? do you mix the road names in the consist of your train

[thatboy37]

Here are some pictures of my Yard.

 

hey, wchrisyoung great shot of the yard and layout. i see the young one also enjoying the trains to.

now to the point at hand. i noticed in these pics that all of your caboose's have the same matching road name as all the rolling stock. to complete this theme not that it's not complete. do you have the matching engine to go with it. is there a reason for doing that. also are there any other of you guys out there that do this and if you do what is the consist made of and the roadname.

as i find myself doing the samething and really can't explain why i do that. also i find myself buying only stock that i have a engine to pull it with. i think the reason i do this is because i like to be organized and i think that is organized in my book when it comes to trains, but in real life you will see any road named engine and rolling stock in a consist. since this is the case why even put a company's name on there.

my scenerio is 4 sd80mac's, 1 dummy sd50, and 1 dummy sd60 norfolk southern to pull 58 die cast 2 bay hoppers. 2 dash-9 canadian national, and 1 dummy sd70ace canadian national to pull 40 canadian national roadrailors. 1 sd90mac, and 1 dash-9 canadian pacific to pull 30 cylindrical hoppers. 1 csx dash-9 to pull either 15 gundersun twin stacks or 12 csx husky stacks. my daughter has the new sd70 csx by k-line/lionel that will be the only one to pull any and all different rolling stock as she will get to pick the rolling stock to go with that engine as thats her's. don't want her to feel left out and try to keep her interested in the hobby when she gets older. on order i have 2 canadian nationals sd40-2's to pull i don't know what as i haven't picked a rolling stock yet but i'm thinking about the mth auto carriers. hope i can find about 20 to 30 of them. 1 for sure maybe 2 of the kathy heritage sd70ace engines to pull the eleven sate quarter cars that are in the new k-line catalog plus any and all of the one's to be made and put out in the future.

would love to hear what you guys think and have to say about this thing that has my mind rattling problem i have or is it a problem that i have.

 

[underworld]

Cool pics! I run what I've got.......sometimes European and North American road names together.

 

 

underworld

[alexweiihman]

Thats a great looking yard, Im jealous

[Anonymous]

 

Thatboy37

I collect Santa Fe Engines and rolling stock, like you I enjoy seeing consistency.

Love your yard! Cool!

Wayray

[chuck]

Nice photo's, really nice layout.

You should run what you like/fee good about, it's your railroad. Regarding prootypical operation, in the "old days" the caboose was non revenue equipment and the railroad hauling the train would use their own caboose which would match their loco's.  When the train reached the end of that rail lines trackage, the next road would cut in their own loco's and caboose and cut in/ot any cars before movin on.  During the mid 60's through th 70's, merger mania meant you might see a caboose from one of the merged units with one of the other units loco's.  I would see Chessie and B&O/C&O loco's with a C&O caboose.  They woould only re-paint when they needed to Fast forward to today, very few caboose's and railroads share power so you might see a CSX freight with UP power or BNSF power in the consist.

Passeneger trains often carried other lines equipment for long haul through support.  NYC ocassionaly carried a SantaFe sleeper to support passengers traveling from NY to LA so they (the passenger) didn't have to change trains.  The train changed around them.  This was back in the days when Pullman ran the service so the cars were really Pullman cars in livery to match the roads they were used on. 

[laz 57]

All the time.

laz57

[Anonymous]

Ever watch a real train at a RR crossing?

I do it ALL the time!  You will see cars from all over on just about every RR, just yesterday I saw a CSX coal train with CSX, Conrail, Santa Fe, NS, BNSF, and a few other rail roads.  To me it breaks up the train and can add color and life to the layout.

I buy the Rolling Stock that I like, engines and cabooses are either C&O, B&O, CSX.  I could even get Western Maryland if I so choose.

On my short list:
C&O Streamlined Hudson - MTH
B&O and C&O GP9 (4 powered)
B&O and C&O Beeps (2)
Williams has a B&O Steamer in Blue with light grey boiler front
B&O E7 (A-A) - Lionel (they better come out with powered B Units soon too) - eventually want a A-B-B-A all powered consist to haul a very long passenger train (probably 10+ cars).
2 GG-1s that I am going to repaint in B&O and C&O colors
both Lionel C&O F-19 4-6-2 Pacifics

That should about do it for engines on the new layout... if I find any others that are must haves I will have to shelve some of them and rotate out...

