We're going to have to agree on a definition of mixed train for openers. A broad definition of mixed train would include such trains as the Denver-Kansas City leg of UP's "Portland Rose", which included a lot of piggyback and auto racks tacked on behind the passenger equipment or the similar arrangement on SR's "Piedmont" between Washington and Atlanta well into the Amtrak era. More people would favor a narrower definition, restricting a mixed train to branchline operations with passengers carried in an old coach which doubled as the caboose or a stretched caboose with extra seats for the occasional passenger.
Along with others, I would define a mixed train as one defined as such in the Official Guide. Hitching some freight cars to a streamliner doesn't make it a mixed train in my opinion.
daveklepper Along with others, I would define a mixed train as one defined as such in the Official Guide. Hitching some freight cars to a streamliner doesn't make it a mixed train in my opinion.
I totally agree. A "true" mixed train picked up, dropped off and did any necessary switching of freight cars along its route. It was both a local freight and a local passenger train. It most commonly ran on short lines or branch lines and often was the only scheduled train on these lines. The passenger consist was often just a single combine tacked on to the rear of the train. Some carried an additional coach and a few (though very few) even carried a sleeper.
Mark
Agreeing with Mark. A freight train that coincidently will sell space to passengers. Whether it be in a car converted or built for the purpose, or a caboose. When I rode the Tuscon , Cornelia & Gila Bend in the caboose in the mid-70's (RT ~ $1.97 Ajo to Gila Bend and back), the crew referred to it as a mixed train.
Santa Fe was prolific in the mixed train business. Some of this was due to an obscure Kansas statute which required "trains originating and terminating within the state" to carry passengers.
ABD
IIRC the Soo Line carried passengers in the caboose on their line thru Gladstone in the Upper Peninsular of Michigan as late as the 80s.
Fr.AlJust looked it up,the Soo line discontinued carrying passengers in Upper.Michigan at the end of 1981.
I remember reading a story by a reporter (IIRC the Detroit Free Press) who rode the train. First he had to talk to a few people at Soo to find someone who either knew or admitted to knowing about the service. The crew was surprised when he showed up to board the train, however, they accommodated him with stops convenient to where he could purchase food during the long trip. I thought about making the trip, but I could never figure out how to get back to my car. I finally mad a fan trip Gladstone-Trout Lake behind 2-8-2 Soo 1003 in the 1990s. That same weekend they made a trip Gladstone to Hermansville via former C&NW, and were to return on the former Soo, but a salvage crew was just starting to remove the track. on a late Saturday afternoon. Since the last car in the train was a WC office car (which by then owned both lines) I figured the timing of the dismantling was not just a random incident.
KCSfan daveklepper Along with others, I would define a mixed train as one defined as such in the Official Guide. Hitching some freight cars to a streamliner doesn't make it a mixed train in my opinion. I totally agree. A "true" mixed train picked up, dropped off and did any necessary switching of freight cars along its route. It was both a local freight and a local passenger train. It most commonly ran on short lines or branch lines and often was the only scheduled train on these lines. The passenger consist was often just a single combine tacked on to the rear of the train. Some carried an additional coach and a few (though very few) even carried a sleeper. Mark
Can anybody name a mixed train that DID carry a sleeper?I recall an article about riding a mixed on the UP(was it Trains or CT?)from Utah to Wyoming.I believe it did run overnight,but I'm not sur there was even a coach,let alone a sleeper.
IIRC the Denver & Salt Lake had an overnight mixed with sleeper.
Growing up in the stations at Hatton, SK and Irricana, AB from 1954 to 1965, both locations had mixed train service.
Hatton was on the CPR main line, but was the Division Point(junction) for the Hatton Sub. to Golden Prairie. There was a mixed train that served the Hatton Sub. every Thursday, known informally as the not surprisingly named; Thursday Mixed.
Irricana was served by a NB mixed from Calgary to East Coulee on Monday. On Thursday the same equipment returned to Calgary from Bassano. This equipment ran from East Coulee over to Bassano on Tuesday, through some of the most isolated country you ever saw. It made a round trip from Bassano to Scandia on Wednesday. This was done by the same crew working four 12 hour days. A new crew brought the same equipment NB past Irricana on the way to Torrington on Friday. This equipment returned SB past us to Calgary on Saturday.
