Several discussions, both here and elsewhere, have prompted me to wonder, are passenger trains a popular part of the model railroad hobby?

I'm sure nearly everyone here has had some sort of passenger equipment at some point during their run with the hobby. However, recently I've noticed a trend: Very few people actually model passenger trains as part of their layout. Rather, they seem to fill in many modeler's collections, appearing only occaisionally to impress friends, pose for pictures, or to break up the freight service every once in a while. They seem to spend more time in boxes and shelves than on the rails.

This is not the only issue.

A fellow on another forum decided to help his young neighbor get started in model railroading, only to find that most Amtrak stuff was not available (at least, not in any recent schemes). It makes me wonder if passenger trains (especially the more modern ones like Amtrak or Via Rail) are being relegated to more of a limited production because of low demand. Though plenty of streamliners are currently available for purchase (perhaps more than there ever were), I rarely see them on the rails outside of a few model-railroad club open houses.

Is it just that Industrial shortlines and other "off the main" type railroad layouts have become so popular that the market for passenger trains have been reduced? After all, outside of heavily populated areas, passenger trains (if any) rarely show up. Perhaps they do not catch people's imaginations anymore?

What is your take on modeling Passenger trains?

Passenger trains can look pretty going thru the scenery but from a operations stand point they are very boring to most people. In countries other than the USA where they still have a nationwide network of regularly scheduled passenger trains you see more of them on layouts. In this country where we no longer have passenger service in the vast majority of towns/cities (and some say Amtrak doesn't count even where it does run ) there just isn't as much interest. Nobody cares much about something you rarely if ever see I guess. An other problem is space. Passenger cars are veryyyyyyyyyy long and require a much larger radius to perform and look good while doing it. In HO you really need at least a 30" radius and 36" to look good when going thru a curve. Most HO layouts have a min. of 24" to 28".
Then of course if you don't install the diaphrams you run the risk of pregnacy and being overun with all those baby passenger cars that nobody wants and you can't even give away!

I'll model passenger service where they fit my layout's setting. Right now with my Milwaukee Road branch line they're simply not needed to reinforce the theme.

Operation of passenger trains is what you make it to be. If you're a one-man operation then they are probably rather boring to watch run around and stop occasionally. But at the same time if you're running a one-man layout you need to take a good look at what's really necessary to build and maintain a realistic model railroad. If you're a part of a multi-operator layout with a dispatcher and a long mainline then the operational possibilities of passenger trains are much broader.

It's worth pointing out that there are many different kinds of passenger trains, especially in the pre-Amtrak era. Beyond name trains, there are the secondary trains on the same routes, local coach trains, and mail and express trains. This is what makes the former NYC and PRR interesting, for instance. And intermodals are actually the direct descendants of the mail and express trains. Or look at the typical fruit blocks that were hauled by turbines on the UP -- express reefers were mixed in with ordinary reefers, and such operations seem to have been hybrid passenger-freight in many cases, since strawberries and similar produce spoil quickly and need to be moved on fast schedules. I'm still working out the full operating scheme for my layout, but I'm pretty well along in instituting a mail and express run, and in fact I have a passenger terminal that already has a switch job that moves express reefers, baggage, and box-express cars around.

If you're looking for inspiration, I can't say enough about DVDs with archival 8mm and 16mm railfan footage from the 40s, 50s, and 60s (even earlier if you can find it -- Gerald Best was making railfan films in the 20s). An all-color railfan book is now in the $60-70-80 range, while DVDs can be found on sale for $10, and even at full price are in the $20-30 range.

Films will show things like passenger cars being deadheaded in freights for any of a dozen reasons, for instance.

I have to say "Yea", but obviously, this issue largely depends on the type and focus of your layout.

Since my layout is based circa 1900 and involves isolated towns and industries served only by rail at the time, passenger service features prominently in the mix. That has become something of a problem, because period passenger cars in N-scale are very scarce. If I were modeling a more modern layout, however, passenger service would not feature in it all.

Chuck Hitckcock did an interesting story on passenger operations at a passenger terminal (Argentine, KS) in Model Railroad Planning 1997 - he operated a dozen trains a day, coming in from different directions and either terminating in the yard at Argentine, or having cars swapped out - head end cars of mail or express goods, taking off a parlor-observation car from train #11 and putting it on train #211 and so on and so forth.

He had a three track car yard, a couple of platform tracks, a place to set out cars that went on with other trains, the post office, the railway express agency, the comissary building track, a track that went to the local coal fired power station and a track with three or four local industries, plus the depot and the freight house.

Plenty of operations - with staging representing trains going off in or arriving from three directions.

Passenger can be done in cool ways. But I don't have the kind of space to pull it off, and I think freight is more interesting. I can see extensive passenger operations every day. Freight switching is exotic for me :-)

Smile,
Stein

On my layout, the majority of the passenger service is comprised of through trains stopping only to drop off passengers before continuing on to off-layout destinations. Probably only a fourth or less of passenger trains will have the principle town on my layout as either a final or RON destination. Most of switching operations will involve the mining and manufacturing industries.