Brent

[traindaddy1]

I usually keep the same line cars between the engine and matching caboose. This way, when I "play" with my trains, I can say:  "Here comes the NH or NYC or whatever".  Another reason is that, at the present time (always dreaming), I do not have the space. If I hauled all the cars behind the engine that I'd like to, thus making the train look realistic, the engine would be pushing its own caboose. Thanks for asking.

[otftch]

I match the engines and the cabeese.Everything else is random.I try to run all Santa-Fe passenger cars but use different types and colors.

                                                                    Ed

[steinmike]

Wow!  Great yard!

Coming from the scale world, I was relcutant to mix road names in a consist unless there was some prototypical reason for it (such as a merger or a shared service).  I have to admit that I've taken some liberties (such as moving the PennCentral merger back in time to 1957) so that I could take advantage of different combinations of favorite engines and rolling stock without purchasing about a dozen Williams RF-16 Sharks!

The nice thing about this hobby is that you have a lot of "elbow" room to do what you like - and I find that it makes it a lot more fun.  

[Andrew Falconer]

The Road Names will be mixed in a train if it is a recreation of an actual local or manifest freight that I have spotted and most likely photographed on the Grand Trunk Western.

If there are photographs in the Soo Line or CNW books and magazines that show a large portion of a train, then I will assemble the most similar locomotives and cars in that order.

All one roadname in a manifest or mixed car train is a bit surreal, but looks great.

Andrew

 

[Brutus]

I just run everything I have, including Lionel Lines....

[USNRol]

Boy does that look like some fun trains and layout to play with...

Roland

[wchrisyoung]

Thanks for posting the comments.

I do have at least one or two engines to go with the rolling stock.   The B&O and WM have diesels and steam engines.   The Chessie and CSX have several diesels to pull them.    I also pull the Chessie rolling stock with the Chessie steam special, since the passenger cars are not out yet.   

The current yard was populated by my sons favorite rolling stock.   They helped pick which cars to run on the yard.   My wife, and one of my sons like matching cars, so we started building our trains by road name and continue to do it by habit.    Occasionaly,  we do run a mixed road name train.  Usually we build the train on the main line and put it away after we are done.   

This yard was just finished a few months ago.   At the time we picked the cars to populate the yard with our major road names.    We did not limit it by time period.   This way I can quickly hook up a CSX engine or run a steam engine.   My previous yard (was in Real Trax), we sometimes would operate using a theme such as all modern road names, Steam engines, B&O only, WM only, PRR, or all passenger.   

I think I will mix up the road names for some variety.    

Chris 

[tomikawaTT]

On the JNR portion of my layout, the only time road names mix is when a JNR box motor (ED-14 class, reserved for the service) couples to a TTT unit coal train to forward it to the docks for unloading.  Everything else is JNR, wholly JNR and only JNR.

On the Tomikawa Tani Tetsudo a train will frequently be a mix of JNR and TTT (not in interchange service) cars, but the locomotive will always be TTT.

Of course, in 1964 the Japan National Railway was a government monopoly.  Interchange service, as practiced in North America, simply didn't happen.  As a result, cars didn't even have road names or heralds - just numbers.  (Privately-owned railroads, usually specialty short lines, did have heralds - white, about 45cm in diameter, centered above the number.)

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with HOj tinplate cars)

[thor]

Reggie in real life (not that thats got anything to do with it) I think I've only seen a consistent train maybe twice, not counting passenger stock of course. I used to live on Virginia's Eastern Shore and looked forward to each goods train just to see what different roadnames might show up in the consist, in fact I learned more about the different roads that way, seeing names and logos I never heard of.

So I do the same, I buy cars because either the price was right or I liked the colour and very occasionally because I actually wanted that type for some reason. My biggest gripe is that Lionel doesnt make a range of unmarked generic cars so I could paint and letter them myself but if they did I'd buy a lot of, say, gondolas for example and proceed to decorate them to represent every company I ever liked the logo of!

