Combining Heavyweights & Streamliners

I like the look of mixed Heavyweight and Streamlined cars. I look at pictures from the time to determine the mix. As a rule headend cars like baggage cars were heavyweight long into the streamline era. Many times heavyweight cars were painted to look like the new Streamlined cars especially when streamline cars were new and the orders were not totally filled at once. A good example is the New Haven Heavywieghts that came out this year from MTH. The cars are heavy but painted in the early streamlined paint of silver with green window stripe to fit into the "new" train. Baggage RPO and diners were slow to change.

From the railroads operating perspective it was about either making money or at least not losing it.  Mixed consists were quite common except for the "crack" named trains.  These had matching consists and were usually kept in "sets", most often for a set for each direction of travel.  

 

Heavyweights were phased out when it wasn't economically feasable to keep them going.  Dining cars were often the last to go as they were highly specialized.  Many were redressed/skinned to look like a streamliner with a roof fairing to hide the clerestory roof profile.

In  a recent book I bought "Trackside on the Rock Island in Oklahoma", the trains arond El Reno, OK- Oklahoma City area had heavywieghts, streamline and an RDC in the same consist. The train split and the RDC went on with a streamlined round end observation car.

 

The book has a lot of interesting shots of Rock Island passinger trains in Oklahoma in the late 1950-early 1960's. Pulled by "F"s, geeps and FM's, and the RDCs. It seemed the cars were always mixed, streamline and heavywieghts with a lot of head end busness, RPO's various types of express cars and a number of foriegn line cars.  

Dan 

I like mixing it up all the time.........MTH, Lionel, Atlas & Weaver.

 

Peter

The GTW mixed up their passenger trains in nearly every conceivable arrangement of smooth-sided cars and heavyweights. The commuter trains were mostly the heavyweights (coaches) until SEMTA. Pretty regularly, the HW RPOs were at the front followed by several HW baggage/express cars then the coaches. A lot of times, I would see the smooth-sided cars (CN)at the rear and I always thought they were the "through" cars that would be tagged onto the to Chicago train at Durand...too many years ago now. 

 

But, it's your railroad and whatever looks good to you could have probably been found on the big trains at one time or another. Take a look at the "rainbow" era of Amtrak for ideas.

 

Neil

If you really want to be serious about mixing heavyweight and lightweight cars prototypically, one good source is Wayner Publications passenger consist books. He did several, listing by date, train name and railroad. I have a few of these myself, and could provide sample consists if needed. Basically, as mentioned, the crack named trains were all lighweight by the mid-40s, while secondary and lower trains had a mix. Heavyweight baggage and RPOs would be heavyweight, with coaches and sleepers a mix. Many railroads completely rebuilt heavyweight coaches and diners to simulate lightweight cars, with the only external difference being the 6-wheel trucks. Many also quit using round-end obs cars to facilitate switching cars in and out at stations by the mid-50s. Another good book source are the "Trackside" series, that show several different passenger train views through a certain area.

I never run mine together, but that is more due to paint than style. All my streamliners are aluminum ATSF Superchief cars. All my heavyweights are painted land painted (most are Pullman green).   That combination just does not look good together.   I sometimes combine 15" and 18" aluminum streamliners to make "super - Superchiefs" but that's as far as I go on mixing different types. 

 

IF I had a set of streamliners and heavyweights that were all ainted roughly the same colors and style of stripping, etc., I would not hestitate to run them.  I'd put them in separate groups, whichever, heavy- or stream-, looked best behind the locos up front.

 

However, I think part of this is paint - or lack of it

I have put together two mixed PRR passenger consists that I hope to run when I finish a loop of track on my new layout.  One is made up of 18” passenger cars (Lionel and K-line) and the other has 21” passenger cars (K-Line and GGD).  I also have one all streamliner (Lionel RI E6 AA pulling a K-Line ten car Golden State 18” set) and one all heavyweight (Atlas O SRR F3 ph1 AA pulling a Lionel seven car Southern 18” set).  The two PRR mixed consists are similar in make-up and based on pictures I’ve seen from the late 40’s of accommodation train consists:

 

A variety of MTH R50b, Weaver B60b and RPO, and Atlas Wood Express Reefers and X-29 REA cars to put up front (the PRR never went to streamliner head end cars).

 

The head in cars are followed by 2-3 HW coaches and maybe a streamlined chair car.

 

After that are the streamlined diner and maybe a parlor car.

 

For the sleepers, I’m running 2-3 streamlined cars mixed with 2 HWs followed by a streamlined obs.

 

The only appropriate engines I have that can pull these consists are my double-headed Lionel K4s, Weaver passenger Shark AB (both powered), Lionel E7 ABA (two powered), Lionel T-1 (I think it can pull these), and Lionel Centipede AA.  I have two Williams scale GG-1s that could also pull these, but I need to add command to them.  The E7s may not be appropriate for an accommodation train consist; in the late 40s they were pulling the named/limited trains.

 

Everything above is currently in storage; I need to finish the main loop ASAP before I’m too old to enjoy them.

 

Ron

I like to collect the "crack trains", so I do not combine lightweight and heavyweight cars. Just my personal preference and it has nothing to do with being prototypical.

