Backy, I would love to be able to see a full blown Passenger op, building and breaking down and turning and not getting run over by a Comuter trying to get in. Not sure if I could keep up, but I'd love to see and try.
I might actually say neither one... If I had the perfect modelling choice, I would just combine both into one train. When it comes down to it, I've always had a warm spot in my heart for the old mixed train operation. I'm fascinated by the kind of backwoods railroading this represents. There's nothing I like more than a mixed train that is cobbled together at some small yard somewhere, and then disappears up some obscure branch line into the deep woods, far from the main line and the beaten path, on a true railway to nowhere, ha-ha. It reminds me that I need to get out my copy of "Mixed Train Daily", again, to peruse through it.
I know this isn't what PGE is talking about, but some roads did the mixed train thing when cabeese were still around. You could actually buy a ticket to ride the caboose to where you wanted to go. It wasn't advertised, and crews didn't really seem to care for it. I didn't learn about this 'til cabeese were long gone, otherwise I would have been a real PITA for a few crews !!! I know BN and EJ&E did this, and there were probably more. So, even if you don't or can't run passenger cars, you can always have your local stop at a grade crossing, tower, or depot to get some bonehead like me out of your caboose !!! Just another option, ya' know ???
Yeah, but. I worked on a shipping system for a huge ocean line, but had to track containers from start to finish - as in shipper to truck to port to ship to truck and train, to receiver. Intermodal trains get insane in KC (don't remember if that's MO or KS, and the cobwebs in my head are hoping I got KC right) ... massive shuffling there, and what drove us computer types nuts - the Cross Country Freight (train name) was one train from San Francisco to KC, where it became four (maybe more), all with the same name, and we were supposed to be able to track four trains of the same name (no further distinction) wherever they were, going in four different directions. Intermodal is an interesting as anything else, but not the running trains part. Incidentally, my daily commute took me past intermodal container operations in several flavors - ship to truck, rail to truck, and trailer trains. Truck trailers are the most fragile - I'd see an average of 2/week crushed by the lifters as they were moved on and off trains ... in Newark, NJ alone!
The variety is why I run freight, too. I run passenger when a friend makes a gift of a train. Then again, CSX runs zillions of coal cars around here - also boring. BB runs smaller trains, often with no two cars alike. Esthetics - in the eye of the beer holder.
Passenger service will always be a part of my modeling although in the last few years I have cut way back. Now I am more into branchline type service than mainline, less worry about having accurate matching consists. But freight is where the revenue is at that allows the passenger to exist. How many folks model their road's fast mail service? GN style it was a mix of express reefers, mail and express storage cars, and some passenger bringing up the rear that might include a through Pullman or two. Possibly one or more working RPOs bracketed by storage cars and cutting in and out of cars from the consist, all the while maintaining a schedule that was faster than the premier varnish run. Train length often ran up to 30 plus cars in the 1950s and 60s with four or five units up front for power. And color? Well there were through storage cars in the consist, running from coast to coast, from PRR to N&W, even the Southern and CB&Q Silver.
Yeah... there probably were more mis-matched passenger consists than the pretty matched sets most of us want to run. We want that perfection that often eluded the railroads. Sent from my ALCATEL ONE TOUCH Fierce using Tapatalk
I'll be running short passenger and tourist /excoursion trains on my modern /unit train level. Bullet trains will run on their own level.
Like both, But lean to passengers. This is mainly even in z long freight in hard to do. I'd like to set up Rio Grande coal trains Though On other hand California Zephyr, El Capitan and Amtrak all easy to find andvrun.
I run both freight and passenger. I run on Ntrak with its broad curves so passenger trains actually look good when traversing a curve. If not for that I would be strictly freight. Some time back (before the new millenium) one of the MR magazines ran an article about the make up of freight trains as to road names of the cars. They somehow arrived at a percentage of how many cars should be the home road and of other roads. The largest percentage would be the home road followed by those roads that interchange with the home road and then those other roads that did not have a connection to the home road. A large Class I road like the former B&O would have cars from all over the country but the largest percentage would be from RR's in the eastern states. Lately my interests have been changing and I have begun modeling local shortline RR's like the Montour RR or the Pittsburg and Shawmut. Both RR's used SW9's as diesel motive power and were predominately coal haulers. That makes model selection rather easy.
I run both. I would love for some manufacturer to make some Reading passenger equipment in N. Yes, I am aware of Rapido testing the water for RDC's.
My collection is actually 100% freight cars and BNSF/UP freight locomotives. Not a single passenger loco or car (yet). I really love the variety of freight cars that are in your typical manifest train, and the wide range of flatcar/gondola loads can add even more interest. My favorite trains by far are modern intermodal trains carrying international shipping containers, and collecting N scale containers and well cars has been a focus of mine for the past few years.
Like many others I enjoy watching both freight and passenger trains running on the layout, however I guess prefer freight trains because I enjoy switching various industries on the layout.
Beings as I am a retired truck driver I really like mixed freight. THE WIFE loves her passenger trains. She now has 3 excursion trains. I run 2 freights at a time even while switching Lucky Penny Yard. If Jean wants to run her passenger trains I just bring one of the freights into the A&D track and let her have her fun too.
I started off with frieght because I didn't have enough room to run passenger . It was also easier to buy. I could just get a single freight car and add it into the mix. Getting a set of passenger cars was a bigger investment. Now I have gotten into trying to build specific trains or sets of cars. Have added quite a few passenger trains.
It has always been freight because the only passenger trains we have to model in the US is Amtrak. That was until I visited Japan recently. Whoa! Their passenger is equivalent to our freight. Passenger is king there. So as a memento of the trip I brought home a Kato N700S Shinkansen, the same model that we rode on all over Japan. Running it the first time was a new experience in N-Scale for me. Of course, it was Kato so everything was smooth and worked perfectly. But to see 8 long Shinkansen cars running was a joy to behold. I'm hoping it's public debut will be this weekend at the Amherst Show in Springfield, MA. It will be on the 32' x 30' combined T-Trak layout. Lots of room for it to breath and run fast.
I have a small layout (in progress), so long, modern passenger trains are not practical, and would certainly have to just orbit the layout, since there is no room for a station to handle them. If Rocky Mountaineer was available in N scale, I'd gobble one of those up! My wife, a couple of friends and I took a Great Circle Tour a few years ago. It was awesome, and the trains are short enough to handle more easily on small layouts. But they're only available in HO.
I've been out of the model railroading business for quite some time, but if I had a layout and wanted to run passenger service it would probably be something along the lines of the BNSF special passenger trains. Generally, I prefer freight though.
