"Typical" 1945(ish) Passenger Train

[NeO6874]

OK, so then I'm going to end up forwarding my era a little bit... maybe '48-'50 or so (tops).  While the Pullman green cars ARE nice... I much prefer the blue/grey scheme. 

 

So that should make them fit... otherwise it's my RR and I'm going to say that they had these ones painted as a test scheme (or something)... there all problems solved

[wjstix]

One concern with the Walthers cars is that even though they're heavyweight cars, they're painted in postwar paintschemes. Many railroads did paint their older heavyweights to match their new streamliners, but in 1945 most passenger cars would still be green on the NYC. Remember too that new car building for passenger cars pretty much ended after Pearl Harbor- Great Northern ordered it's streamlined Empire Builder cars in 1945, took two years to get them because of the backlog of orders!! So in 1945 a RR might have one or two top trains that were streamlined, but everything else (locals, mail trains, commuters, etc.) would be Pullman Green.

[L Cowan]

One other interesting fact is that some railroads (SP for one) would run sleeper cars that were left at stations and picked up the next day. Like from SF to Fresno, the car would go onto a track at the station and it would be your motel. You arrive at night while sleeping, go do your business during the day, and arrive home the next day. My father as a claims agent used this service a lot.

[orsonroy]

I've been looking at the Walthers Heavyweight Pullman Passenger cars to run behind either the Niagara or the Hudson I have.

the only baggage car they offer does not have the same paint scheme as the other cars - would it have still been run on the train, or should the entire train have the blue/grey scheme that the rest of the cars have?

Dan,

Passenger trains RARELY had consists where all of the cars matched, unless you're talking about the pre-streamliner era, when everything was painted Pullman green. Most baggage and RPO cars, especially, ran well into the Amtrak era in their original Pullman green scheme, even if everything else on the roster had been repainted into a flashier scheme (there was a green NYC full baggage sitting in Amtrak's Chicago coach yard until only a few years ago)

And of you want to be a stickler for authenticity, a 1945-ish NYC passenger train should be ALL Pullman green, unless you're talking about a couple of the headline trains like the 20th Century Limited.

Lastly, would there still have been heavyweight trains around 1944 - 45ish?

Streamlined cars didn't start outnumbering heavyweights until the 1960s (!), so yes, there definitely WERE still heavies in the '40s. In fact, most roads didn't get ANY streamlined equipment until after the war.

Heavyweights in regular passenger trains lasted into Amtrak. Both the IC and GM&O both ran them in long distance trains, as did the C&NW. In commuter service, heavyweights lasted until almost 1980. The last time I rode in one outside of a museum was on the Rock Island out of Chicago, some time in the late 1970s (pre-Metra).

[orsonroy]

Jeff and Tom are slightly incorrect. If you mean "typical" to mean "average" (or aggregate), then there certainly WERE typical passenger trains. They're called commuter runs. For every one long-distance named train running in the 1940s, there were 20-30 commuter runs and short haul, coach only trains.

And for every named train, there were two or three midranged, unnamed passenger runs, consisting of nothing more than a full baggage, RPO, and day coach. Surprisingly, these trains usually made more money than the flashy long distance trains, since they had a lock on the only thing that actually made money on passenger trains - the mail and LCL contracts.

THESE are typical trains of the heavyweight era, not the flashy named trains with dinettes and Pullmans. Just as everyday, revenue-generating freights were mostly overlooked, so too were the nondescript, mundane, all green daily passenger runs.

[NeO6874]

Ah, very good!

 

Thanks again to everyone for their help/thoughts!

 

I think I have an idea as to what to shoot for as far as a consist.  My big concerns were (now that you've all helped me out) that I'd spend $x00 on the cars only to find that they were all scrapped "4 years ago" or something like that.  I'm not shooting for the 20th Century Limited or anything yet...ESPECIALLY since it would have been lightweight cars - for some reason those cars just don't say "passenger train" (luxury or otherwise) for me.

[jecorbett]

Excuse me if I make some redundant points but I didn't read through all of the responses. There is no such thing as a typical passenger train. What you want to decide is where is your train going to and from and and what hours of the day. This will dictate your consist. For example, some long distance trains could have had a morning departure and terminated in the early evening, which would mean there was no need for sleepers. On the other hand, some of the first class trains were all Pullman cars with no coaches. Obviously, there is a lot of room between these two extremes. Lightweight cars began appearing in the 1930s but war production would have prevented new ones from being build as most factories were converted to supplying our troops. Unless you are modeling a first class train, a lot of your consist would be heavyweights but don't be afraid to mix and match. I run some NYC trains over my layout and not only do I mix heavyweight and lightweight cars, I also mix the smoothside grays with the stainless steel cars. I have a book by a former NYC photograper and he used to have running battles with the operations department over getting homogenous consists for his photo shoots. The operations department would do this for the top of the line trains like the 20th Century or the Commodore Vanderbilt, but for the lesser trains, they would just slap together whatever equipment was available.

