Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
God bless TCA 05-58541 Benefactor Member of the NRA, Member of the American Legion, Retired Boss Hog of Roseyville , KC&D Qualified
Originally posted by johnandjulie13 Given my proximity to the BNSF railroad, the only time I ever see a matching consist is on a unit train, hauling coal to the east. In my mind, whatever looks good together is appropriate. Like johnandjulie13 posted, I live near Florida East Coast Railroad & CSX, the only time I see mainly all FEC is a sand train coming out of Fort Lauderdale area. Norfolk Southern runs over FEC tracks and most of their trains are a mixture of roadnames. CSX is really bad about using any car for any railroad, have seen A.T.S.F. boxcars with the old Q for quality in Indiantown FL parked on a siding, even saw NYC gondolas near Indiantown on a CSX train. As for motive power I have seen very many differant diesels on both CSX & FEC lines, even Norfolk Southern has differant diesels, you may see a pair of SD-70M-2's or a four GP-60-2's together. FEC is still running GP-38-2A's, quad-heading them at times, or may run some newer SD-70-2's. Amtrac was supposed to run on FEC to Miami but the deal fell thru because of Amtrac's ultra low funding. One day an FEC GP-38 led the Amtrac train down the FEC line to Miami, innaugeral run. Also there has been talk of using FEC tracks for an East Tri-Rail run but so far Tri-Rail is unable to come up with enuff money to lease the tracks from FEC. Anyway FEC maintains their tracks better than most railroads and has way fewer derailments per mile than any other railroad. Lee Fritz Interested in southest Pennsylvania railroads; Reading & Northern, Reading Company, Reading Lines, Philadelphia & Reading. Reply Jumijo Member sinceJanuary 2005 From: New England 6,241 posts Posted by Jumijo on Thursday, April 20, 2006 12:50 PM QUOTE: Originally posted by ChiefEagles Jim, just make sure you get your B unit truned the right way. [:0][;)] Youbetcha. The Indian in the logo faces forward on my layout. Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, April 20, 2006 12:55 PM I think there could be several ways these "mash ups" (to use the current term) happened. One way that I have rarly seen modeled or offered in a catalog is the trains that ran as a joint effort of more than one RR Co. The cars were sometimes lettered for the train but sometimes these were run with pooled cars so they could have very mixed paint lettering schemes. An example I can think of is "The Orange Blossom Special" of the Seaboard Air Line. It ran on the SAL the RF&P and B&O RR's from New York City to Florida. It had RF&P as well as SAL lettered cars often there was an attempt to have a shared paint scheme. Sometimes this didn't happen however due to car availability. Sometimes companies even leased or borrowed cars from other lines due to seasonal rushes. During WW2 there were other rules and many cars were used in other service sometimes very far from the original line. My understanding is that headend cars were typically older or repurposed. They seem to have been the last replaced or updated. Probably because no paying passengers were riding them(although often these head-end cars were the ones carring the loads that payed to run the train. Passenger tickets rarely payed enough to run the train.). Other special type cars that were/are slow to be updated include Diners, Sleepers, and sometimes Lounge or even Observation cars. The reason these were slow to be replaced is that they were seen as expensive and generated very limited revenue. Another situation where mixed cars in a consist would be found is while companies were transitioning and buying new car types. Rarely would all of the cars arrive at the same time, so the cars would go into sevice when they arrived often in mixed consists. For reasons of finace only the top line trains would get new equiptment. As the equiptment aged it would pass down to the lesser also rans. Eventually the cars would cycle through to the humble locals. When equiptment needed servicing older cars were brought up to serve the name trains at the expence of the smaller trains. "Madison" styled baggage cars were common on streamlined trains. Rebuilt troop sleepers were commonly used as baggage cars after WW2. When the company got around to it some of these older styled cars were even given new plating to look closer to the rest of the consist. I have even seen photos of older heavyweight cars painted silver with dark pinstrips to simulate the corregated metal of the streamlined train. This practice of using older cars as head end cars is even seen today