Charlie (and list) -
Thanks for the correction/clarification. You're right, of course, both with
respect to the shorty combines and shorty baggage-RPOs (i.e., the ones NKP
brought out a few years ago) as well as the longer coach/pullman conversions
Hol Wagner traces. As Pete said, for those who want photos, Spoor's CB&Q Color
Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment has a section devoted to some of these
cars, on pp. 16-17. And of course you can get chapter and verse on the
conversions, complete with diagrams & pictures, in the Glick trilogy.
What strikes me as significant is not so much that the Thrifty Grangers didn't
buy or build any NEW branchline passenger equipment, but rather that they did
make explicit conversions to create distinct classes of cars dedicated to that
function. (As an aside, it's noteworthy that some of the branchline cars even
were painted in a different color scheme (mineral red) from mainline (or
commuter) passenger cars.) So the Burlington did at some level(s) think of
these cars as belonging to the same category of service. And branchline service
wasn't just a catch-all for old equipment or even old passenger equipment.
There was an explicit strategy in what to use as a starting point and what to
do with it. In that sense, it's analogous to the Q's converting all those old
R-4 and R-5 prairies into G-10 switchers. Just as in that case, the branchline
passenger car conversions produced "new" (rebuilt) equipment with distinctive
appearance and operating characteristics, which became part of the railroad's
"personality." That's what I was trying to get at in the first sentence of my
last posting.
Jonathan
--- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, "Charlie Vlk" <cvlk@...> wrote:
>
> Jonathan-
> An excellent treatsie...
> ....but I would differ with you on one fine point.....
> The Q, unlike other roads, really didn't build any cars new for Branchline
> service.
> For example, the "shorty" steel combines, which were rebuilt for branchline
> service, were RPOs built right before the Post Office put mandatory standards
> in place for Mail Cars.... rendering the almost brand-new cars unsuited for
> their intended use. They got rebuilt (a couple of times?) into baggage and
> RPO/Combine passenger cars and because of their size were used in local and
> branchline mixed train service.
> Same thing with wooden cars. I'd say that the Drovers Waycars were the only
> purpose-built cars that got used in branchline service (and I am not talking
> about the Branchline Combine Waycars here... I mean the 30' Waycars that were
> fitted out with extra bunks for drovers service). The Q rebuilt older
> coaches and combines with Cupolas and had several styles of Branchline
> Combine Waycars.... the most known to modelers being the one that Bernie
> Corbin provided a picture of that ran in Model Railroader in the mid 50's....
> (I think it accompanied an article on kitbashing an Ambroid combine into
> one). These were the CW-7s of 1913. But there were earlier types, some of
> which survived to be photographed that had the old reverse curve small cupola
> .... and there were probably even earlier ones that didn't get photographed.
> Early on some waycars had side doors and some passenger seats, and very late
> in the game a few were fitted out with a baggage door and some walkover seats
> for branchline passengers.
> The Q was a very... err.. frugal... railroad and nothing was ever wasted...
> and has been pointed out, the branchline mixed trains got the
> hand-me-downs.... in motive power and passenger carrying cars.
> Charlie Vlk
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Duncan Cameron
> To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2009 6:34 AM
> Subject: Re: [CBQ] Re: Mixed trains on the Q
>
>
> Jonathan,
> Very well done. Brief and very helpful to a modeller.
> The train I'm modelling on the old Keokuk and Western in 1962-63 will be
> pulled by an NW2, includes a variety of freight equipment and ultimately will
> have a kit-bashed model of a Q branchline combine as showed in the Freight
> and Colour guide. A good picture of a similar train is in Mike Spoor's In
> Colour volume 3.
> Duncan Cameron
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: bigbearoak
> To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 12:51 PM
> Subject: [CBQ] Re: Mixed trains on the Q
>
> Until I read these postings, I hadn't realized to what extent the character
> of the Burlington was expressed in its mixed trains - much as it was in the
> distinctive qualities of its steam engines or passenger equipment.
>
> As the various postings indicate, the Q ran a variety of mixed train types.
> That in itself is no surprise; as a general rule on US railroads, there's
> probably no other kind of train where you'd see greater variety, even on
> trains from the same railroad. But the 'mix' of mixed trains on the
> Burlington wasn't random or a hodge-podge of components. There was a definite
> evolution of characteristic consists - which is of interest if, say, you are
> trying to model a mixed train for a particular era.
