King of the layout: freight or passenger trains?

[jpwc50]

Passenger for me! Operationally, there's a lot of action in busy stations where trains were combined or split also, switching in & out headend ,mail storage cars, rpo's express reefers and before the practice of run-thru diners & lounges, these cars were also switched in & out of trains depending on the time of day. A busy passenger terminal would make for an interesting switching layout.

[Anonymous]

I model a suburban branchline. local frieght dailey, and a doodlebug shuttling back and forth all day. passenger trains rule, but the fun is in the local frieghts.

[tstage]

From an operations stand point? Freight, hands down. There's more variations of cars, service, and inductries than passenger trains.

From an asthetic point of view? I guess you'd have to say passenger. They're sleeker and more refined looking than a series of box cars or hoppers.

With that said, I'm going to go play with my freight layout...[:)]

Tom

[AggroJones]

I cant even run full size passenger cars on my layout. Just don't have the clearances. Athearn 72' heavyweights will have to do.

[Texas Zepher]

Your question is strangely worded. I didn't vote. The title doesn't match the question doesn't match the description.

The King of the layout is the passenger. The other trains had better get out of the way
or the crews get poor performance ratings.

I prefer to run most freight because that is prototypical.

The passenger train is the glamor girl that billboards the railroads image. All the people each with their own story to tell of where they are going and why.... That is what captures my fancy. To see what I mean look at an O. Winson Link photograph of a passenger train on the Abindon <sp?> Branch of the NW.

[Anonymous]

Well, selling tickets for passenger train rides helps keep the museum alive, so they get priority. Having said that, we do try to timetable them to fit around any freights to industries on the line (usually a CSX loco, a couple of cars, and a caboose), so sometimes departures are delayed a few minutes to wait for a freight to clear. Lowest on the list are demonstration freights using the museum's small car fleet - we run these for photographers and also as part of our "Train crew experience" runs where people can learn to handle trains under supervision of our staff, so they're not a daily sight.

[brokemoto]

I voted for passenger, but MAIL trains are king on my pike. My mail trains do carry coaches and sleepers, and one or two may have a club car.

[PennsyHoosier]

I love switching and that is what I do most of the time. But I go to pieces over my passenger trains. I gaze at them lovingly almost as much as I do at my K4s. [:D]

[CP5415]

True Elliot, switching is where the action is.

BUT!

There's nothing finer
Than seein a Superliner
Rollin down the track
From Here & Back!

I just finished purchasing the 2 Walthers D&H coaches I needed for my Laurentian to go with my Walthers Budd Dome Coach & my Proto D&H PA.
YEY! One passenger train down, three more to go!!

Gordon

[Big_Boy_4005]

While I have always loved passenger trains, and even made one into the center piece of my railroad, freight is a lot more interesting. My railroad would be a very dull place, with only two passenger trains per day, one in each direction. Switching is where the action is.[swg]

[jrbernier]

My layout was built for freight trains, but I do have a small 3 car local that is pulled by a 'torpedo' tube GP9. That said, a pair of road freights each way, a local for a branch line, and a yard job fill out the trains I run.

Jim Bernier

[Nieuweboer]

I think it depends very much on the size of the layout. Passenger trains with full length cars on a small layout are unrealistic particularly when the train takes up the full length of one side of the layout. But.......even the smallest layout can accomodate a couple of old time coaches with a classic diesel or small steam loco and pretend to be the daily local or tourist train if you're modelling a recent era. Passenger trains add variety to every layout.

[ClinchValleySD40]

Freight only, no passenger.

[Roadtrp]

I have a mix of both on my layout. My first love will always be passenger trains. Train trips during my youth are the foundation of my love for railroading.

There is just something terribly romantic about passenger trains. All the people sharing that space for a while... different backgrounds... different destinations... different goals... but all friends for the duration of the trip.

One thing I really like about passenger travel today is most everyone on the train is there because they LOVE trains. They aren't the fastest way to get there. They usually aren't the cheapest way to get there. People take the train because that is the way they prefer to travel. I love being seated with and talking to other passengers in the dining car. I've yet to find anyone who isn't a BIG fan of railroads.

[PennsyHoosier]

I especially love passenger trains. But you can't just run them. Moderation in all things--that's what my dad taught me.

