Freight Trains or Passenger Trains.........and why?

For me it seems to run in cycles. Right now I'm on a passenger train kick. Just finished my Ghost train for fun and I realized that many of my CC passenger cars need attention, so that is what I'm working on and running at the moment. A few months ago, it was all about flats, gondolas, and other odd cars with funky loads. I have a case full of cars with all sorts of stuff strapped to them from that period of modeling excitement. Who knows, a few months from now I'll be back on grabbing every Pacific Fruit Express car I can find to add to my collection (did that one about 2 years ago).

 

I love both passenger and freight, and I model specific trains for both types since I am a prototype modeler. My freights are limited to lengths of 9' 7 1/2" (about 30 40' cars) because of the length of my passing sidings and I model the city of Ogden, and Weber and Echo Canyons to Wahsatch at the top of the grade where the helpers were cut off and then returned light to Ogden to be turned. In Ogden, four major railroads came together, dropped off cars, changed motive power, changed both freight and passenger consists, then proceeded onward to all four points of the compass, which is why Ogden was known as "The Crossroads of the West". The four railroads who came through or terminated and/or originated at Ogden were the UP, the SP, the D&RGW and the WP with a local electrified branch known as "The Bamberger" that ran from south of Salt Lake City up into Idaho. The double-track UP mainline through Weber and Echo Canyons with the UP-style center sidings allows me to run freights. locals and passenger traffic much like the prototype did. There were almost 50 passenger trains that were present every day at the Ogden Union Station, and they changed out cars and motive power at the passenger yard and serviced the passenger trains with clean laundry and restocked the diner's food supply. Passenger trains you may have heard of included City of Los Angeles, City of San Francisco, City of St. Louis, San Francisco Overland, Gold Coast, Los Angeles Limited, Northwest Special, Idahoan, Butte Special, Pony Express, Prospecter and the Fast Mail. Some of these passenger trains ran more than one train, one going east, and one going west simultaneously and they appeared in Ogden at different times of the day and their consist was different, such as the COLA, which on one train had a coast-to-coast PRR sleeper, painted Streamliner Yellow, but with red Pennsy lettering, and the other train had an equivalent NYC sleeper in two-tone NYC Gray. Motive power was also changed out and with some trains arriving and departing with slightly changed consists, but arriving with SP GS's or PA/PB's in Daylight paint being changed over to UP Yellow or double-headed two-tone-gray UP FEF-3's & 2's. Some UP trains were Streamliner Yellow, some were two-tone gray and others were a combination with SP cars and Pullman Green heavyweight RPO's thrown in for variety.

Freights were equally interesting with Big Boys pulling all of the 4,000 + ton trains, with either a black TTT 2-10-2 or 3700 Class oil-fired Challenger on the rear for the really heavy manifests, which were usually PFE reefer blocks, livestock specials, ballast or coal trains and loooong mixed freights. Other head end power included both oil-fired and coal-fired Challengers with or without smoke deflectors, Yellow ABBA F3/F7 lashups, Alco FA/FB ABBA lashups, Yellow long-hood-forward GP-7's and GP-9 short-hood-forward A and B units. Both USRA and Heavy UP MacArthurs (Mikes) pulled locals towards Idaho, and Park City daily and the Evanston Local was also a daily train, pulled by a UP MacArthur. Switching the the Ogden Yard was handled by Alco S-4's in both UP Yellow and SP Tiger Stripe as the local switching company leased engines equally from the UP and SP. A daily D&RGW freight showed up every day to drop off cars and pick new ones up at their little yard at the north end of the huge Ogden/Riverdale yard and WP freights pulled by F Units would also show up every day. Both "Baby" and "Veranda" Turbines pulled freights up the Wasatch Grade too with or without fuel tenders, and oddly, they'd stop often at Echo and pick up and drop off cars for either the Park City Branch or to be delivered or picked up from the Ideal Concrete Factory at Devils Slide.

So, both freight (manifests, locals and in-town industrial switching) as well a a lot of famous and obscure passenger trains make this location just right for me and my love for both types of trains and five different types of operation.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

 

I make it easy, I run freight on the odd numbered days and use Passenger service as background animation, On the even numbered days, I place a long freight on as background animation while I switch passengers cars and set them out to be picked up and ran by the road locomotives. I have essentially a card system for both freight and passenger trains. I even hand off trains from one set of locomotives to another.

In short. its all good!

 

hmmm, I like both. Nothing beats a lone E7A hauling passenger cars along the columbia, Same for a pair of brutish C424's(now I have two so I can run them) hauling a long mixed freight, a pair of RS1's and a lone NW2 handling the yard, or an oddball BN SD90, F7A, and F3A chugging along. If anything I need more freight cars to balance out my fleet.

