Piggyback trains - can I mix roadnames?

[austrian]

When I run a piggyback train, can I mix roadnames and use the 52ft flat car / 35ft trailer from different roads or do I have to use only my home road? I would like some variety, for example add some NYC cars to my Santa Fe ones.

[rogertra]

Freight cars are, as a general rule, free running cars.  You can put any freight car in any freight train.

Just go down to your railroad and watch trains go by.

The usual exception to the free running 'rule' are coal cars.  Usually they are almost all home road cars as they are in captive service.  That is, they go from the same mine, to the same customer in a fixed circuit.

Cheers

Roger T.

[Piyer]

When I run a piggyback train, can I mix roadnames and use the 52ft flat car / 35ft trailer from different roads or do I have to use only my home road? I would like some variety, for example add some NYC cars to my Santa Fe ones.

Starting around the 5-minute-mark of this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id6WSO9lT5A) you'll see the mix-n-match service offered in the 1950s on the Pennsylvania Railroad. The real variety in any intermodal train isn't the freight cars so much as it is the various colors and names on the sides of the trailers / containers.

[jward]

for the era I witnessed firsthand, about 1970 to present, piggyback (or tofc) trains were made up mostly of trailer train (later ttx) flats with relatively few cars owned by the railroads themselves. trailer train cars are a free running pool with most larger railroads having a part ownership in the company. thus, trailer train cars could be used wherever and whenever needed without worrying about incurring charges for using a foreign road's cars.

up until the 1990s, railroad owned trailers were common, now they are rare and have been largely replaced by shipping containers, many bearing the names of the ship lines themselves.

for this era, the 35 foot trailer had been replaced by 40, 45 and 48 foot trailers which strained the capacity of the standard 89 foot ttx flat. so around 1980 or so, the 52 foot flats were often seen in tofc service. some railroads, southern being one, built their own flats from surplus boxcars cut down into flats.

so, if you want to run mixed flats with railroad owned trailers, 1980 is an era to consider. also of note is that in the east, conrail and chessie were using sets of gp40s on the tofc trains, while the western ones were most likely using sd40-2s and sd45s.

[Jerrys HO]

The real answer here is...... Rule #1 "IT's YOUR RAILROAD DO AS YOU WISH".

[rogertra]

The real answer here is...... Rule #1 "IT's YOUR RAILROAD DO AS YOU WISH".

Doesn't work if you are trying to be realistic and or prototypical.   

Cheers

Roger T.

[jbrock27]

But does work if you're just looking to have fun

I concur with Rule #1

[Jerrys HO]

The real answer here is...... Rule #1 "IT's YOUR RAILROAD DO AS YOU WISH".

Doesn't work if you are trying to be realistic and or prototypical.   

Cheers

Roger T.
NOT according to your first reply.

[electrical whiz kid]

Normally, I stick pretty close to the mark on "prototype", but I have to take sides with Jerry, Jim, etc.  What makes you happy is what is important.
SGT C.

[jbrock27]

Sir, yes Sir! 

Thank you Sir, may I have another?

Of course Sarge, it is never about taking sides here...

[rogertra]

The real answer here is...... Rule #1 "IT's YOUR RAILROAD DO AS YOU WISH".

Doesn't work if you are trying to be realistic and or prototypical.    

Cheers

Roger T.

NOT according to your first reply.

[/quote]

That's because you misinterpreted my reply.  I was referring to road names, which was the question asked.  He did not ask about eras.  

Cheers

Roger T.

[Jerrys HO]

Roger I must ask? Then why did you throw that in. Did you intend to make this another one of those threads that go off track?
Let's try to keep to the question at hand "Is it ok to mix road names".
I'll be sure to pm you when the OP decides to ask is it ok to mix era's  .

[electrical whiz kid]

As someone who grew up mostly around New Haven trackage; I can say that [the New Haven's] "TOFC" system was the first, or one of the first of that type of operation.  They had a very large trailer fleet, and moving  them by this means  proved a financial success; Boston's South Station terminal had a large facility for this type of operation.
This proved even more efficient when combined with the car-float operations in New York Harbour.  The viaduct between New York and Cedar Hill yard was allowed to run 125-car trains, so you can get the idea of just how well this worked; combined with the skillful (by the plant engineers at the Cos Cob generating facility), use of motors (electric locomotives), was an additional success! 
Of necessity, they used mostly their own flatcars, as these were set up to accommodate this type of service; however, Monon, and other roads, noting the New Haven's success, soon followed suit and established their own TOFC service, so some mixing wouldn't be out of the question; however, like they say; it is your money, and whatever grabs you.
SGT C.

[rogertra]

Roger I must ask? Then why did you throw that in. Did you intend to make this another one of those threads that go off track?
Let's try to keep to the question at hand "Is it ok to mix road names".
I'll be sure to pm you when the OP decides to ask is it ok to mix era's  .

I did answer the question, and my answer to the question "Is it OK to mix road names" was in effect "Yes".

So where did I go wrong?

I never posted the old red herring, "It's your railroad......" used to justify unprototypical model railroads but as it was posted, why can't I respond to it?  If people don't want responses, then don't post. 

Cheers.

Roger T.

[austrian]

I am sorry if my question caused some confusion, maybe I should have been more precise. I thought that the type of equipment mentioned ( 52ft flat car / 35ft ) would have put it into the early era of piggy back service.
I am not very strict in prototype fidelity, not enough skill and kwowledge, but I want to avoid very obvious mistakes, for example I would not use a Santa Fe GE Dash 9-44CW for these early piggy back trains.
And I was not sure whether these trains did run using wagons from different railroads or whether there was a pool of dedicated wagons from just one or two railroads that had been used for one certain service day for day - like a unit train between coal mine and power station nowadays.
As I said I am not very strict but I would like to avoid mistakes like buying piggy back equipment with 5 or 6 different road names only to learn later that the Santa Fe only ran these trains with their own equipment.

Thomas