As the hobbyists in this line get younger there are folks that have never seen a passenger train, therefore they have no interest in them.
I think we tend to model the eras we grew up in or the era just prior to that.
I would be as bored running a van train or double stack as younger folks would be with a passenger train, and as far as today's passenger locomotives, IMHO they can't ever find enough paint to cover ugly Even the old electric box cabs had more design.
Charlie

"Chuck Hitckcock did an interesting story on passenger operations at a passenger terminal (Argentine, KS) in Model Railroad Planning 1997 - he operated a dozen trains a day, coming in from different directions and either terminating in the yard at Argentine, or having cars swapped out - head end cars of mail or express goods, taking off a parlor-observation car from train #11 and putting it on train #211 and so on and so forth."

While this is true he has since ditched that and rebuilt the layout as a industrial switching layout.

Tyson Rayles Wrote:"Chuck Hitckcock did an interesting story on passenger operations at a passenger terminal (Argentine, KS) in Model Railroad Planning 1997 - he operated a dozen trains a day, coming in from different directions and either terminating in the yard at Argentine, or having cars swapped out - head end cars of mail or express goods, taking off a parlor-observation car from train #11 and putting it on train #211 and so on and so forth."

While this is true he has since ditched that and rebuilt the layout as a industrial switching layout.

Oh sure. His AIDRY (Argentine Industrial District Railway), which succeeded the Santa Fe Argentine District layout after the AD had lasted for 15 years (from 1986 until 2001), is one of the best switching layouts I have ever seen presented in print.

But the fact that Chuck switched to a switching layout that is all within yard limits, with no passenger traffic doesn't mean that passenger traffic can't be fun. It just means that for some of us, pure freight switching can be even more fun, Or maybe that a master like Chuck Hitchcock occasionally need new challenges, and starts over, doing something else.

Some pictures from the web page of Chuck's custom structure building business, showing industries on the AIDRY: http://www.chuckhitchcockstructures.com/photo_gallery

Smile,
Stein

While there won't be a proper "operation" of passenger trains on the LC&P, there will be a passenger train roaring through the layout. When the order comes through to clear the tracks, it'll be because this baby is coming through....



Right now I only have the A and B units, but will be adding the passenger cars to make a full "Chief" consist.
Actually, the setting of the LC&P (New Mexico) was chosen to accomodate this beauty....

There is plenty of room for switching in passenger service. Think of the box-express and express refrigerator cars that are switched out at passenger terminals. This is a view of part of my passenger terminal, which I'm still tweaking:
[albumimg]4101[/albumimg]
While I will have more complete passenger service when I get my layout's operational scheme better developed, I currently treat the passenger terminal as something of a glorified Inglenook. Carl Arendt's site has several passenger Inglenooks as examples, too.

Charlie B Wrote:As the hobbyists in this line get younger there are folks that have never seen a passenger train, therefore they have no interest in them.
I think we tend to model the eras we grew up in or the era just prior to that.
I would be as bored running a van train or double stack as younger folks would be with a passenger train, and as far as today's passenger locomotives, IMHO they can't ever find enough paint to cover ugly Even the old electric box cabs had more design.
Charlie

Perhaps its the geographical location of many of the modelers I know who are 25 and under, but my experience is the opposite.

Its usually the younger folks trying to model the passenger trains (frequently Amtrak and whatever local commuter agency they see). Several people I know are trying to build Amtrak's Silver Meteor in its current form. There is much anxiety to be had on eBay, seeking out the now retired Amfleet II long distance coaches. Several others are trying to build Amtrak's Metroliner cab-car rebuilds. Not to mention whatever local commuter agency they see on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, nearly every car in the mix is retired or hard to obtain. If you're good at surfing the net, you can find these things on places like HO Yard sale for a good price, and even if you're lucky, on eBay.

However, even though i can go out and get all the special, unique cars that made up some sort of 1950-60s era streamliner, the every day basic Amfleet Coach is nearly impossible to locate.


Hey, those modern trains aren't ugly! They have Character!

jwb Wrote:If you're looking for inspiration, I can't say enough about DVDs with archival 8mm and 16mm railfan footage from the 40s, 50s, and 60s (even earlier if you can find it -- Gerald Best was making railfan films in the 20s). An all-color railfan book is now in the $60-70-80 range, while DVDs can be found on sale for $10, and even at full price are in the $20-30 range.

Films will show things like passenger cars being deadheaded in freights for any of a dozen reasons, for instance.

I definitely agree. I picked up a few DVDs on the Northeast Corridor, such as Herron Rail's "Pennsy's Racetrack 1940-1980". indeed, that DVD DOES go to the 20s, both to the New york Tubes with DD1 jack-shaft electrics, and to Broad Street Station in Philadelphia (before it was covered up), with MP54s when they were new, as well as some steam. It didn't cost me much more than $20.

That was probably one of the major forces that pushed me to move my time period back to 1979 instead of the modern day (wanting to model freight was the other).

Much of the material on the Herron Pennsy Racetrack DVD came from David J. Williams III, a very prolific railfan film guy who also collected the older footage. He was particularly interested in electrics and interurbans; Herron has a Pocahontas Glory DVD with his films of the Virginian electrification. I've found zilch on this otherwise! Green Frog has Williams DVDs on the Milwaukee electrification and the Chicago interurbans. Emery Gulash is the gold standard on passenger trains, though. Oddly, I've been able to find very little biographical information on either individual (if anyone knew these guys, or has biographical info, I'd really be interested to hear it).