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184KiB, 1024x682, Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes Rail Road Caboose.jpg

Passenger cabooses

Anonymous Sun 25 May 2025 06:33:14 No.2041354 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>2041360 >>2041361 >>2041362 >>2041435 >>2042477 >>2043395 >>2047901 >>2050459

Why weren't these a thing more often in the heyday of railroads?

>gives freight trains an additional source of income
>passengers can presumably pay for tickets less since freight trains usually run on slower schedules
>allows for mixed trains without the need to pull a coach from regular passenger service
>can be coupled to the back of a regular passenger train during periods of high demand, the crew will enjoy the added privacy too
>lonely freight train crews will enjoy the additional company
>can be outfitted as extra crew accommodation when not in revenue service

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 May 2025 07:59:41 No.2041356 Report

Quoted By: >>2041357

>have to now provide passenger services
>may need to adjust routes
>regs may mirror FAA regs requiring a minimum stewardess:passenger ratio
>all for a pittance

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sun 25 May 2025 08:03:33 No.2041357 Report

Quoted By: >>2041426

>>2041356
>19th Century railroads
>regulations

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 May 2025 08:15:01 No.2041360 Report

Quoted By:

>>2041354
composite brake vans weren't uncommon for UK railroads but IDK about mixed traffic trains, I imagine they were really only a thing on quiet branch lines and private railways
one of the private mining railways near me on the west coast of Tasmania, the North Mount Lyell Copper Company line to Pillinger had composite brake vans too but this was a short lived industrial railway, I figure mixed traffic services are more of a "short line" thing

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 May 2025 08:25:37 No.2041361 Report

Quoted By: >>2041436

>>2041354
Passenger rail, never ever, provides good margins. This makes intuitive sense if you consider the load density of coal.
For passenger travel to make sense you need to move as many people in terms of revenue, consistently, as you get from one 34K gallon tank car. And without the crew needs since that's a payroll. Crude oil doesn't need a functioning shitter to smoke in.
Mail was the lifeblood of railroad profitability in many cases, and that moving to trucks removed any reason for railroads to do anything but take low value bulk goods from one port or intermodal depot to another, with the longest train possible before the couplers start to snap.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 May 2025 08:26:54 No.2041362 Report

Quoted By: >>2041365

>>2041354
>long and heavy freight trains now need to make regular stops for passengers getting on and off, raising energy costs for the train higher than the additional income from a few passengers
No, seriously, these things had their use on branch lines with just a few lighter freight trains per day. Even in parts of Europe this wasn't uncommon, so they definitely were a thing, but I'd guess they never got a lot of attention precisely because they were used on lines with low ridership.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sun 25 May 2025 08:44:24 No.2041365 Report

Quoted By:

>>2041362

To be fair, a lot of small towns at the turn of the 20th Century often had their freight and passenger stations right next to each other, or even combined into a single facility.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 May 2025 02:06:32 No.2041426 Report

Quoted By:

>>2041357
Bold of you to assume I actually read the post thoroughly instead of briefly skimming it and presuming what OP said

Anonymous

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Anonymous Mon 26 May 2025 05:20:35 No.2041435 Report

Quoted By: >>2041441 >>2041453 >>2045654

>>2041354
For such a small number of passengers and presumably short haul freight, it's way easier to slap some freight cars behind a doodlebug.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 May 2025 05:24:54 No.2041436 Report

Quoted By: >>2041487

>>2041361
Passenger rail is a lot more profitable than the highway network though.
But for one, we accept to pour billions in taxes into it, and for the other we don't.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Mon 26 May 2025 07:06:12 No.2041441 Report

Quoted By: >>2041453 >>2041467 >>2041624 >>2043477

>>2041435

True, but Doodlebugs only really became a thing during the twilight decades of railroads as the dominate form of transportation when passenger services were more heavily regulated/structured and cabooses were already well on their way out.

I am kinda perplexed as to why you don't see more trams and light rail offering freight service. Something like a small trailing van coupled behind a PCC streetcar that will drop off parcels at a specified point along the route for a flat fee (say $20). It could also be used as an impromptu baggage car, allowing passengers to store things like large bags and bikes without taking up space in the passenger compartment.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 May 2025 11:49:29 No.2041452 Report

Quoted By:

passenger cabooses do not pair well with freight filled with manure/smelly shit

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 May 2025 12:10:41 No.2041453 Report

Quoted By: >>2047999

>>2041441
>>2041435
Basically, freight-passenger combos would only work if it's the freight that's coupled to a passenger train, and that would defeat the purpose of what OP suggests, which is freight trains carrying passengers *in addition* to the freight.

Which is why this combination rarely works:
>freight carrying passengers
Would mean irregular schedules and slow speeds, which makes it completely impractical
>passenger train carrying freight
dependent on freight transport being demanded whenever the scheduled passenger train runs which may or may not be the case

tl;dr freight and passengers are not compatible because freight requires flexibility and passengers regularity.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Mon 26 May 2025 15:46:36 No.2041467 Report

Quoted By:

>>2041441
>I am kinda perplexed as to why you don't see more trams and light rail offering freight service.
Also, divestitures and restructures in the latter part of the 20th century mean none of the class ones own a tram line anymore.
The Route 100 on SEPTA is a good case study for this. Thousands of trucks go from 276 / 76 / KOP / Norristown to central Philadelphia, daily both ways. A freight load could easily ride behind the cars and always have something to move. That would (marginally) reduce throughput on 76. But SEPTA isn't in the freight business and trucking would still be needed on either side of the line, so there's no way that would ever happen in today's world.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 May 2025 17:15:09 No.2041487 Report

Quoted By:

>>2041436
You know that profitability involves gains AND losses right?

