Mix and Match Engines and Rolling Stock?

If I didn't mix rolling stock, I would not have a consist. One of my trains is a Vision Line Hudson and I have 6 green pullman cars behind it. shortly after purchasing the green ones I found that the Hudson actually pulled a "Red" I think madison not sure. But heck I'm a happy railroader with all my rolling stock.

 

Brent

I do it all the time.  My Blue Comet locomotive went into freight service because the passenger cars were delayed by over 6 months.  No big deal.  I slapped a Jersey Central caboose on the end and pulled whatever freight I felt like. 

 

I do prefer unit trains and especially like when most of the cars match up to the livery like UP, or Santa Fe, NYC, Pennsy, etc only because that was a pipe dream as a kid with my post war lionels, but these days it's much easier to do if that's what you want.  I realize in the real world this isn't as common, but everything just depends on my mood at the time.

 

The Question really should be who DOESN'T mix and match their Rolling Stock.

Well there are people who run strictly "cataloged" sets or pairs. Some guys refuse to have an engine have a different roadname caboose riding behind it.

As long as YOU are having fun, don't worry about it!

A lot of RRs had through cars that went on other RRs trains. Pennsy cars could go to Boston or the west coast places never served by Pennsy as an easy example. ACL and SAL trains traveled over Pensy to Penn Station in NY city behind GG1s all the time.

I don't have any passenger operations on my home layout, but .....

 

Building my modest rolling stock stable .... within correct geographic constraints ... is part of the fun for me. (and keeps me from going bananas buying stuff. lol)

 

But ... its all good.

Right!

 

From Larry Goolsbys book "Seaboard Air Line Passenger Service, The Streamlined Era", here's a list of Train #114 Silver Meteor, New york, August 7, 1954:

 

Engine - PRR GG1 4936

Baggage-dorm - SAL 6050

Coach - PRR 4056

Coach (Old Dominion Blue Scheme) - RF&P 841

10-6 Sleeper - PRR Clinton

6 DB-lounge sleeper - SAL Kennesaw Mountain

10-6 Sleeper - SAL Jacksonville

10-6 Sleeper - SAL Miami

Diner - SAL 6101

Coach - RF&P 852

Coach - PRR 4065

Coach Lounge - SAL 6232

Coach - SAL 6206

Diner - SAL 6103

Coach - SAL 6219

Coach - RF&P 855

Coach - PRR 4014

Coach - SAL 6225

Tavern-Observation - SAL 6604

 

1 engine, 18 cars, all Lightweight

 

Seaboard even had cars painted in other RR colors (IC comes to mind) to match the consist for special trains.

Tried it once. Far to boring for me.*

 

*THat is for most freights. Of course, all passenger trains match and some freights are exact matches. Such as my BNSF Stack train with an orange BNSF SD70 and all BNSF stack cars, my N&W Coal train with Y6B and all N&W Coal hoppers and N&W Caboose and one B&O Freight with F units and a solid B&O Mixed freight. 

I just run what looks good to me, mix and match anything.  This even includes running Legacy steam locos with tenders from other Legacy steam locos.

 

I do have one train I run pretty pure: SF Super Chief.  Everything else I mix as I want.

Always match up passenger trains. I try to match up freight engines with a caboose or use a generic Lionel Lines caboose. I usually try to include one or two freight cars of the same road name as the engine but that is not a hard and fast rule. The bottom line is to have fun and not get too wrapped up with do's and don't's.

 

Steve

sir-its your railroad-run what you want

It's a valid question.  At first I fell into the "matching road name" rolling stock hole.  Then I watched video's of real railroad freight, even the one road name I favored, and you name it, cars from all kind of road names were in consist.  So now, I mix and match and is even fun to pick with eyes closed off shelf.

 

TEX

Steve

A safe bet is to run everything and anything behind my Penn Central GG1!

I like doing it with freight trains.Because in real life used to see boxcars in scl freight trains.Some cars were 40ft and some50ft and even the hights on the cars were different.I mixed lionel with kline mth weaver boxcars flatcars tankcar.There is one car I don,t have and thats a pulpwood car.Seaboard had alot of them there was sometimes the last car besides the orange cabosse.

I mainly run freights and mix and match to my hearts content. We recently moved to NJ and are living in a temporary residence next to the train station in Union. The other evening my wife and I were eating at the Rockin' Joes in the station when a CSX freight came by. The lead engine was a new BNSF followed by a KCS and CSX locomotive. The rolling stock was anything and everything. It was great! Shared power is a beautiful thing. If you watch train videos that were shot back in the 50's and 60's it's pretty much the same story. You'd see NYC boxcars in Cali, Santa Fe reefers in NY, and CB&Q "Everywhere West rolling stock just about everywhere. To the railroads then and now it's whatever it takes to "gitter done".

There are so many facets to this wonderful hobby. So many ways to do things, create scenarios of our own; mix and match or be loyal to steadfast prototypical rules.  Based on who you are, what your feelings are at a single changing moment and a thousand other variables I have come to the following conclusion regarding my layout fun...

 

NOTHING MATTERS......EVERYTHING MATTERS

Aside from matching passenger consists (often, but not always done on the prototype) and matching the appropriate road name caboose with it's locomotive's road name, just about anything goes as far as I am concerned--just like on the prototype roads.  Unit trains often have the same type of cars in a given consist, but with different road names/liveries, again just like on the prototype roads.

Now I don't feel bad after hearing you folks.

 

I like running the smaller steam engines pulling freight cars, but it seems most of them were intended to pull passenger consists.

Watch a modern train go by and you will see they mix lines also.

 I have the opposite situation that you do;  I have two trains that are all"southern" except the loco.