[twhite]

Believe me, in most cases, there was NO typical '1945' passenger train.  WWII was over in Europe, was just about over in the Pacific, and railroads were hauling everything they could get their hands on to either transfer troops from the European front to the Pacific, or get recently discharged military people home. 

Some trains ran in as many as 4 sections.  One section could be nothing but coaches, the following section nothing but Pullmans.  Both standard and newer streamline equipment was pushed into service, often in the same train.  A ban on 'unneccesary' civilian train travel was still pretty much in effect (except for certain "Name" trains, like CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO, CHIEF, 20TH CENTURY LIMITED,BROADWAY LIMITED) and railroads were looking forward to what they thought would be the biggest post-war passenger boom in their history. 

So, to make a long story short, you could run almost anything you want.  A typical passenger train might consist of 3-4 baggage/RPO cars, 2-4 coaches, a diner, 4-6 Pullmans.  Most Pullman observation cars had been discontinued during the war, and wouldn't appear again except as streamlined versions on "Name" trains after the war.   And don't be afraid to mix Standard and Streamline cars on the trains.  Even as early as 1945, the railroads were doing this as newer 'streamline' cars from Pullman and Budd and ACF began appearing in 'standard' trains as they were gradually converted to diesel 'streamliners'.   

That era was probably the most interesting "Mix and Match" era in railroad passenger history. 

 

Tom

[NeO6874]

Yeah, I just kinda pulled 10-cars out of the blue.  With the cost of the Walthers cars (even though they seem to be on sale today) I'm probably only going to have 1 or 2 of everything listed above (hey, when the sale price for 2 is like $5 more than the single car...), sans the baggage car. 

 

I do have to hold off for a bit though, a $300ish pricetag is a bit steep for me right now...and I'd rather buy 4(ish) at a time so that the train will look "OK" while I'm still building up the fleet... 

The whole reason I was looking at the heavyweights was because I like the looks of them better than the lightweight cars, especially considering I'm going to put them behind a monster of a locomotive...

 

[Anonymous]

My Rapido set is pretty small:

B&O Baggage HW

Two Day Coaches

One duplex Sleeper

One Cafe-Bar-Lounge car

One 10-5 sleeper

And a Kato B&O Business car.

It is not a HW set but fits in nicely.

[NeO6874]

Thanks for all the help guys!

 

Andre -  saw that car as I was looking, although the same car also comes lettered for teh NYC with the blue/grey scheme.  Was that just a reference for me (ie either I forgot to mention that I was looking for NYC, or you missed it)?

 

So, assuming I'm understanding you guys right a (10-Car, excluding baggage) consist like this would be OK?

(From the loco)

Baggage Car x 0-4 

Coach Car x0-6/7*

Dining Car x2

8-1-2 Sleeper/Parlor Car x0-6/7*

Observation Car x0-1 

 

* I figure it will have up to 6 of any of the three types of car, or some variation that would total no more than 6 (7 if there is no observation car).  Assuming an overnighter or a Coach-only train, there wouldn't be an observation car on the tail.

[Anonymous]

Actually they didn't want the unwashed coach passengers passing through the sleepers. Sorta like the airlines don't allow the coach passengers in first class. Know your place.

[Anonymous]

Dont forget that seperate trains sometime ran as sections for a given passenger run. I might have my T1 leave town with 12 Pullmans and then the M1a might follow with the mail, express and hot loads.

I have heard that the Diner gets put into the train forward of the sleepers to make the morning cooking smells waft to the passengers.

[Anonymous]

Typically, the diner was located between the coaches and the pullmans, so the coach passengers would not have to pass through the pullmans to get to the diner. Also most passenger trains had an RPO and several REA express box cars on the head end, depending on the route. Some trains had a dozen baggage cars full of mail, and only a couple coaches and sleepers.

[Hudson]

Pullman was a very interesting company. they worked hand in glove with many railroads guaranteeing a standard of hospitality and service not seen today except for maybe on the finer cruise lines like Crystal Cruises.

Essentially they provided the rolling stock as a lease to various railroads as well as the service crews and maintenance. Call it outsourcing.....And like Andre said the Pullman "monopoly" was broken up in the late 40's, the reality of it just being that the railroads worked in concert with Pullman to leverage the available legal loopholes and continue business as usual until the sudden mid to late 50's drop off of passenger traffic due to automobiles and airlines.

