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I like to run mixed passenger/freight trains. Here are two that I ran today, both with a seasonal bent:

 

 

IMG_1892

 

Hmmmmm.....the video won't load.....here's the link:

 

http://youtu.be/oTtCEfXWIDQ?li...kQJ-ZfHsMSyJlLWKtA-A

 

Who else routinely runs mixed trains?

 

Peter

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I believe Lionel has marketed very few mixed trains in its long history:

 

1958 catalog: O27 Burlington passenger passenger set (ALCO A unit, REA reefer and 2 passenger cars.

 

1959 and a few catalogs after that......the General sets ( moving livestock and passengers).

 

1994 New York Central passenger/freight set.....headed by an ALCO RS unit, 2 passenger cars ( one, a combine) and a few freight cars.

 

anyone think of others?

 

Peter

I like a mixed train, especially on a small layout. A small locomotive (maybe a Consolidation, or a Mogul, or an RSD-4), a few freight cars and one combine or coach is a prototypical consist for many, many branch lines on the railroads. A couple of boxcars, a hopper or two with coal or gravel, a tank car with fuel oil or gasoline, maybe a reefer with some fresh produce, or meat, or beer, or all three, and a flatcar with a new tractor or combine - that's the heart of small-town rural America in the steam and transition eras. 

I like them, too, Bob.  On the Milwaukee Road they used to call them "patrols", and the  Road had some specially built combines that were designed just for mixed train use.  They were the only streamlined cars that had been built with oil lamp lighting, coal stove heating and they had open platforms.   The open platforms were not for passenger observation use, but were designed for trainmen to hop onto and off of, just like they would on a regular caboose.  Love to see some of those come up in "0" gauge.

 

Paul Fischer

Marx made several different mixed train sets, in their early six inch series, and with

the #1829 Hudson and ATSF tin and plastic F-units.  I can't recall any with the popular

#999 2-4-2, or with the several other different road names available on the plastic F's.  The later sets had the silver ATSF cars with Marx freight cars, and I can think of

none with the #1829 diesel switcher.  I think Montgomery Wards sold one called "The Switch Train Set", that contained six inch passenger and freight cars.  No authority on Flyer, but I think they had a worktrain set with

the 0-8-0 swithcher, a work train including a crane, and a coach.

Well I'm the last guy to run prototypical considering I just buy anything I like.... hence I have a UP Challenger pulling my NYC Passenger line all the time.  But every once in a while I'll add in four to six of my ATLAS Steam Era Reefers because they just look so good! 

 

I think once or twice I've had my WWII military flats trailing those cars loaded with gear too!  Not to mention running some freight, though it might be close to the locomotive and not the tail end, gives me a reason to run a caboose when attached to the rear of the train!  

I do it all the time.  I like seeing the lone single or pair of passenger cars behind a caboose on a short freight train.  My 1st O gauge layout was built with that in mind.  Just an O36 look with a couple of spurs that would roll under my bed.  I got a 0-6-0 Dockside, a couple of freight cars, caboose, and a combine car to run on it.

Here's another thought for a "mixed train" concept:  I've seen freight trains running in none-passenger train served territory with a business car tacked on the back end.  It's not uncommon for a railroad, when they need to get an executive to a specific location, to handle the car in this fashion.  The addition of the railroad's business car in the RR colors, can make a nice variation to the typical freight train.  Most of these cars are self-sufficient in terms of having their own, on board power supply to even include car heating in winter.

 

Paul Fischer

Originally Posted by fisch330:

Here's another thought for a "mixed train" concept:  I've seen freight trains running in none-passenger train served territory with a business car tacked on the back end.  It's not uncommon for a railroad, when they need to get an executive to a specific location, to handle the car in this fashion.  The addition of the railroad's business car in the RR colors, can make a nice variation to the typical freight train.  Most of these cars are self-sufficient in terms of having their own, on board power supply to even include car heating in winter.

 

Paul Fischer

Good point, and depending on the terrain, i.e. a "roller coaster" railroad line, that business car would usually be placed right behind the motive power on the headend.

I've done that at our toy train museum. I have three of the K-Line business cars (Milwaukee Road, SP, and Santa Fe Midnight Chief). Gotta do something with them, and as Paul points out, it's prototypical.
 
Originally Posted by fisch330:

Here's another thought for a "mixed train" concept:  I've seen freight trains running in none-passenger train served territory with a business car tacked on the back end.  It's not uncommon for a railroad, when they need to get an executive to a specific location, to handle the car in this fashion.  The addition of the railroad's business car in the RR colors, can make a nice variation to the typical freight train.  Most of these cars are self-sufficient in terms of having their own, on board power supply to even include car heating in winter.

 

Paul Fischer

 

By our Farm we had 3 major railroads running within seeing distance, Milwaukee, NYC, and UP. During late 50s, early 60s before they no longer hauled on these tracks and went to just freight, the NYC and Milwaukee had 2 or 3 Heavyweights and the rest freight cars 1 and 2 times a day going by. The UP had smaller and smaller consist of passenger cars, but only once saw several freight cars included. Also very few matching consist or colors, a mixture of Pullman Green and their Road Streamlined passenger cars. Very few times seen a train go by that consisted of all matching passenger cars. I wish I had all the 8MM film I shot on the trains, and local turntable, but all was lost in a fire.

Originally Posted by AXP889:

Lionel had a US Army troop transport set that had a steam engine and I think a tank car, flat with 2 jeeps, and two madison style cars.  I don't remember when it came out, i think maybe mid 90s becuase i remember coveting it in the cataloges when I was younger.

I believe you are referring to the 2000 "D" Day set

http://www.lionel.com/Products...951&CategoryID=0

Last edited by Mel Wolff
Originally Posted by 49Lionel:

Very often I run a train of a handful of early 20th-century freight cars with an open-platform combine and maybe a coach.  It makes for a very handsome, completely prototypical consist behind a 2-8-0, 4-6-0, etc.  No matter what region you live in, there was probably something like that very near to you.

I agree with that all the way.I would go with the 2-8-0 or a gp9 2 boxcars a flatcar another boxcar tankcar a gon and 2 passenger and a cabosse.Lord know I have seen alot of mixed trains in western cowboy movies.

"Mixed Train Daily", the Beebe book cited above by mwb, has long been one of my

"bibles".  Beebe and Clegg found these railroad operations so interesting, they

traveled the country recording them right after WWII, for which we can give thanks. My mother used to ride from Shelbyville, Ky. out on L&N's Bloomfield branch

to visit her aunt on a mixed train comprised of assorted freights and a "Jim Crow"

(center baggage door) combine.  At the end of this train's operation it was pulled

by a diesel switcher, I think a Baldwin.  An old issue of MR has an article with photos

on doing a layout around a Wisconsin line running mixed trains, powered by diesels.

With the thread running on mixing unmatched passenger cars, and mixed trains, you

can get an idea of what runs on these rails here.

I remember, in the '50s, seeing a mixed train on the eastern shore of VA, one passenger car dragged along by the way freight.  In the late 60's, the SOU Piedmont left Washington with one EMD cab loco and 1 or 2 passenger cars, but south of Manassas it had 3 locos in front of the cab unit and a string of freight cars behind the passenger cars.  Some people consider the AutoTrain to be a mixed train.

Here's a mixed train that I ran at the show yesterday. I can see a train like this in the mid 50s, doing branchline service in upstate New York........

 

an ALCO RS-3 with a stem generator

an RPO

an REA reefer with product to be dropped off at various small towns

a few milk car empties to return to upstate milk collection points

a passenger car for the few passengers and the freight crew

 

 

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Peter

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