Mixed Passenger Cars

I try to run what the railroads considered to be their flagship passenger trains. So to answer your question, I never mix different railroads or Heavyweight and Lightweights.

 

Just my personal preference. 

I have mixed streamline Premier 18" New Haven passenger cars with Weaver and Atlas RPOs in a consist pulled by a K-Line EP5........and, with a Lionel New Haven Express reefer  as part of the "head end" section.

 

Peter

For my 18" passenger cars I don't run MTH with my K-Line or Lionel cars.  The MTH cars are smaller and just do not look right with Lionel/K-Line to me.  I also do not run Williams cars because they still have the silhouettes in the windows.  I do run Lionel and K-Line together.

 

For my head in cars, I run Atlas, Weaver, GGD, MTH, Sunset, K-Line and Lionel.

I have a string of Budd cars, mostly Mac Shops.  Two "gifts" are in the middle of the string - a 3rd Rail ATSF coach, and a K-Line California Zephyr diner.  All have scale trucks, and they are all quite compatible appearance-wise.

 

I have been known to mix Walthers and PSC - dramatically different models of the same prototype - and I have a Mac Shops dome car in my K-Line Empire Builder.

 

Hmmmm - set the WABAC Machine to approx 1952 - AMT made strings of aluminum 15" fluted cars in RPO, baggage, combine, coach, sleeper, diner, dome, and observations (and the sleepers came with either 2 or 3 different car names), so an 11 car string of matched cars in the Golden Age of tinplate was possible.  If you ran your NYC or Pennsy set, throw in some SF sleepers on a run through and you can melt down your ZW trying to pull 13 lead sleds... 

Since I collect RPO cars, and will run those from several makers in a train, as well

as various coaches from several makers, as long as they all look like they are the same

scale.  This includes a number of kit built passenger cars on three rail trucks.  I model

a short line, so trains can have one or two Class 1 cars in the consist to go from the

junction to the end of the line.  Trains are short and can comprise a gas electric with

a "foreign" trailer or a three car steam train, as well as mixed trains.  This all to

created the allusion that this is short line doing what it can to survive.   I hope to

build some sort of postal distribution center served by this road, that will justify all

the foreign RPO's.

No problem running mixed equipment if you are following prototypes.  Even the mighty

Broadway Limited ran with traditional unstreamlined baggage cars. The New York Central often mixed its unpainted stainless steel cars with smooth sided painted cars. Stare at the photos in the classic railroad books and you'd be surprised how often the steamlined consist is "marred" by inclusion of standard equipment, especially diners and head end cars. Having said this I rarely blend equipment on my passenger trains.

 

Lew Schneider

If you check out real railroad videos from way back you'll notice more often than not that mixed trains were quite common.  One I remember had a GG1 pulling a regular passenger consist with a C&O car right in the middle.  Looked really weird.

Being a fan of the DL&W and EL, I like to run my later maroon and grey passenger trains with NKP streamliner coaches and sleepers and heavy weight head end cars in both silver/blue  and Pullman green in the mix. Why in late days one could find older DL&W and Erie heavyweights and even an odd UP  yellow or a D&H coach or sleeper.    I look at photos and film to help me create prototypical consists. The best part is that I get to explain a little history to visitors.  This hobby is all about education and fun.

 

Conductor Earl 

One of the best trains I run is my version of the ATSF Fast Mail.  It is a PA1 abba set pulling 3 REA and ATSF ice reefers, followed by 5 express boxcars.  Then comes the RPO and 7 streamlined and heavyweight baggage cars.  A sleeper coach carries the markers.  The cars range from unidentified wood kits to MTH to GGD.  I like the looks of that train more than a "squeezed-out-of-a-tube" looking streamliner...I say that, having not yet received my GGD El Capitan.  HeHe.

On what train were there 36 cars that all ran together, but you'd never see them all run together?  

 

The California Zephyr had at least 36 individually identified cars that could be interchanged, but usually only as an 11 or 12 car consist. Of course thats because WP,DRG, and CBQ each had their own identifiable sets.  If Atlas ever produces the full complement of cars, there will be over 531,440 possible consists that could be formed.  And that's without considering variations in motive power.  

 

As far as mixing different Lionel, MTH, Atlas, GGD, Weaver cars together, the biggest problem seems to be the mismatched lighting from different sets.  K-line burns the brightest and looks completely out of place with LED lighted cars.

I run passenger trains in sets, because I like having them look their best. I know the prototype railroads ran mixed consists, even sometimes on flagship trains, but I like my passenger trains to look like they just rolled out of the shop for an extra-fare varnish run. The one exception is mail trains. Sometimes I will collect an assortment of head-end cars - baggage, RPO, express reefers, express boxcars, whatever comes to hand - and make a train. The prototype railroads did the same thing. 

Here is my Chessie Steam Special pulling a mix of Williams 72' heavyweights, MTH-Railking 60' heavyweights, and MTH Premier 72' streamliners.

 

I only have 1 passenger set, (sorry Brian, (PTC), the MTH Blue Comet.

I do this a lot.  In particularly, I have one train consisting of three olive drab heavyweight army hospital cars from WWII era, MTH mixed with four dark green passenger heavyweight pullman type cars that, yes, the colors are a bit mixed, but it looks good together.

 

I have a lot of aluminum extruded cars look okay together, too. 