The "shared power" comment applies now, but in the era of the California Zephyr it

left Chicago with mixed Burlington, Grande, and WP cars behind Burlington power,

Denver with many of the mix of coaches behind Grande power, and arrived in Frisco

behind Western Pacific power, with a similar mix of at least three roads' coaches,

sometimes more, and it could arrive with foreign power.

The real railroads oftem mixed and matched even for passenger service.  Some of the named/premier trains were orderd in matching sets.  Even these would have substitues if it was necessary for operational reasons, aka the observation car is out of service for repairs or they need to add a couple of cars to accomodate the booked seats.  The main goal was to get the passengers from point a to point b in a timely fashion.  

Mix and match was how it was with original Lionel. It's how all the real railroads were when I grew up in the 60's - 70's. Santa Fe loco and a Lionel Lines caboose right in the catalog - what a scandal! Texas Special 2245 F3 with Lionel Lines 2400 series passenger cars - real strange! You should have seen the compilation of assorted vintage passenger equipment the NY Central ran on its trains out of Grand Central in the 1960's. The only thing I won't do today is mix sizes. A scale size box car in the middle of a traditional size train just doesn't look right. Same with an F3 pulling the small streamline 2400 series cars. I won't mix a 2400 series and a 2500 series passenger car on the same train either. On the other hand, Lionel MPC made some great passenger sets in all matching colors and I have taken a fancy to them.

This is all make believe. On my layout there is a rail down the center, and there is an oversize guy in a little white shack with a red roof who every time a train passes has been popping in and out of a door swinging an unlit lantern on one arm for the past 20 years (and 20 years before that on a previous layout.) On occasion, I even have a tuscan red PRR GG1 pulling green NYC passenger cars and you know what, not one of my non MRR friends has noticed. Obsessing over stuff like this would take a lot of the fun out of it for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

In Jeff Wilson's book, The Model Railroader's Guide to Junctions, the author discussed Interchange Operations and Traveling Freight Cars and gave the example of a years worth of travel for the first PS-1 boxcar.  A few of the statistics were: interchanged between railroads 62 times and that it was on other railroads (not its home road) 238 days.  It was on a total of 25 different railroads from the Northeast to the Northwest and Southwest.  This is a very good book on railroad operations in general.

 

Ron

The California Zephyr is the best-known example of mix and match passenger trains, but there were others. Beginning in the mid-1950's, the UP and the Milwaukee Road jointly operated the "City" trains between Chicago and Omaha. The train would run behind Milwaukee Road power and there would be some Milwaukee Road cars to provide Chicago-Omaha service. Between Omaha and the western destinations, the trains were all UP. This arrangement is why the Milwaukee repainted its passenger cars in UP yellow. Before 1955 or so, the UP had a similar arrangement with the C&NW.  

 

Railroads also might lease locomotives or cars from other roads to overcome a temporary shortage of capacity. I've seen a published photo of a couple of PRR passenger cars in a Milwaukee Road train, although I'm not sure that is why they were there. The Milwaukee leased a bunch of diesels from the Southern Railway in the 60's or 70's and I've seen some photos of mixed consists of Milwaukee and Southern diesels. 

 

Freight trains, of course, were almost always mixed. A steam era train hauling general freight was typically 40-60% home road cars, but more or less than that would not be especially unusual or un-prototypical. The longer the run, the greater the variety of cars. Coal trains, on the other hand, would typically be all home road cars. 

 

Passenger steam engines were not often used to pull freight, simply because they didn't have the tractive effort to start a heavy train. The exception was that sometimes the railroad would use a fast Pacific or Hudson to pull a fast reefer block. I've even seen one photo of a 4-6-4 Hiawatha streamliner pulling a train of reefers. This was in the waning days of steam when the big steamers had mostly been displaced by diesels in passenger service, and the railroad was trying to get the last bit of revenue out of the steamers before scrapping them. 

 

Then, of course, there is always the branch line "mixed train" with one coach or combine hung on the end of a short local freight. Or you can have a passenger car on the end of a freight to simulate a business car with company brass. K-Line made some nice business cars, or you could use any open platform observation car or solarium. 

I've seen a number of Amtrak passenger trains on the NE Corridor that had several types of cars.  I will admit, they were all Amtrak cars, but not matched like most model sets. 

I don't get caught up in that. I just had some hoppers painted & had them numbered using birth dates, address's, & badge numbers I wore. It's your RR so you can do what you want.

 

 

Joe B

For. that matter with Passenger trains. You have the UP 844, SP 4449 and SF 3751 pulling mixed passenger cars for excursions

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-qZAlMC06i4

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=wc-K3XfBIOo

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=A0PQu_EKStE

I mix and match quite a bit - who's gonna complain? 

The PRR PENN TEXAS NYP-STL had cars painted for:

 

MKT/SL-SF TX SPECIAL

SL-SF Trains

MPL Family TX EAGLE

PRR Tuscan

PRR TX SPECIAL shadow line

PRR LS-SF shadow line

PRR two tone blue TX EAGLE

 

If you thought early Amtraks were a rainbow.......

When I run passenger cars I match the engine.  When I run freight almost anything goes.  I usually match the caboose to the engine, but not always.  When I run a coal drag it is almost always either all C&O or N&W although I have 12 Virginian hoppers that I mix in with the N&W on occasion.

 

doug

I like to run matching passenger cars but if/when they don't it doesn't bother me. I just enjoy the trains.

After seeing the NKP 765's consist recently, I'd say anything goes.  NKP steam / PRR Diesel / CONRAIL Diesel and a variety of passenger cars from the PRR to Northern Pacific to California Zephyr.

Whatever floats yer boat!

 

Artie 

I rarely run passengers, and freight is often mixed. I am trying to amass Rio Grande and UP but I cars from several other roadnames, I mix them in a random.