[Anonymous]

Love those Budd cars. So I guess that I am a passenger train nut.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by AntonioFP45



Balance of both to keep it interesting.

The freight trains pay the bills. The passenger trains are the beauty queens that keep the rails polished.

I guess to me just having one without the other is like having Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek with no Mr. Spock!

As always, Antonio says it very well. [:D]

If he were a baseball bullpen pitcher, I would have to give him "another save" on this one. [;)]

Way to go Antonio. [:)]


And to add my [2c] if it doesn't have a passenger train, it just isn't a complete layout. To really top it off a steam pulled excursion passenger train really fits the bill. My Frisco 4 8 2 fits this bill by pulling the old heavyweigh passenger cars. [:p]

[twhite]

Voted for freight, but I actually like both. Right now, I'm in the midst of collecting Heavyweight pullmans for what will eventually turn out to either be the "Panoramic" or the "Exposition Flyer"--haven't made up my mind, yet. And I have a "Daylight" a "Cascade" and a "Prospector", all of which I occasionally run. But for the most part, I'm a fan of big, colorful reefer blocks, coal trains and general freights. I do have a little 3-car local passenger that I run, the "Yuba River Express" that stops at every fishing hole along the line, so I get to do sort of reverse runarounds every time I schedule a freight along with it. Makes for a lot of fun. All in all, I'd say it's about 80% freight, 20% passenger, right now. Of course, since my model RR is set in the mid 1940's to early 1950's, I also run Troop trains as needed.
Tom

[Anonymous]

How about a third choice? About even!

[Anonymous]

I love passenger trains. I love to see a 8 car streamline Budd and Pullman car train. My Silverchampion train is model after the Super Chief.

[Virginian]

I love a coal drag, or a time freight, and there are many more possibilities of combinations of cars and engines, but the Powhatan Arrow behind a J will always be my favorite.

[AntonioFP45]

Balance of both to keep it interesting.

The freight trains pay the bills. The passenger trains are the beauty queens that keep the rails polished.

I guess to me just having one without the other is like having Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek with no Mr. Spock!

[Anonymous]

Unit Coal Trains, are the ones that everything and everybody clears out of the way for on my railroad, Black diamonds constantly on the move, and the empties coming back to the re-load facility for yet another unit train of coal.

Mac

[Anonymous]

They seem to fit into my layout better. Lots of industry.

[CP5415]

Railman's right!
Freight pays the bills!
But with the influx of new passenger cars from Walthers heading in my direction, the passenger train might be king soon!
Especially since I'm going to have passenger trains in CPR, D&H, VIA & Amtrak livery

Gordon

[railman]

Passengers get the priority, freight pays the bills.

[Anonymous]

Freight, of course. But with all these new nice passenger cars coming out, makes me want to add some varni***o the layout. two sets of the Walther/Rivarossi smooth siders will do nicely.

[JPowell]

Freight all the way! Don't get me wrong, I have traveled on Amtrak several times in my life and loved watching that villages, towns, farms, etc as the cars rolled by. But, since I live about 3 minutes from CSX's DeWitt Yard, and all I do is dream of having a switching layout w/ 1 or 2 "off" mains, then that's what I shall have.

[bluepuma]

Got to have sidings for the freights to sit on while being passed. Didn't get to see many passenger trains growing up, but often catch a Amtrak in Mendota, IL on the way to Chicago on Saturday morning or leaving Chicago going West on Sunday nights around 5:30-6 or so. So have Amtrak P42 set of 2 and Superliners. Also saw a Amtrak as we came down the pass into (I think, Las Vegas, NM), we passed it, checked into our room, sat there, watched it go by.

Used to see ATSF on the line through Pasadena toward Chicago with the Budd cars in the evenings in 1970, living in Arcadia, CA a couple blocks south of Huntington Drive. My N scale Budds and E8A/B train is most prized, as are my PA/PB in Daylight with Daylight smoothside set, heavyweight set and Lark set. Have to have the freights though, I'm really grumpy over the F3A/B Kato in Warbonnet that should have been my ATSF freight locos. I don't need more passenger trains. Never did see or remember seeing SP passenger, so my favorites were the cattle cars and F7A/B in Black Widow. Would like to have a Fruit block of cars. What I liked about the Freights was the cars and logos from all over the US, NP to NH, so all western lines are game, all eastern lines shipping in a boxcar are game, oil, chemicals.