What I miss from my HO days are the English fixed wheelbase short wagons, kind of like Thomas' trucks w/out the faces, before the War there used to be a load of Private Owner wagons as they were known, in the most amazingly elaborate liveries and those are what I would want to see in O gauge.  ETS makes a few but they are a bit too pricey for me, I was hoping RMT would eventually do something similar but now I realize those types of wagons were never used here in the U.S.

If I had tons of space for a big layout though I'd probably like the occasional long train all the same like a coal or steel company, in a small area colourful mixes look better.

[palallin]

Reggie in real life (not that thats got anything to do with it) I think I've only seen a consistent train maybe twice, not counting passenger stock of course.

 

There not uncommon in some places:  UP and BNSF unit coal trains, for example.  I watched a UP drag go through Washington, MO, once that had 125 UP hoopers and two UP engines on each end.

[cnw1995]

Chuck, that sounds totally cool. I loved the JNR things offered by Tomix when I was in N scale - I kitbashed them into all sorts of things.

Thor, those wagons are great - they are so colorful - like American reefers but easier to run on tight curves. I enjoy eyeballing them in the British modeling magazines. I like the British nomenclature for railroad-y things.  Wagons, shunting, etc.

[fifedog]

REGGIE - you have a superdeedooper fleet of modern engines that probably have never seen a caboose.  I'd try aquiring some freight sets that include flashing rear-end devices (FREDs).  To be prototypical, you could run a solid family of NORFOLK SOUTHERN hoppers, as well as a solid lash-up of those fabulous looking Canadian grain hoppers.  But on most every other type of train, there will be interchanged cars from other roads.  And of course, you will be needing a substantial fleet of trailer flats for SCHNEIDER NATIONAL TOFC's...right?

[lionelsoni]

I find that short 4-wheel freight cars are actually less tolerant of curves than longer trucked ones.  The 4-wheel cars must have body-mounted couplers, which must swing farther on curves.  "S" curves are particularly bad, with one car's coupler going one way and the other one the other way.  Trucks under most freight cars are close to the ends of the cars, with short drawbars and much less side-to-side motion.  There are places on my O27 layout where my Big Boy goes easily but my ETS train fears to tread.

[Dr. John]

I tend to run mixed trains, but favor the "southern" railroads - GM&O, IC, Southern, L&N, Seaboard, etc. I love the older Santa Fe and Southern Pacific paint schemes, too, so I have quite a few in my collection. And yes, I like to run my Lionel Lines equipment too.

[thatboy37]

thanks for the responses guys. lots of different reasons to why we do run our trains the way we do and thats the reason this hobby is so great and will always be great.

[Frank53]

Is there a road name other than Lionel Lines?

[csxt30]

Is there a road name other than Lionel Lines?

Yes there is Frank !! It's the Chiefs' favorite, called CSX shortline RR !! He just loves that one !!

Thanks, John

[Brutus]

Doc, for some reason I've been buying just Lionel Lines for the past 3 to 4 months I guess.  I've even preordered the LL docksider.    I just kinda like it all together and the old log cars I bought were all LL, so I guess I'm tryig to get that all to match?!  Never really thought about it before....

[lionelsoni]

There are some isolated railroads, like the Alaska Railroad, that might very well have non-unit freight trains with nothing but their own rolling stock.

[underworld]

I see coal trains for Detroit Edison that are just Detroit Edison exchange cars. I probably see them at least a few times a month.

underworld

[j.t.]

 I've been buying just Lionel Lines

  I"m with you, I have 3 Lionel Lines locomotives and just got a TMCC NYC Mikado. It was a hard switch, but I wanted the TMCC. I'm toying with the idea of getting a new tender shell and lettering it in the Lionel Lines road name, there is a conventional Lionel Lines Mikado coming out but it has gold lettering while mine is white. 

We should get together and get a run of RMT Beeps in the Lionel Lines road name produced, in black of course. That would be cool.                                                                                                                                            

[IronHoarse]

Mix mine all the time.

[Brutus]

We should get together and get a run of RMT Beeps in the Lionel Lines road name produced, in black of course. That would be cool.

I dunno what the legal ramifications of RMT putting Lionel Lines on their BEEPS would be!