Southern Railway routinely ran heavyweight headend cars with its new lightweight "silver cars" which arrived in the 1941 delivery for the name trains: Southerner, Tennessean and Crescent. Initially left off for the promotional photos during the inaugural runs: the Southerner[[Mar.], Tennessean[May], Crescent[Dec.], Southern soon added the headend heavyweights. Practical reason--the revenue was produced by mail and express not passengers.

The start of WWII stopped equipment delivery until post war so Southern painted at least one heavyweight sleeper for the Tennessean in imiatation aluninum to match the new lightweights.

American Flyer marketed a few train sets that included Heavyweight and a more modern style "New Haven" styled passenger car.

 

From the mid-1960's, to the late 70's, the Long Island Railroad outfitted it's Cannonball express train, and other named trains serving Montauk and the Hamptons with a mix of 2nd hand Heavyweight and Streamlined cars, it was quite a railfan site in it's day.

 

Ken

 

http://www.geocities.com/theup..._9xx_mixed_sets.html

The Milwaukee Road mixed all kinds of passenger cars. You can look in any of the Milwaukee Road picture book and see mixed car types and paint schemes - heavyweight, old style Hiawatha cars, new Pullman-Standard streamliners, solid orange, orange and maroon, UP yellow - you name it. I highly recommend the Morning Sun "Milwaukee Road in Color" and "Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment" series. Golden Spike Publications here in Tucson stocks them, with good prices and quick service. 

 

Multiple baggage cars are common, since they were also used for REA or the railroad's own express package service. Also, some trains would leave Chicago and later split into two different trains somewhere west. One baggage car would be assigned to each destination. Two or three baggage cars is perfectly prototypical for many railroads. 

 

Peter,

 

Nice Video.  I also mix them up when from time to time.

 

The only cars I mix are my Williams 72' streamliners and a Williams 72' heavyweight Combine that I converted to an RPO because Williams doesn't make a 72' RPO. I bought that car specifically for this train. Some trains ran a lot of head end cars so I bought two extra baggage cars for that reason. I have 13 cars for this train so I can change things up as I see fit.

 

For another train I have 21 MTH Premier cars so I can build a train to suit my needs. I have three baggage cars for this train as well. I also have two diners for this train. I wanted some extra cars that could only be found in two-car sets so I wound up with two diners for this train. The U.P. would sometimes have two diners on their trains as needed based on demand and I model U.P. exclusively in O-gauge so I will run both of them in this train from time to time.

 

My last train is an excursion train made up of all heavyweights. I have two baggage cars for this train and often run both of these cars in the train at the same time. I only have 12 cars for this train so all of them will fit on my little layouts.

 

I have equipment for only three passenger trains. I only run the Williams cars with my Williams PA's, I only run my MTH streamlined cars with my Williams E-7's and I only run my gray heavyweights with my Hudson.

I grew up in a house along the Erie RR NY-Chicago mainline in Tallmadge, Ohio and watched the passenger trains fly past our dining room window several times per day. The Erie green passenger cars were a mix of heavyweight and streamliner, and when the merger with the Lackawanna occured in 1960, consists really got mixed, including the locomotives!

 

It's a shame I didn't take pictures of those trains, but they passed by so frequently they were just an ordinary part of everyday life. As a kid, I thought the trains would travel that track forever, but now the mainline tracks are totally abandoned. C'est la vie.

 

I have MTH streamliner passenger sets for Erie, PRR, and B&O (the companies that served Akron, Ohio) and I want to add some heavyweight style cars for a true mix.

 

This a video of a passenger train were I mixed heavyweight headend and sleeper cars with lightweight dinnercar, lightweight  sleeper cars and a lightweight observation car.

 

How about combining heavyweights and streamliners with steam and diesel in one consist?  As you know, Santa Fe would sometimes put a Northern or a Hudson on the point of a crack streamliner, so I did the same for the Texas Chief.  Articles I have seen indicate Santa Fe would use heavyweights on the head end of trains like the Texas Chief and the Chief even after the arrival of streamlined equipment.  I have a Howard Fogg print showing Northern no. 3776 pulling a streamlined Chief with one heavyweight near the front end so apparently the Northerns could serve as sole power even into the streamlined era.

 

Chesapeake and Ohio's George Washington with a mix of streamlined equipment and Pullman heavyweights encounters a new Union Pacific Challenger working its way west from Alco's Schenectady locomotive works.

 

Thanks, Killian.  I am working on some videos showing the Chief in transition with Santa Fe northern no. 2927.  I will show the northern first with an all heavyweight Chief and then with mostly streamliners except for one or two heavyweight head end cars.  Most of the freight cars and all of the passengers cars are MTH Rail King.  The C & O train is powered by a first generation Rail King Berkshire from like 1999 which was powered up for the first time without any problems in 2011.  I really like the Lionmaster Challenger. It is almost scale sized yet looks great on O72.  I also have had great luck with MTH locomotives with the only one to get sent back will be their latest Santa Fe northern with electrical connection problems from the new wireless tether.

my southwestern limmited(milw rd) is a mixed heavy/streamline train,

 

Streamlined baggage (ribb side)

Streamlined coach ribb side)

heavyweight dinner

heavyweight sleeper

heavyweight obs (drumhead changed to southwest limited)

Check out the movie "Otto Perry's Santa Fe"   you'll see steam era Santa Fe pretty much running everything with everything.    Very eye opening.

 

Santa Fe - running "everything with everything"