What would it take to get one of the Class I freight companies to get back into passenger rail?

[dakotafred]

Electroliner 1935

I think they were doing it to add revenue for the train's bottum line.

 

In Southern's case, I think it's pretty clear they were simply saving a little money, beginning with the cost of an engine crew, by attaching the passenger accommodation to a train that was going that way anyway.

 

I doubt they were fooling themselves that this transformed their passenger accommodation into a moneymaker.

 

In some of the other cases cited in this thread, I speculate that the railroads were doing one of two things:

 

-- Offering a genuine expedited service to certain favored freight customers, either for extra money or not;

 

-- Simply keeping the hotter freight moving, and clearing a track in the yard -- maybe even occasionally saving a train -- by simply attaching it to the first thing out of town.

 

[Paul of Covington]

Electroliner 1935

I rode the southern's train with the pigs in the 70's...

   Sounds like a great line for promotion of the service.   I can see the ad:

    "RIDE  WITH  THE  PIGS!"

[schlimm]

dakotafred

-- Offering a genuine expedited service to certain favored freight customers, either for extra money or not;

I think that was what the IC was doing. greyhounds would be able to give us accurate details on that.

[greyhounds]

schlimm

 

 

dakotafred

-- Offering a genuine expedited service to certain favored freight customers, either for extra money or not;

 

 

I think that was what the IC was doing. greyhounds would be able to give us accurate details on that.

 

What?

I wasn't around.  It wasn't my fault.  I didn't do it.  It's news to me.  Don't blame me, it was his idea.  I told him it wouldn't work.  Etc., etc., etc.

Seriously,  take a look at the 4th photo down:

http://www.american-rails.com/well.html

The IC did handle mail in flexi-vans on passenger trains.  Mostly on the Iowa line.  The rail cars obviously had steam lines.

By the time I got to the ICG Amtrak and Metra had taken over the passenger operations and the flexi-vans were gone.

But...

I was "mentored" by a guy named Al Watkins.  Al had a club foot which kept him out of WWII.  Instead he had worked as a trainman on the North Shore Line's intermodal trains between Chicago and Milwaukee.  He then went to the Erie where he helped establish the Erie's first intermodal tariff.  After the Erie he went to the C&EI and got their intermodal service going.  He fled the C&EI after the MoP take over and wound up at the IC(G) where I met him.  Al knew more about intermodal than anyone I've ever met.  And, he understood intermodal's strengths and weaknesses better than  anyone I've ever met.

He once told me of an attempt to turn the Panama Limited into a mixed train.  The idea was to put flexi-vans on the train and offer an expidited freight service (as opposed to mail and express) between Chicago and New Orleans at a premium rate. 

They published the tariff and tried to sell the service.  According to Al, it never moved one load.  Al said that they at least established the fact that there was absolutely no market for such service between Chicago and New Orleans.

It was very common to move express and mail in containers/trailers on passenger trains.  Many TTX flatcars were equiped with a steam line to allow this use.

Toward the end of railroad company provided passenger service some railroads began to move freight on these flatcars in passenger train service.  They had just flat out given up on the passenger trains and figured as long as they were required to run such trains they might as well make the operations as useful as possible.

Most recently combined freight/passenger trains were tried by Amtrak.  The results were not good.  So, unless you have a good undestanding of why the Amtrak attempt didn't work, and you have viable solutions to solve the problems,  don't get too excited about this idea.

As I said at the beginning of this post:  "I told them it wouldn't work."