Hello all, I’m trying to work out an operating session with a friend and we’d like to add a passenger train component.
I’ve traveled on Amtrak (Lake Shore Limited) in a sleeper and when the Boston and NYC trains merge at Albany they just append the cars of one train to the rear of the other. And if you’re sleeping, you don’t notice it so I get how it works today since we don’t have special cars (e.g. observation cars) anymore.
My question is about how it used to be in the 40’s/50’s. Specifically when the Lackawanna terminated in Buffalo and their passengers continued on to Chicago on the Nickel Plate, what was the process for making up the train?
Did they move the observation car and add the cars in between? What cars continued on - just sleepers or did coaches/diners/baggage cars swap too? Or did they not swap cars at all and passengers needed to physically switch trains? Also, how did the engine swap work, did the mainline engines do the car switching or would a switcher loco be used?
I know it’s a pretty basic kind of question, but just trying to learn how this was operationally achieved. Thanks for helping a newbie learn and figure this out!
