Model Railroad Podcast

Model Railcast Show #68
Tue, Jun 16, 2009
Posted by: Ryan Andersen

Show #68 - Passenger Trains
This week's Hosts\Guests: Tim, Craig, Ralph, Don, Alan & Ted

Crew Lounge

Updates from our guests.
 
Round House
  • Segue with brief rundown of sponsors.
  • Updates from guests Alan, Craig, Don, Ted, and Ralph
  • RH part 1- Discussing Prototype Passenger Ops and Express Service- also what is going on (or what we envision) on our layouts.
  • Coach length and Radius problems
  • Scenarios and the context of Passenger Ops on the prototype that we can re-enact; not just about passengers, but also mail, excursions, and a quick look at narrow guage application as well.
  • Intermission: The Chuckle Coupler returns! "The MRCS Retrospective"
  • More application of the scenarios to our layouts.  
  • Make sure if you want it to look right you do your homework!
  • What we're using for rolling stock and how it's working for us.
  • Brief look at Diner Service and what warrants it on a RR we might be modeling.
  • Final thoughts, examples, and the RH wrap up.
  • This Week on the MRCS Forums, Ralph and Alan give us the low-down on what's been going on; and the show finish 

Length: 2 hours 

Show Links

http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/fall/fast-mail-1.html

http://www.housatonicrr.com/passops.html

Motrak Models New Products (site)

  • Resin coal loads for the new BLMA TopGons in HO scale. You get 2 loads for $5.50. Item number is 8717-1
  • Resin woodchip loads for the new Exact Rail Gundererson Woodchip Hopper in HO scale. You get 2 loads for $7.50 and the item number is 8716-1
  • Chris Clune from Exact Rails told me that the N scale version of the woodchip hopper will be out by the end of summer.

Show Sponsors 

  • Minuteman Scale Models  Special for MRCS Listeners 
    • Shawn has a special deal right now for Model Railcasters only
    • Order $35 or more and Shawn will send you a free laser wood kit.
    • When placing your order remember to put ModelRailcast in the order comments box.
  • Alkem Scale Models
  • Marty McGuirk.com
  • Support your model railroad community, sponsor the Model Railcast Show.

Have an iPod or other Apple brand device?  Then subscribe to the AAC feed here
or right-click this link here to download the AAC version of the show.
comments(14) • agreeboasted(0) • no waytoasted(0) • Listen
 
 
Commentsshow votes
Posted by: Ironsiderodger MRCS Pioneer on Tue, Jun 16 2009     www.ironsaddcasts.mypodcast.com
Firstly my apologies for the delay, and secondly for any problems with the audio. Skype was very sketchy this week, and I was able to eq the guys who had problems, but it's still noticeable. Thanks for your patience listeners! And Ryan- you're the best dude!
Posted by: markpierce MRCS Pioneer on Wed, Jun 17 2009    
It was worth the wait.
Posted by: LVRRMAN on Wed, Jun 17 2009    
So far, so good, I am pretty much done listening........The audio recording issues with some of the callers that are still present in the podcast were exactly what I was hearing that night thru my headset when we recorded it. Excellent job in post-production, guys! And I LOVE the "Barry White" MRC Retrospective production piece, Tim!

Ralph
Posted by: simtim MRCS Pioneer on Wed, Jun 17 2009     alwaystigers.mlblogs.com/
Ryan,

I feel humbled and honored that you would do an entire show based on a question that I had asked! When I started listening to # 68 today, I couldn’t believe my ears! It was too good to be true! But none-the-less, there it was and I enjoyed it immensely & learned quite a bit, especially about passenger ops from the 1800’s. I will definitely listen to it again to pick up anything I missed the first time around. My Mom used to ride a train from my hometown to Chicago (about a 4-hour ride) often during the weekends during her college years on beautiful Pere Marquette E7A trains. I’ve continued the legacy by riding the Amtrak on the same route (now known as Pere Marquette) a few times.

Tim
Posted by: dio51662 MRCS Pioneer on Thu, Jun 18 2009    
If anyone is interested, I posted pictures of my Gator Foam benchwork in the picture section of this website. Its in my folder called Gatorfoam. So far it seams sturdy.

It was a fun show this week, but I thought for sure I would sound terrible this time. So either I did ok or Tim is the wonder boy of editing. I think it's the latter. :)

Ted DiIorio
Modeling the East Broad Top HOn3 1942-43
Posted by: alkemscalemodels MRCS Pioneer on Thu, Jun 18 2009     www.alkemscalemodels.com
Good show, it's was great to have Tim pick up the slack and he did a fine job.

To add to your discussion of express companies. The Adams Express company was active during the Civil War and made deliveries to both sides. On my ACW layout, the Adams company will be present delivering goods. The USMRR did not allow individual soldiers to ship goods on the railroad. They had to use the Adams company. The USMRR did haul US mail though.

As for show feedback, I think the forum review is probably overkill. If something in the forum is noteworthy it could be mentioned, but making it a regular feature is problematic. Also, I'd edit the updates a little tighter, especially when folks report, "didn't get much done this week."

Loved Tim's voice in the retrospective, and I can't wait to go operate on Marty's finished layout.