 

I think I get more pleasure out of modeling passenger trains because I enjoy the challenge of trying to put together accurate consists of specific prototype trains. The research appeals to the historian in me, and then trying to replicate the locomotives and cars appeals to the modeler in me.

Cheers,
-Mark

 

+1 What Mark and Russell said !

 

Hi All,

I run mostly freight. I do own passenger, but mostly freight.

Freight is what I saw the most of growing up.

With only two passenger trains per weekday in town, early in the morning (about 6:30) and late evening (about 9:00), I did not see many passenger trains, but the freight came all day long.

Gary

 

It's freight for me. Passenger service is rather boring. Basically it's one commodity in one type of car (OK, it's not strictly one, but let's not pick nits, Robert). Plus, to do passenger service justice, you really need a bigger layout so you can model the larger yards, wider curves (required for the longer cars), and more mileage between stations. Ops are much more minimal as well: go, stop, go, stop (yeah, yeah, I know, you get to swap out a few cars once in a while--whoop-de-whoop [insert big wink here]). Not to mention the equipment can be a lot more expensive!

For freight, you get to run a huge assortment of widely different cars that change constantly--indeed, it's almost never the same twice, and you get to decide how simple or complex ops will be. You can realistically cram a half-dozen industries into a tabletop layout, or go full-bore and model dozens of them on a larger one, with literally hours of work to do in one evening that can keep you and all of your friends occupied. (How many operators does it take to run the Broadway Limited?) Yeah, some passenger consists are pretty to look at, but they simply cannot compete for variety and operational challenge.

IMO, just in case you forget...

 

The same can be done for freight.


Jason

 

This, I can't tell you how much fun I've had in putting together a James Whitcomb Riley (in HO, but this is a fairly multiscale question) and rnning it knowing that its right.


I prefer running PAX, but I eally don't ever forsee myslef having the room or the drive to do a truly Passenger-devoted layout with a big terminal and a coach yard to switch in. What I do mostly is Private Varnish and Excursion stuff, sometimes tacked onto an Amtrak or a Steam locomotive I like and Business trains. PV cars are stored all over the country, so even a Class Three shortline can see some Passenger ca action, if only bringing it from storage to the mainline. And I'm in luck, two of my local muses are amassing small fleets of coaches for Business outings and Christmas (Santa) trains, the INRD and the CMPA. CMPA even keps buying ex-SP cars, another favorite of mine, and the INRD used to play host to trains from the museum I've volunteered with using NKP 587

 

I like variety, as many of you have stated. So, in my strange world, it's the early to mid '70s. Passenger service flourished, as did the CRI&P and the PC. Amtrak never existed. All my passenger trains are different, but will leave from the same "Union Station". BN will go to the Northwest, CRI&P to the Southwest, PC to the Northeast, Turtle Creek Central to the Southeast, and GT to Canada. The station will be located in "Somewhere", which is right in the middle !!! As far as freight, there is almost always variety there. Didn't really plan this, but most of my freight cars are 40'-60'. That will create ALOT of variety in one train, especially since there were more RRs back then !!! Of course, there will be a couple coal trains, auto-rack trains, piggyback, and the CRI&P PFE train. It all may sound crazy, but I think it will be cool. Some have asked why I would do it this way, and the answer is simple: "Because I said so, THAT'S why " !!!

 

I'd say there are subsets of both types of trains, both related to scale. I used to be yardmaster of the main yard of huge club layout on operations nights, and my entire evening was spent building freights, breaking down freights,l switching strings of cars, shuffling cabooses, sending out freights on time, and trying to keep tracks open for the nearly steady stream of incoming freights.
And I've had small home layouts that were a loop of track, with a 3-4 track single-ended yard, and lots of industries that two locals (one east, one west) would service at different times, which were only simple, slow switching jobs.
I've run passenger trains in schedules that call them out of a staging yard, stop at a few stations, drop off or pick-up a sleeper or diner or REA reefer at a main stop and then continue on to the terminating staging yard.
And I've had a stub-end full-blown passenger terminal, with platforms, REA track, Post Office track, turning wye, coach storage, commuter train tracks that was far from boring. Yes, the consists basically stayed together but when they came in I had to unload passengers and baggage, then pull the engines to send to the servicing, use a yard goat to pull the RPO, express mail, express box and REA reefers and deliver them to their respective tracks. Then I had to pull the whole train out and turn it on the wye and spot it on the assigned track. When it was time to go, I had to make sure that trains with RPOs had them (pulled from the PO track), plus any other headend cars that had to go out on them (according to destination, time schedule, and freight priority), including one or more mail-express baggage cars. Any pool cars from another railroad traveling in the train had to be retrieved and positioned correctly in the consist (and had to be broken out of inbounds and sent to the other railroad as well). Then I had to bring in the locos from the engine terminal, hook up, and finally the train was ready to leave.
Consider that other trains were coming and going during this process, all of them needing the same procedures, and at rush hour commuter trains were buzzing in and out of the station, so I found that passenger operations are far from boring. And I haven't even mentioned the mail and fast merchandise trains, where freight cars (boxcars - the "TimeSaver", "Merchandise Service" ones and others-- reefers, even TOFCs) of expedited goods are pulled from the freight house and others brought in from the freight yards to be made into other Class 1 trains -- each one with different destinations. And instead of a caboose these guys get a rider coach to bring up the end.
Not boring at all.
So it depends on what intensity level is in your chosen interest, freight or passenger, as to which is more fun.

