I was reading an online article on combines and it said they were primarily used on branchlines that didn't require a full express/baggage car. I hadn't heard that before. It also said the passenger compartment was normally coach seating.
I was wondering if and how combines might be used on a mainline trains. Could the passenger section be used for things other than coach seating such as food service, a bar car, smoking lounge etc. or were the combines for the most part relegated to coach seating on branchline trains.
They were used wherever they needed a baggage/express compartment but not a full car.
Since "branchline" runs were typically shorter they didn't have as many passengers that had baggage and so didn't need a full size baggage car.
There were other types of combines, but the vast majority were baggage coach because cars with amenities tended to be in the middle of the trains and if they were used the combine was almost always the first passenger carrying car. Passengers were not permitted to pass through the baggage compartment.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
John-NYBWCould the passenger section be used for things other than coach seating such as food service, a bar car, smoking lounge etc.
It seems to be more common in the lightweight era but there were quite a few roads that elected to purchase baggage/lounge or baggage/dorm cars. Here's a Canadian Pacific example:
Budd_Cdn-Dorm by Edmund, on Flickr
Dormitory space was primarily used by the dining car crew but there was often space for the train "hostess" or stenographer as well.
This B&O combine housed a dormitory and a coffee shop:
Thomas Underwood Coll B&O709 by John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, on Flickr
Note the ice breakers for the dome cars.
This one combined the baggage section with a buffet/lounge:
Thomas Underwood Coll B&O703 by John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, on Flickr
The New Haven "County" cars were reconfigured in several floor plans over the years:
Good Luck, Ed
On my layout, I often run mixed trains, with the combine on the rear end. It provides enough room for the few passengers using it, and also doubles as a caboose, with a full tail-end crew, which allows for pick-ups and drop-offs along the route. The baggage compartment often carries items ordered by folks in the small towns through which the car runs, so there are often stops at stations where there is no one getting on or off the train (other than the baggage handler to drop-off or pick-up a parcel or two).
I also use combines on express trains, again at the rear of the train. It serves as a rider car for the tail-end crew and accommodation for anybody wanting to make that particular trip. The rest of the train is usually baggage cars and a few express boxcars. There are no stops en-route, other than servicing for the locomotive(s).
Combines are among my favourites. This one was originally a Rivarossi dining car...(pictures will enlarge if clicked upon)
I hacked it up in order to shorten it, then added some interior details and a fair amount of additional weight.
This one is an MDC "Palace" combine....
...with a very basic interior. I did create a small "mens' smoking lounge". The car is heated by both a coal stove in the passenger compartment, and by a Baker heater in the baggage area - not modelled, other than the roof detail.
This one is a shortened MDC "Palace" car, also a combine...
...I don't recall why I put the partition walls in the body, rather than on the car's floor, but it fits together okay. The heating for this car is solely the Baker heater, none of it modelled except on the roof.
This one, another Rivarossi car, was also a combine, supposedly based on a Santa Fe prototype, with only 2 or 3 windows on each side, near the end where the boarding steps were located. This suggested that the baggage compartment filled the rest of the car. I didn't really care for the look of it, so decided to remove those windows and replace them with more suitable ones...
I also added two smaller windows (cut from an Athearn coach) on both sides of the baggage doors.I haven't yet added any passengers...
I have one other modified combine, a bit more extreme, as it's meant to represent a diesel-electric doodlebug. It's known locally, by all the LPBs on the layout, at least, as "The BEE", supposedly based on the noise it makes when it "buzzes" into town.It's also based on that Rivarossi Santa Fe combine, but I've added more big windows (they match the size and shape of those on original model).I then sawed the car into three pieces, the middle one having the baggage doors. To make the car more useful, I rotated that middle piece to put the baggage doors closer to the passenger compartment, and that, in-turn, allowed me to create a small RPO section near the front of the car. It has one door and window on each side, and is located just aft of what would be considered the engine room.
In truth, though, the baggage section is separated from the passenger section...
...but is not otherwise separate from the "engine" room or the RPO area, or from the engineer's compartment...
While the BEE usually operates with two passenger cars (Athearn) trailing, it often hauls some express reefers, too.I've not done any tests on its pulling capabilities, I know that it's capable of more, as its 24oz. weight really helps it to "dig-in".
Wayne
If and when I get my short line completed, it too will run a mixed train with a combine. In my case, the combine is the one that is part of the Rivarossi four car set of 60 footers, relettered for my fictional railroad. I don't have your skill to modify cars so about the only change I make is relettering cars. Because of the configuration of the track and the depot at the terminus, the combine is at the rear outbound and at the front inbound. An old time caboose is at the opposite end for the rear brakeman to ride when the train is heading back to the terminus. The mixed train handles milk tank cars but also has a stop where it picks up milk cans which go in the baggage compartment of the combine and are top iced. I got this idea from reading Jeff Wilson's fine book about the railroads' milk handling.