A generic overnighter could be an 8 car train consisting of:

Baggage/dormitory, RPO, 2 coaches, diner/lounge, 2-4 pullmans and an observation car.

A Niagara could easily handle 18 heavyweights at speed. A J3A Hudson could haul upwards of 14 without too much of a problem. Sections of the 20th Century ran with as little as 10 cars or upwards of 16.

 A very interesting train to model would be a mail/express train. These typically consiste of a string of REA cars, RPO's, baggage, and some refrigerated units, maybe a coach or a sleeper tacked onto the end or sometimes a rider caboose.

 Streamliners are nice but I prefer the mixing and matching found in the lesser known "mutts" the railroads ran as well. Good weathering adds a nice uniformity to the trains if done well.

I'm going to be operating about 7 -10 passenger trains on my pike. So far I've accumulated about 40 cars for my various consists.

Have fun.

 

Martin

[bb4884]

If you can wait, in the June issue of MRR there will be an artical on "Pike sized passenger trains"

 

http://www.trains.com/mrr/objects/images/mrr-cv0607.jpg

[andrechapelon]

I've been looking at the Walthers Heavyweight Pullman Passenger cars to run behind either the Niagara or the Hudson I have.

Some of the cars have "Pullman" in the upper corners while others don't - are they all supposed to, or is that a sign of an older/newer car?

Also, the only baggage car they offer does not have the same paint scheme as the other cars - would it have still been run on the train, or should the entire train have the blue/grey scheme that the rest of the cars have?

Lastly, would there still have been heavyweight trains around 1944 - 45ish?

To answer the last question first, there were heavyweight passenger trains well into the 1950's. In 1954, I rode the heavyweight "Owl" from Los Angeles to Mojave with my dad.

The cars do not all have to have the same paint scheme. While it was desired to keep top of the line expresses uniform in appearance, lesser trains could have cars with several paint schemes, so it doesn't really matter if you have a mix of paint schemes as long as the schemes existed in the time period your shooting for.

Any car with "Pullman" in small letters toward the end of the car represents a sleeper after about 1948 when Pullman's sleeping car monoply was supposedly broken. What happened was that cars were sold to the respective railroads, but Pullman still handled the operation of the cars (IIRC). A pre-1948 sleeper would have had "Pullman" on the letterboard roughly in the center of the car and possibly have the railroad it was assigned to have its name towards the end of the car in small letters. For a 1945 train, you'd want the "Pullman" lettering like this: http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/932-10051

Hope this helps.

Andre

[NeO6874]

Thanks Hudson.

 

I didn't realize that RRs would use different company's cars in the same train (or that they would use two different companies at all... kinda like how you can't get a Coke in some restaurants, or a Pepsi in others).

I'm not looking to make the 20th Century Limited or anything (too many cars, and thus too explensive), just something that could pass off as a "generic" passenger train.

[Hudson]

A "Pullman" typically refers to one of a variety of sleeper cars that the Pullman company provided to many railroads for long distance luxury travel.

 

A typical consist would include a dormitory/baggage car, upwards of two dining cars, a lounge car, some coaches, a few sleepers, and a lounge observation car tacked onto the end.

 

If you want a realistic consist pick a "name" train, do the research and replicate the consist accordingly with what you learn.

 For instance I'm modeling the "New England States" right now and the consist for my time period consisted of the following:

 

New England States Consist (1949-1951):

 

Stern to Bow:

Observation Lounge, Budd- "Babbling Brook"

4x 10-6 Sleepers, Budd:

Yosemite Valley, Tully Valley, Peach Valley, Crystal Valley.

Lounge, Budd:

 6 Double Bedrooms,

Crystal Stream.

Diner, Budd:

40 seat.

2x 10-6 Sleeper, Pullman:

Klamath Valley

(1956) 1x 22 Roomette, Pullman:

Bar Harbor

Diner, Budd:

40 seat.

Coaches:

(varied)x Pullman- 64 seat, (varied)x Budd- 56 seat

 Baggage Dormitory, Budd built

[NeO6874]

I've been looking at the Walthers Heavyweight Pullman Passenger cars to run behind either the Niagara or the Hudson I have.

Some of the cars have "Pullman" in the upper corners while others don't - are they all supposed to, or is that a sign of an older/newer car?

Also, the only baggage car they offer does not have the same paint scheme as the other cars - would it have still been run on the train, or should the entire train have the blue/grey scheme that the rest of the cars have?

Lastly, would there still have been heavyweight trains around 1944 - 45ish?