on Amtrak trains. At least until recently they still had old streamlined cars running as baggage car at the front. Some of these were repurposed and you can see where stainless plates were attached over the windows. They are easy to spot because the cross section is different than the oval shape of the now common Ex-Metroliner car types. Amtrak even has a cute euphanisim for these when it refers to the older cars as "Heritage cars". If you want to see crazy looking trains, try to find pictures of very early Amtrak trains. They looked insane. Many different car types and paint schemes in the same train. One train could be lettered for 5 or 6 different lines with different paint. It is pretty amazing that they survived and people were able to get to thier destinations. So yes there are many examples of "un-pure" consists. Reply Edit Buckeye Riveter Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Jelloway Creek, OH - Elv. 1100 7,578 posts Posted by Buckeye Riveter on Thursday, April 20, 2006 7:32 PM In 1967, when I road the Burlington from Chicago to Denver, I remember all the cars being the polished steel. We had at least three dome cars. I was in the dome car for sunrise and sunset. Wow! [:D] The biggest mash-up I have ever seen is in the early days of Amtrak. The trains were a hodgepodge of cars from anywhere and everywhere. Celebrating 18 years on the CTT Forum. Buckeye Riveter......... OTTS Charter Member, a Roseyville Raider and a member of the CTT Forum since 2004.. Jelloway Creek, OH - ELV 1,100 - Home of the Baltimore, Ohio & Wabash RR TCA 09-64284 Reply brianel027 Member sinceNovember 2003 From: The ROMAN Empire State 2,047 posts Posted by brianel027 on Thursday, April 20, 2006 7:54 PM To add to the general feelings expressed here, and specifically what Buckeye said, modeling the fallen northeast railroads that went into Conrail is loads of fun and with loads of variations. In the passenger service years of Penn Central, you could see cars from the NH, NYC, PRR and newly painted PC cars. With the Jersey Central, they were buying passenger cars from anyone who had them for sale. You could see all sorts of GN and BN cars running on the CNJ, not to mention the varying CNJ schemes. Some of the CNJ passenger trains were referred affectionately as "The Jersey Builder" (after the Empire Builder) because of all the foreign GN/BN cars. Now add into the mix how many railroads restored or partially restore passenger cars into inspection train service. Conrail had silver and blue cars, all CR blue cars, some quick roller jobs of varying origin and then later the Pullman Green colored inspection train. The real railroads were into saving money. Passenger service on many was a losing proposition by the 1960's. While some lines continued to offer the service, they also did everything they could to save money. So on your model railroad, the same principle applies and is totally prototypical. Buy whatever passenger cars you can find on sale, mix them together and then laugh at those who say it isn't prototypical.... it sure as heck is!! brianel, Agent 027 "Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need." Reply ChiefEagles Member sinceFebruary 2004 From: Rolesville, NC 15,416 posts Posted by ChiefEagles on Thursday, April 20, 2006 10:11 PM QUOTE: Originally posted by phillyreading Originally posted by johnandjulie13 Given my proximity to the BNSF railroad, the only time I ever see a matching consist is on a unit train, hauling coal to the east. In my mind, whatever looks good together is appropriate. Like johnandjulie13 posted, I live near Florida East Coast Railroad & CSX, the only time I see mainly all FEC is a sand train coming out of Fort Lauderdale area. Norfolk Southern runs over FEC tracks and most of their trains are a mixture of roadnames. CSX is really bad about using any car for any railroad, have seen A.T.S.F. boxcars with the old Q for quality in Indiantown FL parked on a siding, even saw NYC gondolas near Indiantown on a CSX train. As for motive power I have seen very many differant diesels on both CSX & FEC lines, even Norfolk Southern has differant diesels, you may see a pair of SD-70M-2's or a four GP-60-2's together. FEC is still running GP-38-2A's, quad-heading them at times, or may run some newer SD-70-2's. Amtrac was supposed to run on FEC to Miami but the deal fell thru because of Amtrac's ultra low funding. One day an FEC GP-38 led the Amtrac train down the FEC line to Miami, innaugeral run. Also there has been talk of using FEC tracks for an East Tri-Rail run but so far Tri-Rail is unable to come up with enuff money to lease the tracks from FEC. Anyway