>
> Early on, these branchline trains looked very much like the mixeds on any
> US shortline or branchline - a smaller, older engine relegated to the lighter
> track and traffic of a feeder line, pulling a short string of cars trailed by
> a wooden combine or maybe a drover's caboose. There were also a handful of
> shorty passenger cars, both wood and steel, built for branchline service,
> during the early part of the 20th c. Motive power varied, but this service
> was, on many divisions, the last niche for the railroad's Class "A" 4-4-0s,
> what justified their rebuilding and continued service through the 1920s. This
> form of mixed train would have been fairly typical from, say, the 1904
> renumbering to the 1928 relettering. In a few areas, such trains persisted
> much longer, through the Depression and WW II into the 1950s. You could model
> this type of train in HO using a trusty NPP K-2 4-6-0, a LaBelle or Railway
> Classics drover's caboose, and period freight cars of your choice. The
> drover's caboose could be replaced by a NKP shorty combine (CF-7). And in
> some regions, an extra express reefer or cream car would be a plausible
> addition.
>
> In the late 1920s and early '30s, economic and technological changes
> altered the appearance and consist of this traditional mixed train on most of
> the Burlington's branchlines. The rise of internal combustion technology
> prompted the railroad to retire its aging fleet of Class "A" Americans. The
> steamers were 35-40 years old by then and having to haul freight cars
> considerably heavier than they were designed to. Declining traffic and the
> frugality of the railroad had allowed them to keep working branchline mixeds
> well into the 1920s, but when gas-electrics appeared, the railroad quickly
> replaced them with the internal combustion units. The gas-electrics could
> haul a few freight cars, but normally they operated with just a single
> trailer car - sometimes a baggage-RPO, sometimes a combine, sometimes a
> coach, but almost always an older, wooden car (saved fuel, and in truth, the
> gas-electrics weren't that powerful). When traffic warranted, a steam engine
> would replace the gas-electric. Ten wheelers were common, but Atlantics,
> Pacifics, moguls and prairies might be used, depending on topography,
> tonnage, and era.
>
> Another set of changes occurred after World War II, the result of further
> retirement of old equipment and changing traffic patterns. By this time, the
> oldest, wooden passenger cars were wearing out, as were some of the old
> gas-electrics. Declining traffic led to the abandonment of some routes and
> trains, resulting in a surplus of both gas electrics and steel passenger
> cars. These now became the main source of passenger equipment on branchline
> trains. Some coaches were used as-is, some were converted into combines. Some
> gas-electrics, with motors removed also were converted to combines. You can
> see various examples on the Washington, IA branch and the Sterling-Cheyenne
> line, where an SW-1 or NW-2 came in as the worthy successor to an Atlantic or
> Ten-Wheeler, or in the case of the Sterling line a gas-electric. Center cabs
> were also used as motive power on some branches. As for modeling, you could
> use a Branchline passenger coach as a stand-in for a 6100-series coach, or
> use the real thing from NKP or Aurora. And there are many kit-bashing
> possibilities for unique branchline cars the Q cannibalized out of its own
> equipment. Throwing in an express car or three - either the older wooden
> express reefers or the newer BE-1 troop sleeper rebuilds - would be plausible
> for some lines.
>
> A different solution was developed where passenger traffic was light and/or
> grades heavy, as on the Deadwood, SD branch. There, a standard way car was
> modified with extra seats and side door, with the train hauled by a pair of
> SD-9s. Again, models are available for both the front and rear end. I'm sure
> there were lots of other lines where the occasional passenger was
> accommodated in an unmodified waycar.
>
> Hope this pocket history is somewhat clarifying. Various Burlington
> Bulletins have good pictures of CB&Q mixed trains, especially BB 30 on
> Washington, IA. Also see Jones and Coleman's book on the Sterling branch and
> various South Platte Press publications on different Mid-western branhes;
> more pictures are scattered through the color books of Mike Spoor and Al
> Holck, and check the Otto Perry archive at the Denver Public Library - and of
> course Bill Glick's comprehensive passenger car trilogy for pictures,
> diagrams, and histories of the Q's distinctive equipment.
>
> Jonathan
>
> --- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, "Dustin" <dholschuh@> wrote:
> >
> > Does anyone out there if mixed trains on Q were all the same.I know
> trains 92 & 93 on the Sterling Denrock branch were mixed.I'm assuming the
> passengers were accomadated on the caboose.But were there other mixed trains
> that ran with a baggage car or maybe a combine then a caboose.
> >
> > Dustin Holschuh
> > Rock Falls,Il
> >
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
>
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