In the 1960s, the NY Central commuter lines had some combines to carry newspapers, and the passenger section was for the smokers.
Wayne,
What is a Baker heater?
Mark
mvlandsw Wayne, What is a Baker heater? Mark
Basically it's a coal-fired heater, fitted with circulating coils and expansion drums located at the highest point in the system, along with radiating coils along both sides of the car.
The fire in the heater imparted heat to the coils, which expanded and caused circulation. The heated water rose through the pipes to the expansion drums, and then moved continuously from there through the radiating coils and then back to the heater.
It seems similar to a home heating system where there's a furnace of some type (coal-, oil-, or gas-fired) which circulates water through the pipes to radiators in each room, with the cooled water returning to the furnace for re-heating.I'm unclear as to where the heater was located...it may have been in the passenger area or perhaps in the baggage compartment, and I'm guessing that someone was required to occasionally re-fuel the heater. I don't know if that might have been the baggage handler, or maybe the conductor, but such heaters were fairly common on cars that weren't equipped with steam-delivery pipes from the locomotive.
doctorwayne While the BEE usually operates with two passenger cars (Athearn) trailing, it often hauls some express reefers, too.I've not done any tests on its pulling capabilities, I know that it's capable of more, as its 24oz. weight really helps it to "dig-in". Wayne
I had planned to do that with my doodlebug, a discontinued Walthers 55 footer but discovered it couldn't pull my milk tank cars up a gentle grade. It was able to handle a 60 foot trailing coach for most of the way. Then I built the last section up to the summit and it stalled half way up the hill. Just not enough weight over the powered truck. It's forced me to rethink how the doodlebug will be used.
John'
I would use the doodlebug (but not one as luxurious as the Bee) for a morning run down the branch to provide connections to the Big City for a day of shopping, appointments, college, or any other reason a person would want get there early in the day, maybe even pulling the coach, if more seating was needed.
Leaving the coach at junction, I would load up the baggage compartment with express and newspapers, for the merchants on Main Street, and head back up the branch. About mid morning (after the kids were off to school, I would make another run down to Junction City for the mom's that couldn't take the earlier connection to The Big City, to spend some time in the JC stores.
An after lunch departure from Junction City that allows the moms to get home before the kids get out of school is made, with the coach remaing in Junction City. At about mid afternoon, it can carry any outgoing express on a return to Junction City and await the arrival of those who went to The Big City for the day. The coach would be picked up to handle these extra riders and their purchases of the day, along with the evening newspapers from The Big City.
You could still run your combine equipped mixed train, as a milk train that also carried passengers, hence the combine. Doodlebugs also performed the functions of school bus in sparsley settled regions. There were/are regions where there is one large high school serving a number of communities too smalll to have a high school of their own. A handy branch or short line connected a bunch of these small communities and, an agreement was made to consolidate the school at a central location if, the railroad would provide service. Back in the days of the doodlebug, roads were generally bad and most working adults, never mind high school kids, didn't have cars.
Unfortunately, I don't have any doodlebugs-which I would dieselize anyway, because of the disasters involving gasoline. I do own a few copies of their kissing cousins, the Budd Rail Diesel Car (RDC) which carried on the doodlebug's tradition for almost fifty years. Enjoy that 'bug!
NHTX John' I would use the doodlebug (but not one as luxurious as the Bee) for a morning run down the branch to provide connections to the Big City for a day of shopping, appointments, college, or any other reason a person would want get there early in the day, maybe even pulling the coach, if more seating was needed. Leaving the coach at junction, I would load up the baggage compartment with express and newspapers, for the merchants on Main Street, and head back up the branch. About mid morning (after the kids were off to school, I would make another run down to Junction City for the mom's that couldn't take the earlier connection to The Big City, to spend some time in the JC stores. An after lunch departure from Junction City that allows the moms to get home before the kids get out of school is made, with the coach remaing in Junction City. At about mid afternoon, it can carry any outgoing express on a return to Junction City and await the arrival of those who went to The Big City for the day. The coach would be picked up to handle these extra riders and their purchases of the day, along with the evening newspapers from The Big City. You could still run your combine equipped mixed train, as a milk train that also carried passengers, hence the combine. Doodlebugs also performed the functions of school bus in sparsley settled regions. There were/are regions where there is one large high school serving a number of communities too smalll to have a high school of their own. A handy branch or short line connected a bunch of these small communities and, an agreement was made to consolidate the school at a central location if, the railroad would provide service. Back in the days of the doodlebug, roads were generally bad and most working adults, never mind high school kids, didn't have cars. Unfortunately, I don't have any doodlebugs-which I would dieselize anyway, because of the disasters involving gasoline. I do own a few copies of their kissing cousins, the Budd Rail Diesel Car (RDC) which carried on the doodlebug's tradition for almost fifty years. Enjoy that 'bug!