FEC maintains their tracks better than most railroads and has way fewer derailments per mile than any other railroad. Lee Fritz How about this: Shot these from hotel balcony this Jan when I was in Ft. Lauderdale. God bless TCA 05-58541 Benefactor Member of the NRA, Member of the American Legion, Retired Boss Hog of Roseyville , KC&D Qualified Reply phillyreading Member sinceJanuary 2005 From: Lake Worth FL 4,014 posts Posted by phillyreading on Friday, April 21, 2006 7:55 AM Just to add a little info on Tri-Rail in south Florida, they run south with the engine south of the cars or pulling the cars & run north with the engine on the south side or pushing the cars. Tri-Rail does not waste the time to switch ends as there are many runs each day, also Tri-Rail runs on CSX tracks between Miami & West Palm Beach & for most of the run now has a double track main except in parts of Fort Lauderdale. Lee Fritz Interested in southest Pennsylvania railroads; Reading & Northern, Reading Company, Reading Lines, Philadelphia & Reading. Reply cnw1995 Member sinceJuly 2003 From: Crystal Lake, IL 8,059 posts Posted by cnw1995 on Friday, April 21, 2006 8:42 AM Even on Metra, the double-decker commuter consists might have ex-MILW stainless cars (still had their original lease plates), ex-BURL cars - with the small green windows, and the famous (to me at least) ex-C&NW cars painted for RTA. Put a wheezing F40 up front and we're ready to go. These days, these are almost all gone as they're reequipped with ADA cars from Nippn Sharyo. Saw a rare sight this morning on my commuter line: a morning freight - long and tall SUV carriers, high cube boxcars - lots of Conrail and TFM - and flat upon flat of auto frames - all out in the open and stacked super high. Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V. Reply FJ and G Member sinceAugust 2003 6,434 posts Posted by FJ and G on Friday, April 21, 2006 10:26 AM some PRR cars on a Santa Fe train: http://www.trainweb.org/jssand/Protot/Foreign/FM-1-67.JPG Some missouri pacific cars on a santa fe train http://www.trainweb.org/jssand/Protot/Foreign/CG-MP-64.JPG PRR cars on SF Chief: http://www.trainweb.org/jssand/Protot/Foreign/SFC-PRR-56.JPG and more...(check out the mixed AA!!!) http://www.trainweb.org/jssand/Protot/Foreign/GC-CA-11-52.JPG ------ QUESTION: would you have the guts to mix PRR cars w/SF (or other RR combos)????? Reply brianel027 Member sinceNovember 2003 From: The ROMAN Empire State 2,047 posts Posted by brianel027 on Friday, April 21, 2006 8:51 PM Dave, you did pretty good with those links. One more thought to bear in mind: when folks photograph trains (past and present) they tend to want to get shots with the locomotives as the predominant part of the composition. So very often, freight and passenger cars get overlooked. The possibility that "stranger things have happened" and have never been photographed is very real. For example in the early years of Conrail, most railroad photographers were more interested in gettting shots of remaining unaltered lines that ended up going into Conrail. So there are some early Conrail cars of which there seem to be very few photos of. I'm sure this senario exists for other railroads too. Then there's also the issue of black and white versus color photography. In the Monring Sun Lehigh Valley books, they explain they waited a long time to finally find a decent color photograph of the unusual early red/grey/yellow scheme that was used on a few first generation Lehigh diesel switchers. Most photos were black and white, making it very hard to determine the exact color scheme of the locos. The more I learn about the "real" railroads that I like, the more I become convinced that the "prototype" is almost whatever you want. The real railroads existed to make money and broke their own "rules" inorder to do so. Lines like the Lehigh Valley and the Jersey Cental almost seem to have operated on rules of exceptions. Almost every model train company has made a CR blue colored box car. True, Conrail did have one blue box car. But they had far more Penn Central green Conrail box cars done up from left over PC paint and stencils. And why? To save money. Mkes me wonder with all the 3-rail fuss over realism, where's the model of a PC green Conrail box car??? brianel, Agent 027 "Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need." Reply Join our Community! Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account. 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QUOTE: Originally posted by ChiefEagles Jim, just make sure you get your B unit truned the right way. [:0][;)]
Celebrating 18 years on the CTT Forum.