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 28 May 2025 00:58:18 No.2041624 Report

Quoted By:

>>2041441
Electric interurbans did a lot of freight business, delivering express parcels and even picking up milk from farmers.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 03 Jun 2025 17:44:30 No.2042477 Report

Quoted By:

>>2041354
I'd love me self a Czech or Slovak BDs wagon. Freight for bicycles, heavy luggage and conductor compartment with that protrusing three piece window and passenger 6 seater compartments combined.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 10 Jun 2025 17:56:54 No.2043395 Report

Quoted By:

>>2041354
>slack action
a caboose at the end of a freight train, especially one with a a few car lengths of slack, is subject to extreme violence. you can be teleported from one end to the other if you have a rough engineer
>liability
making your freights into passenger trains exposes you to a high level of legal risk for the upside of the fares of only a few passengers
>facilities
people need food, water, and a place to shit. crews pack lunches, the rr provides drinking water for crews, and shits are taken in the woods or on the motor. you can't allow passengers to starve or get thirsty and you must keep the bathroom clean, so this requires at least one employee to tend to the maximum thirty passengers but likely much fewer.
>initial terminal
entire freight trains do not idly sit by for days, a crew builds the train from different tracks every day. the best possible method requires having the caboose stored in a regular location, loading passengers and supplies from a building, then doubling the finished train over onto the caboose. with all the time consuming variables involved in building and airtesting the train, the passengers may wait for hours before the train is even built.
>final terminal
the passengers need to know where they are getting off. rail yards are often miles long and the freight can't just drop the caboose anywhere. an inconvenient move to a caboose passenger platform can cost an hour and depending on the layout interfere with other crews

my rr operates mixed freights (regular passenger train with freight cars on rear) if there are hot cars or issues with the regular freights. it works out ok, you just go to the depot with a yard motor and pull the cars off/slap some cars on. the downside is excess slack action, lower speeds, and the fact that you are often carrying hazmat on the same train as passengers.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 11 Jun 2025 06:30:38 No.2043477 Report

Quoted By:

>>2041441
>I am kinda perplexed as to why you don't see more trams and light rail offering freight service. Something like a small trailing van coupled behind a PCC streetcar that will drop off parcels at a specified point along the route for a flat fee (say $20).
>causes irregular delays at various stations depending on what needs to be offloaded thus ruining a tight schedule
>stations now require crew to deal with the small freight and storage because you KNOW a third of the deliveries won't be picked up on time
>doesn't cover the first or last mile which is a problem because this type of small freight would be most interesting for individual customers or smaller downtown businesses
You know as far as trams are concerned, I am not puzzled at all.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 22 Jun 2025 18:03:46 No.2045654 Report

Quoted By: >>2045720

>>2041435

Is that a passenger care they shoved a motor into and made it a railbus or something?

Anonymous

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Anonymous Mon 23 Jun 2025 06:59:01 No.2045720 Report

Quoted By:

>>2045654
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doodlebug_(railcar)
pretty much

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 07 Jul 2025 11:21:35 No.2047669 Report

Quoted By:

>gives freight trains an additional source of income

Most "Local" passenger service was just whatever random crap that the government forced railroads to keep running, so it would be kinda stupid to slow down freight, the main source of income, just for a line that would, at most, make a few dozen bucks a month.

>passengers can presumably pay for tickets less since freight trains usually run on slower schedules

Most railroads usually had fixed rates for passenger service, Now I'm not saying you'd pay the same for the 20th century and a train to smalltown, but most smaller services were typically the same price

>allows for mixed trains without the need to pull a coach from regular passenger service

Mixed trains were pretty rare, especially in North America, Freight and Passenger were separate tasks with separate locomotives

>can be coupled to the back of a regular passenger train during periods of high demand, the crew will enjoy the added privacy too

Most passenger equipment was.. Not really MODULAR, but had a standard design, mostly to make repairs and maintenance easier. If something broke on one car, the part could just be pinched from another.

>lonely freight train crews will enjoy the additional company

I worked on Norfolk Southern for five years, I'd rather kill myself then have to deal with the sheer amount of foamtards these days

>can be outfitted as extra crew accommodation when not in revenue service

this ones actually a kinda good point i admit

Shaky the Drunk

Shaky the Drunk Wed 09 Jul 2025 02:52:09 No.2047901 Report

Quoted By: >>2047949

>>2041354
Wasn't they called a cattleman's car?

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Jul 2025 16:10:20 No.2047949 Report

Quoted By:

>>2047901
You’re thinking of a “drover’s caboose” a supersized caboose with accommodations for cowhands on long livestock trains out west. Mixed trains usually just tacked on a coach or combine. OP’s photo is from a 2’ gauge line in Maine.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Jul 2025 22:36:19 No.2047999 Report

Quoted By: >>2048002

>>2041453
>slow speeds
Why would a freight train have lower speeds? They move the same speed as a train does, pretty fast (barring extreme situations like street-running, which is hardly done for main lines anyway).

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 09 Jul 2025 22:54:53 No.2048002 Report

Quoted By:

>>2047999
It’s inefficient to run most freight at high speeds. What’s the rush with a mile long load of coal to a power plant? In the U.S., container trains have a little more zip, but what’s the big hurry in getting those Chinese TVs from Los Angeles to Ohio when there’s already a warehouse full of them and more on the way? At best, high priority freight will match Amtrak speeds but after that it’s a waste of energy and gets dangerous with such a long heavy train.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 04 Aug 2025 02:40:53 No.2050459 Report

Quoted By: >>2053008

>>2041354
>lonely freight train crews will enjoy the additional company

No one wants grumpy passengers as company

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 03 Sep 2025 12:52:40 No.2053008 Report

Quoted By:

>>2050459

trvke

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