I'm thinking along similar lines, although the bug can't pull the coach to the top of the grade so it has to run stand alone. The original plan was for the bug and a trailer coach to provide the commuter service from the Willoughby, the terminus, to connections with the main line commuter trains at Bedford Falls (junction city). It would return light to Willoughby leaving the coach at Bedford Falls for the evening commute. A mid-day mixed train pulled by a Ten Wheeler with a combine on the end would move freight from Willoughby to the interchange at Bedford Falls and return as a mixed train after picking up the cars at the Bedford Falls interchange. Late afternoon, the bug would take passengers from Willoughby to Bedford Falls, hook onto the coach and return to Willoughby with the commuters. That plan is scuttled due to the bug's inability to pull the trailer coach to the top of the grade.
The new plan: The Ten Wheeler will handle the morning commuter train consisting of the coach and combine. At Bedford Falls, it will pick up freight cars at the interchange and run mixed back to Willoughby with the combine in tow. Midday will see the bug run alone from Willoughby to Bedford Falls, turn around on the TT, and return. Late afternoon, the Ten Wheeler will take a mixed train with the combine on the end to Bedford Falls, drop the freight cars at the interchange and return to Willoughby with the coach and combine hauling commuters.
There is an intermediate town of Summit Station midway on the shortline with some industries to serve and a connection to a switchback to a sawmill operation. The switchback and the track from Summit Station to Willoughby have yet to be laid.
I'm considering an alternate plan which would be to stick with the original plan but only have the bug pull the coach from Bedford Falls to Summit Station, which it can do, drop it there and proceed to the top of the grade and down to Willougby by itself. The next morning it would run stand alone from Willoughby to Summit Station, pick up the coach there, and take it down grade to Bedford Falls. I'm not sure which of these two choices I like better but I'll have time to decide while completing construction of the short line.
doctorwayneThis one, another Rivarossi car, was also a combine, supposedly based on a Santa Fe prototype, with only 2 or 3 windows on each side, near the end where the boarding steps were located.
I was told by someone who models ATSF that Santa Fe built these cars to be 'rider cars' to be used at the end of a mail train for the railroad crew (conductor, brakemen). Apparently Santa Fe didn't want to use a full coach or even a regular combine when most of it would be empty.
Re mainline passenger trains, on many railroads it was a secondary train that handled express and mail, so the top train only needed a combine with a small baggage compartment. NYC's heavyweight Twentieth Century Limited, or C&NW's Twin City 400, would be examples.
BTW on a mixed train, where the passenger car was located sometimes depended (at least in cold weather) how the car was heated. If the car used steam heat, it would need to be behind the locomotive to get steam from it. If it was an older car that had it's own coal stove for heat, it could go at the end (sometimes in place of a caboose.)
Santa Fe's combines as modeled by Rivarossi way back in the 1960s, was a model of combine that the ATSF had converted from a group of chair cars. Santa Fe gave these cars large baggage-express compartments because they were intended to serve branch lines with little need for passenger seating. They were full length 85 foot cars with three passenger windows per side and designated as either baggage-express-coach or, baggage-express-caboose. The distinction was plainly evident in the fact that the former were painted passenger car green, while the latter wore the same mineral red as the regular cabooses.
One would presume those considered passenger cars were probably maintained just a tiny bit better than their more humble cousins. Santa Fe was a railroad littered with mixed trains up into the 1960s and sported "combines" ranging from 50 footers that looked like cabooses without cupolas and, more windows, to those a full 85 feet long. My only experience with ATSF mixed train service was, watching an F-7A swing onto the Boise City line in Amarillo TX in September of 1966. It was assisted by four assorted B units dragging 96 covered hoppers, trailing a steel baggage-express-caboose.
If you are interested in Santa Fe mixed train service, the book to have is, "Coach, Cabbage and Caboose" by John B McCall, Kachina Press, ISBN 0-930724-10-0. It is almost all black and white due to the subject covered and, the fact it was copyrighted in 1979. Priceless photographs, including schedules, drawings of the cars make it a must have for anyone interested in mixed trains in the part of the country where they were the lifeline for these isolated communities west of Kansas City.