Buckeye Riveter......... OTTS Charter Member, a Roseyville Raider and a member of the CTT Forum since 2004..
Jelloway Creek, OH - ELV 1,100 - Home of the Baltimore, Ohio & Wabash RR
TCA 09-64284
brianel, Agent 027
"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."
QUOTE: Originally posted by phillyreading Originally posted by johnandjulie13 Given my proximity to the BNSF railroad, the only time I ever see a matching consist is on a unit train, hauling coal to the east. In my mind, whatever looks good together is appropriate. Like johnandjulie13 posted, I live near Florida East Coast Railroad & CSX, the only time I see mainly all FEC is a sand train coming out of Fort Lauderdale area. Norfolk Southern runs over FEC tracks and most of their trains are a mixture of roadnames. CSX is really bad about using any car for any railroad, have seen A.T.S.F. boxcars with the old Q for quality in Indiantown FL parked on a siding, even saw NYC gondolas near Indiantown on a CSX train. As for motive power I have seen very many differant diesels on both CSX & FEC lines, even Norfolk Southern has differant diesels, you may see a pair of SD-70M-2's or a four GP-60-2's together. FEC is still running GP-38-2A's, quad-heading them at times, or may run some newer SD-70-2's. Amtrac was supposed to run on FEC to Miami but the deal fell thru because of Amtrac's ultra low funding. One day an FEC GP-38 led the Amtrac train down the FEC line to Miami, innaugeral run. Also there has been talk of using FEC tracks for an East Tri-Rail run but so far Tri-Rail is unable to come up with enuff money to lease the tracks from FEC. Anyway FEC maintains their tracks better than most railroads and has way fewer derailments per mile than any other railroad. Lee Fritz How about this: Shot these from hotel balcony this Jan when I was in Ft. Lauderdale. God bless TCA 05-58541 Benefactor Member of the NRA, Member of the American Legion, Retired Boss Hog of Roseyville , KC&D Qualified Reply phillyreading Member sinceJanuary 2005 From: Lake Worth FL 4,014 posts Posted by phillyreading on Friday, April 21, 2006 7:55 AM Just to add a little info on Tri-Rail in south Florida, they run south with the engine south of the cars or pulling the cars & run north with the engine on the south side or pushing the cars. Tri-Rail does not waste the time to switch ends as there are many runs each day, also Tri-Rail runs on CSX tracks between Miami & West Palm Beach & for most of the run now has a double track main except in parts of Fort Lauderdale. Lee Fritz Interested in southest Pennsylvania railroads; Reading & Northern, Reading Company, Reading Lines, Philadelphia & Reading. Reply cnw1995 Member sinceJuly 2003 From: Crystal Lake, IL 8,059 posts Posted by cnw1995 on Friday, April 21, 2006 8:42 AM Even on Metra, the double-decker commuter consists might have ex-MILW stainless cars (still had their original lease plates), ex-BURL cars - with the small green windows, and the famous (to me at least) ex-C&NW cars painted for RTA. Put a wheezing F40 up front and we're ready to go. These days, these are almost all gone as they're reequipped with ADA cars from Nippn Sharyo. Saw a rare sight this morning on my commuter line: a morning freight - long and tall SUV carriers, high cube boxcars - lots of Conrail and TFM - and flat upon flat of auto frames - all out in the open and stacked super high. Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V. Reply FJ and G Member sinceAugust 2003 6,434 posts Posted by FJ and G on Friday, April 21, 2006 10:26 AM some PRR cars on a Santa Fe train: http://www.trainweb.org/jssand/Protot/Foreign/FM-1-67.JPG Some missouri pacific cars on a santa fe train http://www.trainweb.org/jssand/Protot/Foreign/CG-MP-64.JPG PRR cars on SF Chief: http://www.trainweb.org/jssand/Protot/Foreign/SFC-PRR-56.JPG and more...