Passenger Operations, again.

 After both Al Daumann and I attended different ops events this past week, Al was in New Jersey* and I was in Indiana, we discussed Passenger operations at length.

What we basically found was that, FOR THE MOST PART, layout owners simulate VERY limited passenger operations. It’s rare that a passenger train even has a train pack with, what I would consider, are the normal items: CCWB, train brief, as well as paperwork that simulates passenger tickets, express packages, mail bags or milk cans*

So let’s go over what I think should be included in passenger operations. I’ll make a list then try to give a detailed explanation.

CCWB, Picking-up and Setting-out cars, passenger servicing facilities, passenger tickets, mail bags, express bills, milk or dairy operations, 

So first, I know there were not waybills associated with passenger cars, but I think it’s important to use CCWB with all your passenger equipment to keep the trains organized. I use numbers and colors on my waybills. For example, train #1, each CCWB for cars making up the consist of #1 has a large #1 inside a blue colored text box. “#1” denotes that the car goes in train #1’s consist, blue indicates “At a glance” that that that car goes into St. Louis (West) staging. When the train crew is initially reviewing his train pack, he can quickly scan the CCWB and any other color, other than Blue will immediately stand out. He knows, at the very least, he has a car to set-out. He will then, I HOPE, look closer and determine exacta,y what he needs to do with that car*

Passenger Servicing Facilities are fun, interesting, and necessary, in my opinion. So on AIR2 I’m building a coach yard, a post office, a REA facility, a creamery, a diner servicing facility, a Pullman servicing facility, and a “Passenger Car RIP” track. The person that chooses the “Passenger Foreman” job gets to switch all the passenger trains and these additional service facilities as well. Busy guy…

Years ago I thought that while a train is negotiating the layout, passengers would get on and off the trains. Passengers. I simulate them with “Passenger Tickets”. The ticket tells the train crew where to set the passenger off, or pick them up. As the crew makes its scheduled station stop he places the appropriate passenger ticket in the bill box at the depot. In the past I had both set-outs and pick-ups, but discontinued the pick-ups because passenger crews usually forgot them. On AIR2 I’m going to try them again. We’ll see. I experimented with complicated routing of these passenger tickets, a passenger got picked up at one depot, was set out at another, and picked up again by another train. This was a dismal failure and I will not try this again.

Mail by Rail was, frankly, the reason why railroads offered passenger service as long as they did. If you look into Southwest Airlines books you’ll find that “Mail” is a large profit item, and I’ve waited on delayed Southwest jets so the mail could be loaded on multiple occasions. The romantic version of Mail is bags being snagged on the fly. This was common, but just as common was the railway postal employee or baggage man  simply handing the mail bag to the station agent at the stop. Mail bags got kicked off on the fly as well. But no matter how the prototype did it I simulate it with waybills addressed to each station that represent a bag of mail. Again at each station stop the train crew puts the mail waybill into the appropriate depots bill box. Again I experimented with picking up mail, but with limited success.

Express is why there are baggage cars. My entire life I assumed baggage cars were for the passengers baggage. While SOME passenger baggage did indeed travel in baggage cars, commonly baggage cars were leased out to REA and were filled with “Express”. In today’s would I would equate “Express” to FedEx Overnight, LCL to UPS and FedEx, and car load shipping to USPS. The REA company guaranteed delivery to any address in the contiguous 48 states in one week or less, usually less. A lot of railroads employees express boxcars on passenger trains for some expedited LCL and rush periods of U.S. Mail, but for the most part REA dominated the express business and the REA company leased the space on these baggage cars and express boxcars for their exclusive use. Railroads generally turned over their express reefers to the REA to load and manage. I simulate the delivery of express packages with a waybill that gets set-out in the depots bill box. Generally I only move express reefers in car load moves, that is I do not simulate a “Stop-off” service with express reefers*. But I use standard CCWB for express reefer moves. I do the same for express boxcars. Now I used to bill some express boxcars to my freight house, but this would indicate a LCL shipment. I suppose it could happen, but generally specially decorated boxcars were used for LCL only. While they traveled in expedited freight trains, they generally went freight house to freight house. So I CHOOSE to employ my AIR express boxcars on passenger trains for REA or USPS shipments only.

Milk was moved from rural depots to cities across ALL of North America. Dedicated milk trains seem to be exclusively associated with the Northeast USA, but there were dedicated milk trains in Illinois, northern and Southern California as well. BUT milk did not only travel in dedicated trains. Nearly every train carried milk to a metropolitan creamery across all of the continent. The majority of milk traveled this way. The distances were generally short so the milk did not need refrigeration en route. The milk cans were chilled at each dairy, set-out on the platform, and trains picked them up, AS EXPRESS, and delivered them to a creamery. Trains with a lot of milk on its route might employ a dedicated “Can car”, which in most cases was simply a baggage car (So you don’t need an express reefer). There is some anecdotal evidence that in summer a few of these shipments had ice shoveled over the tops of the cans, but this was not widespread. Once at the terminal, the passenger train set the can car out at the creamery. On the return trip this car was returned so it would be in-place at the start of the next days run.

Let’s discuss how, and if we can put all this together on a layout, during an op session in my next installment.

*I am superstitious and will not go to New Jersey any more, so I intentionally did not attend the New Jersey event.

*To be fair BOTH Al and I did experience passenger ops on two separate layouts that did in fact offer some enhanced operations. 

*Hope springs eternal.