 

When I got into N scale in 1982 I had a choice of 2 starter train sets from Model Power. They had the same motive power... a Minitrix F7(ish) diesel... but one set was passenger while the other was freight. I chose the passenger consist because I thought it would look better. I actually chose based on the uniformity of the set and color scheme... Santa Fe Red Warbonnet. I still enjoy the uniformity of a well matched passenger consist with appropriately assigned motive power that matches as well. The problem with passenger consists is that the individual cars are long and the curve radii need to be fairly wide for the consist to look right while going through a layout. Often... we buy N scale due to some space constraints... and a need for curves in excess of a 19" radius can gobble up a lot of real estate. Needless to say... I found it necessary to buy smaller freight equipment soon afterward. I got rid of the passenger train within a couple of years because it didn't fit my operational real estate... about 2' x 6'. Funny thing is that I still bought passenger train equipment for Rio Grande a few year later (ConCor stuff) but still couldn't run it until I joined a club in 1994. I got plenty of assorted freight cars... which didn't fit the 'uniformity' interest that I had originally started with in 1982. When Kato released their first passenger sets [in 1994???] I bought the CB&Q corrugated sets... but... hardly ran them. At that time... I figured I would not buy any more passenger stuff. When Kato got serious... and began the California Zephyr 'accurate' consists... I got hooked again. I have continued to support the passenger train releases from Kato... and have also purchased from Intermountain. I really don't get to run them... but they are nice to display. As model railroaders... its mostly about RUNNING trains... so FRIEGHT is more often RUN on my layout.

 

Well said, Russell.

 

I only have freight equipment. Besides operations and switching out industries, I love the sight of a trio of SD40-2s pulling a heavy freight. The closest thing I have to passenger equipment is a CN Track Evaluation RDC.

I guess I'd rather have a BNSF Earthworm than an Amtrak Empire Builder.

 

I like them both, but I started with freight because of size constraints. Then I discovered that I had the disease in a bad way and became a "collector" (aka hoarder). I tend toward Santa Fe, anything warbonnet catches my eye, but if it looks cool and different, that's good too. I am a sucker for CN striped locos. I agree that a mixed freight catches the eye with the variety of shapes and colors, but a long snake all the same color is nice too. Maybe it is multple personalities, I don't know, yes you do. Anyway, I like both. Oh, and to make things more confused, I am doing N scale and Z scale at the same time.

Having too much fun
Trey

 

If I had my druthers, I would do mostly passenger trains in the steam and streamliner era. I love the variety of the named trains and the history behind those named trains as they really represent the hey-dey and glamor of a by gone era, the focus on speed and punctuality to provide the best service, and just some of the impressive scenery/modelling/trackwork within passenger service of that era - from the big passenger terminals with complex switching systems to get the right train on the right track down to the flag stop in the country. To some degree, railroads spared no expense in those days when it came to passenger trains vs what they did with freight service.

The reality is that I do much more freight train modelling of all eras because of the space I have even at 13x20 - watching a long passenger train chase it's tail on even a large n scale layout takes some of the fun out of it (different if I had the opportunity to run passenger on a truly monsterous layout). But either way, its all still fun to me.

 

You have a great point with the passenger era. No interstates back then. Like I mentioned, I had the opportunity to ride on top notch passenger trains when I was growing up, and these trips were actually part of the vacation. The service on these trains was second to none. There was competition between railroads to give the best service to draw passengers to their railroad. The food was outstanding. I managed to find a couple of cook books with recipes from railroads. They're great!

For many people, this was the way to travel. I wish I could also have a large passenger terminal and room to run streamline trains, but I chose to model a short line switching railroad, BUT, I did come up with a way to have a few NP stream line cars as a tourist train to Yellowstone Park. The NP did run a train from Livingston, MT to Gardiner, MT taking passengers to the park, but this service was discontinued in the late 40's. I model 1957 and my railroad connects to the UP in West Yellowstone, MT, so I do run a tourist train over my rails just to be able to run these cars.