(check out the mixed AA!!!) http://www.trainweb.org/jssand/Protot/Foreign/GC-CA-11-52.JPG ------ QUESTION: would you have the guts to mix PRR cars w/SF (or other RR combos)????? Reply brianel027 Member sinceNovember 2003 From: The ROMAN Empire State 2,047 posts Posted by brianel027 on Friday, April 21, 2006 8:51 PM Dave, you did pretty good with those links. One more thought to bear in mind: when folks photograph trains (past and present) they tend to want to get shots with the locomotives as the predominant part of the composition. So very often, freight and passenger cars get overlooked. The possibility that "stranger things have happened" and have never been photographed is very real. For example in the early years of Conrail, most railroad photographers were more interested in gettting shots of remaining unaltered lines that ended up going into Conrail. So there are some early Conrail cars of which there seem to be very few photos of. I'm sure this senario exists for other railroads too. Then there's also the issue of black and white versus color photography. In the Monring Sun Lehigh Valley books, they explain they waited a long time to finally find a decent color photograph of the unusual early red/grey/yellow scheme that was used on a few first generation Lehigh diesel switchers. Most photos were black and white, making it very hard to determine the exact color scheme of the locos. The more I learn about the "real" railroads that I like, the more I become convinced that the "prototype" is almost whatever you want. The real railroads existed to make money and broke their own "rules" inorder to do so. Lines like the Lehigh Valley and the Jersey Cental almost seem to have operated on rules of exceptions. Almost every model train company has made a CR blue colored box car. True, Conrail did have one blue box car. But they had far more Penn Central green Conrail box cars done up from left over PC paint and stencils. And why? To save money. Mkes me wonder with all the 3-rail fuss over realism, where's the model of a PC green Conrail box car??? brianel, Agent 027 "Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need." Reply Join our Community! Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account. Login » Register » Search the Community FREE EMAIL NEWSLETTER Get the Classic Toy Trains newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month SIGN UP More great sites from Kalmbach Media Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy
Originally posted by johnandjulie13 Given my proximity to the BNSF railroad, the only time I ever see a matching consist is on a unit train, hauling coal to the east. In my mind, whatever looks good together is appropriate. Like johnandjulie13 posted, I live near Florida East Coast Railroad & CSX, the only time I see mainly all FEC is a sand train coming out of Fort Lauderdale area. Norfolk Southern runs over FEC tracks and most of their trains are a mixture of roadnames. CSX is really bad about using any car for any railroad, have seen A.T.S.F. boxcars with the old Q for quality in Indiantown FL parked on a siding, even saw NYC gondolas near Indiantown on a CSX train. As for motive power I have seen very many differant diesels on both CSX & FEC lines, even Norfolk Southern has differant diesels, you may see a pair of SD-70M-2's or a four GP-60-2's together. FEC is still running GP-38-2A's, quad-heading them at times, or may run some newer SD-70-2's. Amtrac was supposed to run on FEC to Miami but the deal fell thru because of Amtrac's ultra low funding. One day an FEC GP-38 led the Amtrac train down the FEC line to Miami, innaugeral run. Also there has been talk of using FEC tracks for an East Tri-Rail run but so far Tri-Rail is unable to come up with enuff money to lease the tracks from FEC. Anyway FEC maintains their tracks better than most railroads and has way fewer derailments per mile than any other railroad. Lee Fritz
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
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