Order of Passenger Cars?

[WGL]

 What is the usual order of passenger cars in a train?  I have a milk car first behind the locomotive.  I'm not sure where to place my coach, combine, diner & sleepers.  I know the observation car is last.   

  This photo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combine_car shows the combine car with the baggage part facing forward, but my Spectrum heavyweight combine has its seats facing away from the baggage section.  If passengers are supposed to see where they're going, not where they've been, the passenger part should be forward of the baggage section.  Oddly, when I run the combine with seats forward, it goes fine, but when I reverse the combine to baggage forward, it derails at a turnout.   

[pdlethbridge]

Railroads did it different ways. I know the B&M ran milk trains of several milk cars and maybe a coach or combine at the rear. On their commuter runs, the would have maybe a baggage and a combine behind the loco. Combines were usually the smoking car. On the long haul trains, there would be several baggage cars, an RPO and a combine followed by the passenger cars.
In the 40's and earlier, ice trains would pick up ice at various sidings near lakes to take to Boston for storage.
Passenger service was generally a hodgepodge of combinations. One train my brother remembers when he was young was a mogul pulling a private business car regularly from Gloucester to Boston at high speed.
Don't forget this, its your railroad, you can do what ever you want.

[Woody Elmore]

Back in the good old days, coaches and other cars with seating had chairs with reversible seats. At the end of a run, the conductor or a trainman would walk through the empty cars moving the seat backs.

Baggage cars, combines, RPOs, milk and express cars are all head end cars. They go up front near the locomotive. There is no hard and fast rule for sleepers, coaches, diners, bar cars , etc.

When I was a kid traveling south to visit my grandparents, the diner would be put into the train and later removed. I have memories of watching a steam switcher pulling a dining car past the coach I was in. It was being added to the train for dinner service.

[Loco Bill Canelos]

frequently seen order:  milk or express reefers  express boxcars, RPOs, full baggages, combine then coaches, diner/clubcars, sleepers, & observation,  no rules for sleepers, but usually seperate from the coaches often just before a sleeper/observation.  Diners were often run between the coaches aand the sleepers.  Express cars were run at the rear of the train by many railroads to make switching easier at intermediate stops.

There are really no rules, just different practices by different railroads.  I have seen pictures of baggage cars at the rear of the consist, and even in the middle of a consist. and jusr about every variation you could think of. You name it and some railroad probably did it.

[pdlethbridge]

I believe the reversible seats were called walkovers. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Conrail Quality]

Even the locomotives sometimes ended up in strange places. I recall reading somewhere that the Pennsylvania experimented with putting helper engines in the MIDDLE of the train itself, right after the head-end cars. That would have been something to see...

Timothy

[RAM]

As a general rule, locomotive, unmaned headend cars, Mail car, baggage, coach,
Chair car, diner, pullmans, and observation.  Unmaned head end cars can be milk, express reefers, mail storage cars.  Rpo cars were locked and only rpo workers could be in them.   Chair car was like a first class coach.  They usally put the diner in the middle of the train so passengers would not have to walk as far and also to keep the coach passengers from going thru the first class (pullman) cars.

[WGL]

  Thanks, all, for the informative, interesting replies!  I see that the order I have is good.  Since I can't reverse the seats in the combine, its passengers will have to go through the baggage section on their way to the dining car.

  I am re-reading Paul Theroux's The Great Railway Bazaar: by Train Through Asia.  When he rode the Direct-Orient Express about 35 years ago, service had deteriorated so much that it didn't even have a dining car.  Experienced passengers brought their own food.  I wonder whether or not it has since recovered some of its past glory.

[Woody Elmore]

Yup - the reversible seats were called walkovers. I understand that the coaches used locally by the MTA (New York area) still have walk over seats.

One interesting passenger train that can be run would be one made up exclusively of head end cars - lots of freight but no passengers. The NYC served the old Railway Express facility in the Bronx (which was near Yankee Stadium.)  Trains of express cars came and left daily. I remember seeing baggage cars in the train. Somebody told me that the train crew road in the baggage car! These cars generally started out in the REX facility (that's Railway Express) on the west side of Manhattan. From there they went to the Bronx.

[pdlethbridge]

Interesting note on the NYC. They ran commuter trains with Pacifics that had pilots (cow catchers ) on the tenders. They also used switcher tenders because they were backing up half the time. And you'll notice no headend cars as this is a commuter run only.

[RAM]

There were a lot of interest trains.  I think it was CNJ that had some 4-6-4Ts so they did not need to turn them.  One observation at the end of the train.  The Reading had a train that had an observation car on each end so they did not need to turn the train.  The last few years that the Santa Fe's Tulsa train had the normal setup from KC to Tulsa.  They were wanting to cut costs so they just turned the locomotive and ran it back to KC observation car first the head end cars on the rear.  They ran a mail train on the northern route which had all head end cars and a rider car on the end.  The rider car was only for the crew and maybe a deadhead crew.  The mail train on the southern route was all headend cars with one coach at the end.  I road that train one time.  It was one fast train and only stopped in major stations.  Some of those were flag stops.

[Bill Baker]

WGL,

Great topic, I'm glad you posted it.  I noticed so far that no one has addressed your problem when running your combine with seats forward, it derails at a turnout.  If you have KD syle couplers, you might want to check if the combine couplers are too low or too loose.  Quite often the uncoupling bar (I don't know it's correct name) might catch on a certain portion of the turnout. When it runs in a certain direction with the point forward, the uncoupling bar will catch, where as running in the opposite direction, it just slides over. 

Bill

[Yampa Bob]

I bend the trip pin up a bit on all my couplers. If you use the Kadee coupler height gauge, the base plate will alert you if the pin needs adjustment.

Kadee makes a special tool for this:

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXNLK9&P=SM

Coupler height gauge:

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXNLH6&P=SM

[WGL]

  Thanks, Bill!  I had already snipped the plastic "hoses" on the couplers before I noticed the problem of the combine derailing with its baggage end forward but not with its passenger end forward.

  Others' comments make me wonder:  I find that model trains being pushed by locomotives are much more liable to derail than if they are pulled by locomotives.  Is this also true of real trains?

[pdlethbridge]

Probably not for passenger, more likely for freight. Commuter railroads have been using push / pull for years and have dedicated cars at the end with their own cabs.  except for freight yard work or switching at sidings , I've never seen a freight running backwards. An exception would be railroads that employ switchbacks like those used in logging years ago.