unusual for a shipper served by the New Haven, for example, to have loaded a New Haven car destined to a customer served by the PRR. In short, any railroad’s equipment would have been found in any other railroad’s trains. And the same is still true today.

Curt

Thanks Hotwater and Curt, but what about passenger cars?

Did railroads commonly run passenger cars from different railroads?

If so, which ones?

Or, did they ever do it?

I re-read your replies, and a careful reading of Curt's above reply suggests that the answer to these questions is also Yes. Is that true?

Yes again.

I think passenger cars did not go off line as much - except for express cars which are considered passenger cars.

coaches especially stayed on line in most cases.   They were generally used for shorter trips and were lower priced accomodation.

Pullmans run by pullman, or by the RRs after Pullman was broken up, probably did move around but on specific patterns.    For example trains on the PRR from NYC might have a sleeper or 2 for Florida that they take to washington DC.   the sleeper would be transferred to the Southern, ACL or SAL to continue to Florida.     Stuff like that happened in Chicago too with through cars going to the SF or UP or somebody else I think.

Freight cars went everywhere however.     Remember, the majority of manufacturing in steam days was in the East and probably the north.    PRR, NYC, B&O and a few others were probably the source of a lot of goods flowing west and south.    PRR had over 40 thousands X29 boxcars alone, more that the entire fleet for some RRs.    It would be possible for them to go anywhere in the US I would think.   Reefers probably flowed the other way loaded.   Fresh produce from the west and south flowed to the major population centers in the norht and east.  

Hoppers most likely did not move as far afield.     Gons and flats somewhere in between moving heavy goods.  

Look at videos of RR operations and note the mix of cars.    Study pictures of freight yards.

There was more interchange of passenger cars in the northeast, because several trains ran their route over several railroads.  Examples I can quickly think of were trains that ran between Boston or New York City and Montreal or Toronto, as well as through cars which left the New York area on Lackawanna or Lehigh Valley, and continued west of Buffalo on other railroads to Chicago.  One who posts here rode a through Pullman that originated on the Lackawanna and arrived in Chicago on the Nickel Plate when he was a college student.

Storage mail cars were often interchanged at Chicago, and the secondary passenger trains operating east and west of there frequently had at least one foreign line head end car, and often had several.

Coaches and chair cars were not often handed off in interchange, unless the entire train operated over more than one railroad.

Looking at some of the Greg Scholl videos (Overland Route and SP Vintage Steam) Southern Pacific had some trains that were quite a mix of colors from the various roads Pullmans that were in the consist.  With his Union Pacific Classic steam you had a mixture of various roads passenger cars for the troop trains.

Mark

ACL, SAL and Southern all had passenger trains that originated in the northeast and were handled by PRR to Washington.

PRR had two trains from Washington, the Federal and the Senator that were handled by the New Haven from New York to Boston. Both carrier’s equipment was used in those trains.

PRR’s Penn Texas ran from New York to St. Louis with through sleepers to San Antonio handled by the MP. MP equipment would also show up in this train east of St. Louis.

PRR’s South Wind originated in Chicago and operated over PRR to Louisville thence L&N, ACL and FEC to Miami. Equipment from the L&N, ACL and PRR, including engines, ran through over the entire route.

There were also transcontinental sleeper services offered on alternating days that had SP, UP and RI sleepers handled between Chicago and the east coast by PRR and NYC.

This is just a couple of examples.

Curt

So interesting. Thanks Hot Water, Curt, Jim, Tom and Mark for sharing this information.

One more thing: what about cabooses?

For instance, was it common for the PRR to have a train with a NY Central caboose?

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

One more thing: what about cabooses?

No.

For instance, was it common for the PRR to have a train with a NY Central caboose?

No.

Jack / Arnold; I can think of one exception. Lehigh Valley had a handful of their cabooses painted white that served in a through pool service with the NKP over Buffalo. NKP would turn them around at Bellevue, OH and send them back east to the LV.

Curt

Arnold,

In addition to all the great answers from the "real pros" here on the form, let me tell you about one of my favorite pastimes. I have a small library of books with marvelous pictures of Northeastern railroads (many by Morning Sun Books) and I always scrutinize every car in these photos, especially yard shots and freight service. Sometimes I have even taken to using a magnifying lens to try and make out more distant, out of focus elements of pictures! I am always amazed at the variety of roads showing up 'far from home' and the various types of rolling stock.  Growing up, this also helped me to learn a great deal about US geography (e.g., "Route of the Zephyrs? Soo Line?  Where is that? What is that!"). Such "sloganeering" or just plainspoken origins ("Toledo, Saginaw and Muskegon") were, and continue to be, gateways to my imagination and interest.

Some folks have presented various basic formulas such as 70% home road, 30% other for mixing up freight consists, which seems to work well. Nowadays, I don't worry about it so much--if I like a car (or a "unit"), I'll run it.  That's playing by my homefield advantage!