The prototype does it. Via Rail combines LRC and Budd Heritage cars in some of  its trains on the Quebec-Windsor corridor.

Since all my passenger cars are MTH, I don't run mixed.  But my son has Lionel and MTH and they run in the same train.  Yes, they are different, but we don't mind.

Paul,

     At my clubs open house (Black Diamond Society of Model Engineers, Bethlehem Pa) in January I plan on running a Pennsy train pulled by a Lionel Legacy K4 with a consist of 1 Lionel REA Milk Boxcar, 2 MTH Express Reefers, 1 Weaver baggage car, 1 Weaver RPO, 1 Lionel baggage and 4 Lionel coaches. All cars are 18". I don't think mixing brands of cars will matter.

 

JohnB

Hi Everyone, Thanks for your responses. It looks like a mixed bag is highly acceptable and prototypically correct. Not being in the hobby as long as some of you I wasn't aware of the passenger sets produced over the years. All I am familiar with is about 1995 and newer. It's always good to get some info from you old-timers.

I put the ice reefers in the first block: a GGD R E X 50' lettered for ATSF and it deserves 1st place. The others are from Atlas, Lionel and MTH.  Second block is Express boxcars lettered for R E X and ATSF (green and yellow): the largest (scale) are by Pecos River Brass followed by smaller (steam era sized) cars by several different manufacturers.  Thru the months, I have weeded out all the cars that look like toys to form a great looking mail/express train.  The only cars I have chosen not to feature are the NYC FlexiVans that could be seen in old SF consists. 

Paul:  Back in the days before Amtrak, railroads always ran rather mixed consists except, perhaps, on their #1 passenger trains.  It was not unusual to see heavyweight cars, especially baggage and storage cars, on a train with streamlined lightweight cars.  On the Milwaukee Road, virtually all of their cars were painted steel cars, but on other railroads you could see heavyweights in consists with painted passenger cars and also some stainless steel cars.

 

I have always liked the "Fast mail" or Mail Express trains and therefore, I have a lot more "front end cars" than what come in sets of passenger cars.  Making up a long fast mail train might have baggage, RPO or storage cars from a number of different sets.  When Weaver came up with their 60' baggage and RPO cars, I was the first to order them.  Much to my delight, the baggage car has taillights on the end which can be controlled by a switch on the bottom of the car.   At that point I started placing some of these cars at the back end of the train, behind any coaches or Pullmans and found that this was completely prototypical.  Not unusual to see an eight car fast mail train on my layout, with perhaps just one coach as an accommodation.

 

Paul Fischer

I love mixed consists.

Only the very top first class limiteds carried matched cars and even then in time by the 1950's they mixed equipment.

This is my 1947-1949 era The Chief with a very accurate 15 car consist please click link. It is 2 rail o scale running on gargraves wire multi gauge rail.

Broadway Musicale on the move to New York in the headend. It was also common prior to 1950 for several first class all extra fare Santa Fe trains to carry the 6 window heavyweight RPO that did not match the stainless and steel lightweight cars.

http://youtu.be/2ENqIzM-F84

Don't forget about those run-through transcontinental sleepers.

For sure! Life Magazine used to send carloads west.. In this video I have 3-4 B60's in PRR loaded with furniture from back east. This is the Fast Mail #8/9 with extra sorting and Mail for the holidays plus express of autos, books, Lionel train sets, and anything else you can imagine heading to western markets.


       
       

This is my Expo Flyer running a mix of lightweight Budd pre-war equipment and heavyweight cars common on many first class varnish. World War II put the brakes on delivery of new equipment for train 39 the Exposition Flyer and from 1939-1949 it ran mixed. In some respects this was good chance since along about 1944 the pattern domes of the Q sparked the plans for the domed CZ! After 1947 when Budd had begun delivery of the newly conceived stainless Domes and sleepers they would add them in or substitute.

Yes!

 

Mixed passenger cars are great, except in a select number of cases such as: SP Coast Daylight; Milwaukee Road Hiawatha; NYC 20th Century Limited or Empire State Express; PRR Broadway Limited or Congressional; or the California Zephyr.  Almost any other passenger train in the pre-Amtrak era was likely to have at least one "different" car.

 

I have complete trains and add-on cars from Lionel, MTH and Golden Gate Depot.  I have additional head-end cars from Lionel, MTH,  Pecos River Brass, and Weaver, and I love to mix them in a consist.  Some are plastic, others are brass, and they all look good when coupled into a realistic passenger train consist.

I would not want to break up those lines. No sir...



       
       

When I run with the FCTT HiRailers at a show, occasionally I bring a B&O passenger train. The usual consist contains of Williams E7 A&B upgraded with TMCC & Railsounds, an MTH express reefer, a Weaver troop sleeper based express car, 3 K-Line heavyweight baggage cars, an MTH heavyweight RPO and 7 MTH smoothside streamlined passenger cars. Some of the head end cars are painted solid royal blue without the gray band. This makes a impressive and realistic train. The only time you likely would see a perfectly matched set was in a publicity photo.
I grew up a quarter mile from the New York Central main line and probably saw a thousand passenger trains. I was 18 years old the first time I saw an Observation car on a train. I was coming home very late one evening from a date and was stopped at a crossing for what I think was the 20th Century.
Although, on my home layout I usually run shorter passenger trains with match equipment.