The constant equipment on these trips was a Combine; a potable water tank car, to supply the stations and Section Men's houses where the local water supplies were either bad or non-existent; and the conductor's personal Caboose. Cabooses changed as conductors bid in and out of the jobs, but the Combine and the tank car only changed when they required scheduled servicing. In the eight and a bit years we were at Irricana there were three different combines and two different tank cars.
I once asked Dad what would happen if there was suddenly so much express brought in for shipment that it wouldn't fit into the combine. It turns out that back in the day, there were very old day coaches and full baggage cars that could be used, if an agent called the day before the mixed left its' home terminal. It was not like there was ever a need for extra passenger space.
I have one book with a very amusing story from the early '70's about some railfans in their late teens or early twenties, who decided to ride a mixed train from Yahk, BC down to the US border at Kingsgate, BC, where the line met the Spokane International. The station at Yahk had been closed, so the guys had to buy their tickets on the train. The conductor said that after however many years, these were the first tickets he had ever sold. They enjoyed the trip and a good time was had by all, passengers and crew alike. The guys liked it so well they did the same trip the following summer. When they got home after that trip and were dutifully putting their tickets into their souvenir drawers, they discovered that their tickets were sequentially numbered! There had not been a single ticket sold in the intervening year!
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
Bruce., since I first saw the name Yahk about sixty years ago, I have wondered bout it. Do you know whence and why it came?
Johnny
Beyond assuming it was a Native word, I never knew much more. So, I did the only logical thing and looked it up on Wikipedia. This is what it said:
According to British Columbia's Geographical Names Information System, "Yahk" is a Kootenay word meaning either "arrow" or "bow" and referring either to the Yaak River or the Kootenay River. The southward curve of the Kootenay River (from Canada into the United States and back into Canada) is said to be a "bow", with the Yaak River possibly being the "arrow" (if the name is from the Kootenay word "a'k").
According to the USGS, variant names of the Yaak River include A'ak, Yaac, Yahk, Yahkh, and Yak.
Thanks, Bruce. So, perhaps, there are two "Bow" Rivers in the area; the one with the Indian name, and the one that is called "Bow" (which we drove along going back up to Lake Louise from Banff in '03, and from Lake Louise to Banff in '09 and along, as much as possible, when going from Banff to Calgary in '09. In '03, we saw two or three groups of elk along the way; we saw no elk in '09.
Fr.Al Can anybody name a mixed train that DID carry a sleeper?I recall an article about riding a mixed on the UP(was it Trains or CT?)from Utah to Wyoming.I believe it did run overnight,but I'm not sur there was even a coach,let alone a sleeper.
The C&Os mixed train between Clifton Forge and Hot Springs, VA carried a New York - Hot Springs sleeper which ran between Clifton Forge and Washington in the FFV.
Johnny, although the names escape me, there are several more rivers in North America that translate into "Bow" from the local Native dialects. This tidbit of information came up at the same time some local university professor once said that the the Bow River you saw is in fact an incorrect interpretation of the native name for it. Other professors, of course, disputed this.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
The Tonopah & Goldfield carried a sleeper in mixed service during WW2 for the USAAF airfield at Tonopah.
FlyingCrowThe Tonopah & Goldfield carried a sleeper in mixed service during WW2 for the USAAF airfield at Tonopah.
Here we have a specific situation that does indeed require a sleeping car. But it occurred to me that confusion in other cases may be arising for different reasons.
On the CPR as on many other roads, that except those built for service on specific named trains, almost all of the CPR combines were conversions from colonist sleeping cars. The upper berths were never removed from the coach section, and the mattresses remained. The baggage man, whose name I won't mention, who worked the mixeds the whole time we were at Irricana, slept in the upper berth on the right hand side next to the bulkhead between the baggage compartment and the passenger section, when you faced the bulkhead. He kept other personal items in the berth across the aisle. He lived there six days a week.
In those days the engineer and fireman slept in bunk houses, the trainmen and conductor slept in the caboose, and the baggage men slept in their baggage car/combine. It was a union thing. I don't recall how it was the running trade men only worked a maximum of four days per week, but baggage men worked six. Another union thing. I think some of the confusion, this many years after the fact, may lie in the difference in mixed trains posted as carrying a sleeping car, and those that had a car capable of being a sleeping car.