Not only is it common to see mixed freight cars, but also throw in mixed locomotive power as well. It's very common to see various combinations of power from foreign railroads as either borrowed power or paying back "horsepower hours".  Although I live near a CN line, I've seen every other Class 1 railroad either leading or trailing a CN train.

Rob

Some thoughts on what the Pennsylvania Railroad did.

During the steam to diesel transition, the Penny owned about 10% of all freight cars in interchange service, so everyone should have a Pennsy car or two in their freight trains.

Depending on the era, Pennsy freight trains were 40-60% Pennsy cars with the rest of the cars from other roads.  Probably the same with other large roads like the NYC, SF, UP, etc.

As Curt stated, many roads would have agreements with other roads for passenger through car service, either between the Gulf Coast and East/West Coast, and between West Coast and East Coast. For my Pennsy passengers trains I have two cars for coast-to-coast service.

First is a Golden State sleeper that was carried over three roads.  Going from west to east: SP from Los Angeles to Tucumcari, the RI to Chicago, and the PRR (NYC on alternating days) to New York City.

My other coast-to-coast sleeper is a California Zephyr car.  This car started out in Oakland (bus from San Francisco) and via the WP to Salt Lake City, the D&RGW to Denver, the CB&Q to Chicago.  From there, again on alternating days, the Pennsy or NYC took it to New York City.

Like all the major roads, the Pennsy had several other agreements that had sleepers go to the Mid-West and Gulf Coast.

The Rutland’s Green Mountain Flyer had a mix of cars. The train went from NY City to Montreal. NYC power to Troy NY. Then Rutland power to Montreal. Although sometimes B&M power was used to Rutland where engines were switched out. Mostly NYC coaches with Rutland on the head end. Although I have a consist list from the mid 40’s with a B&A coach. At Rutland B&M equipment would be added and the Rutland Pacific would be switched out for a 10 Wheeler.

Another mixed train. The East Wind.  Ran only in the summer from Washington DC to Maine. Pennsy, NH and B&M power and equipment was used. The one caveat is all the equipment even though owned by different RR’s was painted to match. MTH did the set a few years ago.

In the late 1960s there was a large troop build up in Viet Nam. Troop trains came into Oakland on the Santa Fe where the troops were transferred to ships. The trains were made up with sleeping cars from all the eastern railroads all mixed together. I do not recall how food service was handled.   After the trains were unloaded they returned to Richmond, CA where the cars were cleaned. This is where I had an opportunity to go through all the cars and see the interior decor. Another thing I remember about these cars was all the newspapers that were left behind and all the different cities they were from.   After a while, due to the protesters that started to meet the trains, the arrival time was shifted from early afternoon to 3:00 AM.   After this change the only opportunity I had to see these trains/cars was in the coach yard.  

As for cabooses, some states had individual regulations governing minimum requirements for cabooses.  California had requirements for cabooses that included things like first aid kits, stretchers, seats, toilets, heating, etc.  Due to these requirements many cabooses from out of state roads were turned at state line and not allowed in the state. On the road I worked for, this occurred at Elko, NV. The UP had cabooses designated as “pool” cabooses, which met most of these individual state requirements. They were marked with a large red “P” painted on the cupola ends, and were run through.   Caboose run through were by individual agreement.  There were not a lot of cabooses out there and a caboose shortage could be a real problem. I recall using a GP7 as a caboose once because we had nothing else available.  

Interchange of freight cars was common and the AAR car service rules encouraged reloading empty cars for return movements. The return movement did not have to be back to the home road, only generally in that direction. Pool cars were a more interesting arrangement. If a railroad had a large industry, like an automobile stamping plant, they could set up a pool. Each railroad that was going to get traffic from that plant could be ask to assign cars to it based on the estimated traffic that was going to be generated to that road.  But the pool cars were loaded and shipped without regards to the car ownership. The pool operator was also responsible for maintaining the cars. A short western railroad might have a dozen cars assigned to a pool in Buffalo, NY.  Those cars could run for years without ever returning to the home road.  Originally pool cars were known for having a yellow square on each side stenciled “when empty return to agent at ……”. These were replaced with computer data and the yellow blocks starting disappearing in the mid 1960s, I believe.  

@Dave_C posted:

Another mixed train. The East Wind.  Ran only in the summer from Washington DC to Maine. Pennsy, NH and B&M power and equipment was used. The one caveat is all the equipment even though owned by different RR’s was painted to match. MTH did the set a few years ago.

I was totally asleep when that MTH East Wind set came out and missed it.  FYI on its operation and consist, after WWII the matching paint was dropped and only the B&M/NH operated the train.  Mixed cars in NH, B&M could be found and even an Atlantic Coast Line diner was leased.  Passenger train consist books can sometimes be found on ebay.  I find researching prototype info fascinating even tho i do not plan to implement it in it's truest form on my layout. It still helps give a reason to what youre doing and if anyone ever asks why your cars dont match in your train you have a legit answer!