Posted by: Ironsiderodger MRCS Pioneer on Thu, Jun 18 2009     www.ironsaddcasts.mypodcast.com
Thanks Bernie! (Oh and by Marty's "finished layout" I was referring in the past tense... unless he's been holding out on us recently... quick, get over there and spy!
Posted by: markpierce MRCS Pioneer on Thu, Jun 18 2009    
"Also, I'd edit the updates a little tighter, especially when folks report, 'didn't get much done this week.'"

I'm not so sure. A bit of this is fine. Having "just the facts, ma'am" as per Jack Webb would make things a bit dry.

Also, briefly talking about what's going on specifically in the forum is a good way to attract more interest in it, if that's the purpose.

Mark
Posted by: dramos_1701 MRCS Pioneer on Thu, Jun 18 2009     www.nyhrr.com
Good Show Tim!

Nice to hear from Ralph and Ted and the other guys as well. I look foward to having Ryan over to my house for the OPSig Op Session on July 5th!

Dave
Posted by: darkterritory MRCS Pioneer on Fri, Jun 19 2009     www.Housatonicrr.com
Very well done with the editing, Tim... Skype was sure acting up that night!

It was great fun to be a part of that show, but once again I was talking too fast. Got to watch that.

Ralph was right, I got a bit carried away on the LCL part, that was mostly handled on freight trains, but as he said I'm sure that some was handled by passenger trains occaisionally.

Adams Express was also the carrier of the Housatonic Railroad, in fact all of my baggage cars are sub-lettered for "Adams Express", and their signage appears on many of the freight houses (or it will when they get decaled... And painted... And built...)

I also got carried away discussing the speed of my passenger trains - I meantto say that max speed was probably about 40, most probably ran about 25-30 like Don's. It was the milk train thing that got me started.

Anyway thanks to yan and Tim for coming up with a really interesting topic!
Posted by: ricky4208 MRCS Pioneer on Fri, Jun 19 2009    
Hi all,

great show again. The layout retrospective was very interesting for me too, well done.

Passenger operation is an interesting topics and made me think if I can plan to have a few in my future (far future) layout.

Anyway, I liked a lot how Tim mixed all the clips and the music used. It gave the show a very "professional" touch.

Looking forward to the next show.

Regards, Ricky4208.
Posted by: ChrisNH MRCS Pioneer on Sat, Jun 20 2009     model-railroad-hobbyist.com/blog/chrisNH
I enjoyed this episode a lot. I would be very interested to hear this addressed again but with an eye to all the switching that is done with passenger service. You can have a lot of switching action where routes converged. For instance, White River Junction had a coach yard and arriving passenger trains were quickly (and gently) modified for their trips to other locations.

In my Lyndonville Sub. layout there were two main passenger trains that ran from Boston to Montreal (NY->Montreal was primarily CV). One was the Allouette day train, the other was the Red Wing overnight train. Redwing was discontinued in the 50s. Allouette ran into the mid 60s as an RDC. I am hoping to recreate this as an Amtrak route patterned after the Montrealer train of the time using the same locomotive and cars (E8 early, then FP40s).

Alouette in the 50s http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?2005062514491627287.jpg
Amtrak Montrealer in the early 70s http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?2008112220305827271.jpg
Or early 80s (I am doing 1979..) http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?2009010121185312637.jpg

To this end I have made sure my mainline has no diverging turnouts routes and 21" Radius (89 foot car, about 7", 3x7" = 21"R)

Regards,

Chris
Posted by: jbaakko on Sun, Jun 21 2009     rr.blockchoice.com
Just for a little information, Amtrak did run MHC (Material Handling Cars), Express Boxcars, and Road Railers up until the '00's.

There was a legal battle with the freight railroads, which disputed Amtrak's "right" to haul freight in express, without paying the freight railroads, freight use fees. Basically, they were paying less to use the freight railroad's track, thus they could charge less then the freight railroads would charge for the freight. Not sure what happened there, but I know the former Amtrak freight equipment can be found patched for leasing companies now.

Also, some better terminology for you.
-Train (explained well on the show): For passenger service, train 1 would be one direction where train 2 would be the opposite. Santa Fe Super Chief was Trains 17 & 18, and the El Capitan was 21 & 22.
-Train Set (not the toy train): A Locomotive and cars that stay together. Commuter agencies are a good reference for this, take for example The Coaster commuter service here in San Diego, they have 3-4 operational train sets, however run as a different train identifier traveling northbound or southbound. SB being even numbers, such as #634 & #662, NB gets odd, such as #635 & #665. #635 would use the trainset that just came South as #634 to go North, ect...
Posted by: stopem MRCS Pioneer on Mon, Jun 22 2009    
Guys,

Great podcast again this week.

Because I'll be operating local practice, over here in the UK, I will be operating freight in the early morning part of sessions, then after the rush hour and stop again for the evening rush hour with freight returning at night.

I am currently working on the design of the layout which will reflect my 20 years of working on the railway in the south of England, it will have to be portable for exhibitions and computer controlled so I can talk to the people watching the railway as well as being able to take it over manually.

It was interesting to hear how you guys run passenger trains and how the milk trains ran in the old days.

Keep up the good work,

Paul
 
 
Comments Expired. Comments are no longer being accepted for this post.