Fr.Al KCSfan daveklepper Along with others, I would define a mixed train as one defined as such in the Official Guide. Hitching some freight cars to a streamliner doesn't make it a mixed train in my opinion. I totally agree. A "true" mixed train picked up, dropped off and did any necessary switching of freight cars along its route. It was both a local freight and a local passenger train. It most commonly ran on short lines or branch lines and often was the only scheduled train on these lines. The passenger consist was often just a single combine tacked on to the rear of the train. Some carried an additional coach and a few (though very few) even carried a sleeper. Mark Can anybody name a mixed train that DID carry a sleeper?I recall an article about riding a mixed on the UP(was it Trains or CT?)from Utah to Wyoming.I believe it did run overnight,but I'm not sur there was even a coach,let alone a sleeper.
The Georgia Railroad mainline Super Mixed trains carried the West Point Route Pullman "Alabama River" when one of the two lightweight coaches was in the shop. It was always a pleasure to find it subbing since it was kept very clean in comparison to the coaches as it was used as a host car along with the Georgia Railroad office car, known today as Georgia 300, at "The Masters" golf tournament in Augusta.
Technically not the answer you are looking for since overnight travel was not involved, but it was a Pullman in mixed train service up to 1983.
I was fortunate to have grown up in the prime of the Georgia RR mixed trains. For the fame they earned, the service was short lived, 1969-1983. 14 years. I was 14 in 1976. My school friends and I put the mixed trains to good use between Thomson and Camak, GA. All of 11 miles. The Georgia RR ran only one mainline thru train in each direction daily. The trains, #103 & 108, would often be 150 cars long with 7 locomotives and the famous coach placed in front of the caboose.
Since Miller Milford, the agent in Thomson, worked M-F, we had to prearrange with him to notify Harrisonville, the Augusta yard, that 103 had to stop for passengers in Thomson on Saturday. The train rarely stopped, it slowed for us to do a running boarding. We were quiet a sight for the people stopped at the railroad crossing, 2 or 3 teenagers running alongside a train with one of the crew members pulling us up by the arm. Wouldn't that service go over well with the corporate lawyers today!
Since the westbound trains had a grade out of Thomson, invaribly the train would stall out 100 yards after we boarded. For all this fun, the railroad charged us $0.35 fare, one-way for the 11 miles to Camak. Even at the cost of diesel in the mid-'70s, think of the cost incurred for that fare.
Most of the time the crew would want us to ride in the caboose, especially in the cold weather months. We did not complain, as they gave us free reign of the cupola or bay windows. Plus the coaches were not kept very clean. I remember hitting the seats with my fist and creating a dust cloud Charlie Brown's "Pig Pen" would have been proud of. The windows were very dirty too.
The exception was when the Pullman Alabama River was subbing. If it was on the train, the crew was happy to ride in it with us.
While waiting on the eastbound mixed, 108, to arrive for our return trip, we would roam around the switchyard in Camak. It was a busy place with many photo opportunities. We would eat lunch at Rachel's Cafe in the Camak depot or get a snack at my father's store, J & J Grocery in Camak.
The heavyweight coach for the Macon Branch mixed train was usually sitting in the yard. While the Washington Branch mixed train, which came into the Camak yard, used only a caboose for its mixed service by that time. However, a passenger could not board the Washington mixed train in Camak, passengers were only carried between Barnett, the junction with the mainline, and Washington. We never did ride these two mixed trains as teens, however my dad did take me on the Macon Branch mixed train when I was much younger.
I remember two return trips, one was because we had to take advantage of the service advertised on the sign in the coaches, it basically stated "The railroad had the right to offer substitute transportation". Train 108 was running late and close to the hours of service for the crew. They were afraid a stop in Thomson would cause them to go dead. It just happened that the brakeman or flagman had his car in Camak, so he gave us a ride back to Thomson to each of our homes.
The other was another case of a very late running 108. We rode the coach this time. It was well after dark. In talking with the conductor, he decided that they would let us off at the West View Cemetery since it was closer to my house than the depot. The tracks are on roughly a 10' fill there with the banks covered in blackberry vines and other vegatation except for a worn footpath that crosses the tracks. The engineer stopped that 130+ car train with the coach steps dead center of that footpath. Still amazes me today. I remember my friends and I did not loose anytime in walking(closer to running) thru that cemetery that night.
