Railroad Terms and other RR stuff

[Hawks05]

I know I should probably know a lot of the terms used by a railroad by now but I don't. Anyways I'm wondering what a person would call a consist of grain hoppers, boxcars, tank cars, double stacks (aren't these called Z-Trains?), boxcars & hoppers, mix of tankers/hoppers/boxcars. I'm just wondering if there are any special names given to these. I hear intermodel all the time and have a clue as to what it is but I'm still in the dark about it.

Also to add to this how oftern do you see just a consist of all grain hoppers or all boxcars or all tank cars. On my layout I'm planning to mainly focus on grain movement. I have 2 elevators and I plan to get the Red Wing flour mill the next time I see it on sale some where. I want to know if it's common to have a train with all hoppers or all boxcars. I have one tank car as it was marked for ADM and thats what my elevator and what I plan to model. I just want to know if it's "legal" to have a string of all hoppers or all boxcars. I have 3 spurs on my layout so far, 2 of them being occupied by 6-7 ACF centerflow hoppers and the other occupied by 8 boxcars.

Oh, along with the boxcar thing, are the different types specific to just one type of freight. I believe I only have one hi-cube in Golden West paint, are the hi-cubes specifically used for one type of freight? Also, I have 2 Railbox boxcars, are these just used for anything that they need to be used for. While modeling the grain operation is it realistic to see boxcars hauling bags of flour or is this done in a different way. I'm trying to be modern to with this so if this isn't modern let me know.

Thank you for any feedback to this subject. I guess I'm finally getting real into this.

I'm going to ask my mom to see if she can find a place for this old dresser that is no longer, or has never been used for that matter, to be moved to so I can make up a little 4-5 foot yard in the corner of the room that I have my trains in. I'll probably need to fix up some lighting thing for this as well and figure out how to block wire because right now my whole layout is controlled by my Tec 200 power pack and I'd like to leave a couple locos out on the spurs just sitting like they are switchers and then be able to move them when needed. Right now if I want to simulate switching I have to take my main loco off the layout and put one of my GP7's on the layout to do the switching. Are GP7's even used anymore or are they obsolete?

Thank you for the feedback once again.

Got another quick question to to add to this long thread. What are some other good forums to visit relating to model railroading. As of right now I just visit the Atlas forum and I'm a member and post on occasion on The Gauge. What are some other ones that are pretty active like the ones I mentioned?

[railman]

Many questions you pose, Hawks05. I will say that GP-7s are by no means obsolete....still used today. Leave the rest I will, for lack of time to answer them rightly.

[tatans]

Hawks05 I think a complete train of coalcars or black oil tank cars was called a "black snake", You sure can have a complete train consist of hoppers or boxcars correctly, This summer I drove the Trans-Canada highway through Saskatchewan and saw train after train of grain cars (wheat up here) up to 110 cars only of one type of car, I'm sure there must be the same in Iowa or Kansas humping corn around. I also saw a complete train (95) flatcars loaded with British military vehicles, mostly light tanks, armored cars, recovery and medical trucks etc. and lots of other "lorries" -- In the middle of the the train were 3 cabooses with armed Brit soldiers and it had 2 cabooses at the end, where they should be, by the way, I still refer to a freight train as a "drag"

[dehusman]

Trains of all one commodity going from one location to another are called "unit" trains. They are very common now and were common in some forms (although generally not "unit trains" technically) in the steam era.

Solid trains are run of :
covered hoppers : grain, soda ash, potach, phophate, fertilizer
hoppers/rotary gons : coal, coke
hopper/gons/ore jennies : gravel, ores
boxcars : auto parts, grain (up until the 70's), military shipments
tank cars : chemicals, oil
stock cars : cattle
Reefers : produce trains, milk trains
flat cars : military trains, pipe trains
multi-levels : auto trains
containers : "stack" trains
Piggybacks : pig trains, Z trains, TV trains
damaged cars : hospital trains
All engines : power moves

GP7's are getting pretty old, but they are used, often many times rebuilt, by shortlines. Major railroads used them up into the 1990's. Most of them on major railroads have been extensively upgraded.

Dave H.

[Anonymous]

110 car grain trains routinely come down the north side of the Columbia to Vancouver and then routed to the Port of Kalama to load ships going to the East. Pakistan and Japan being major markets.

[PennsyHoosier]

75-car coal trains make their way through western Michigan regularly. Mostly with GPs, at least for now.

[cacole]

The Southern Pacific used to call oil tank car trains that consisted of nothing but tank cars, "Oil Cans." If a train is only one type of rolling stock, it is usually dubbed as a "Unit" train; if mixed types, a "Manifest Freight" or "Mixed Manifest."