I did appreciate those mixed trains back then, I even knew they were a rare jewel--even at that young age. This was more than likely brought to light as I was blessed to have grown up literally in Mr. Forrest Beckum's backyard. His yard missed touching our backyard by 100 feet. I wore a path between our houses walking over to visit. However, even knowing the rarity does not prevent regrets today. I wish I had rode the super mixed the whole length of the Georgia RR mainline and I wish I had rode the branch line mixed trains. The biggest preventer of that was my age--at 14 my parents gave me a lot a free reign --riding unsupervised 11 miles to the town where my dad owned a store was one thing but riding a train across the state with no way back until the next day was another.
Jay
Reminds me of my riding the Suncook Valley mixed four times in the summer of 1945 at age 13 on my own. Concord - Pittsfield, NH. I've posted the story before.
Wow,I attended Pembroke Place Boys School 1968-70,long after the Suncook Valley was abandoned.I do remember seeing traces of the roadbed.I believe the Suncook Valley dieselised at some point,but was the train still steam-powered in '45?
Maine Central operated a mixed in Northern New Hampshire to Beecher Falls,VT.Anybody here remember that one?Also,I used to have a book on the Claremont & Concord..I believe that line quit,but in 1968,while travel through Claremont,I saw a GE 44 Tonner on what appeared to be some vestige of that line or some Claremont street railway.
I lived in Contoocook when I was a little kid about 1954. We lived a couple of blocks from the C&C, but the only train I remember was a steam train stopped in town. By the reaction of the locals, even then steam apparently was an unusual event.
There is still a remnant of the C&C between Claremont and Claremont Junction:
http://www.theccrr.com/home.htm
The Suncook Valley dieselized on 22 April 1949 with a 43-ton 300HP GE ex-Chickasaw Ordinance -then Fort Benning -then Greenville Manufacturing, Greenville, OH, painted in B&M switcher colors, and this was replaced by a 44-ton (400HP?) GE new in July 1951, which went to the Sanford and Eastern after SV quit.
Also rode the C&C, but only when it was part of the B&M, first at end of summer 1945, extra ex-PRR P54 coaches for campers returning to NY via Day White Mountains Express, then on 30 April 1950 on the NRHS "Round-the-Mountain" excursion.
See RAILROAD CITIES/CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE, Liljestrand and Sweetland, a/o Bob's photo, Concord Available from Boston Street Railway Association, BSRA with website
Would you consider the Santa Fe Southern as operating mixed trains?
They have a regularly scheduled daily freight train from Santa Fe to Lamy and return which also has cars attached for tourists. While interchange is performed at Lamy, tourists may have a BBQ lunch.
Claremont and Concord is still in business from Claremont Jct to Claremont, with an isolated operation in the former B&M Westboro Yard in West Lebanon NH. Mixed trains are long gone.
C&O regularly carried a sleeper in its Hot Springs mixed train. Usual consist in the 50s or 60s was a boiler GP7, a combine, the sleeper, a hopper car or other freight and the caboose.
Maine Central's Beecher Falls mixed lasted long enough to get EMD switchers as regular power, and to be rerouted over the B&M Groveton Branch and GT main line to Stewartstown after one too many washouts on MEC's line from Lancaster NH to Stewartstown. A bit of the branch was intact from Stewartstown up to Columbia NH until not long ago.
I've ridden this train three times(at least) during my 8 month tenure in New Mexico.The only time it carried freight was the one time I rode the in the cab(about $50.00 above the regular ticket price;this was seven years ago.)This was a double first for me,a cab ride and a mixed train ride.One could say it was a mixed train,but it's more of a touristy type of thing.
It would be awesome if Santa Fe Southern could coordinate the runs to be more in sync with the Amtrak service also at Lamy.
Sadly, the Santa Fe Southern has fallen on hard times and cancelled service this season.
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/business/article_6f2b81db-9e29-5381-8581-6f3b8a9d34a2.html
which is what most mixed trains were. Peddler freights with a coach or combine added
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