Those seem like awfully short routes

Late 50s or 1953? Demand was distinctly different at those two times. In general, passenger train traffic was "substantially" down by 1950 compared to the heavy war years, and it continued to slide through the 50s. By the late 50s it was a considerably different business. Although the Interstates weren't built until the late 50s, there were certainly plenty of roads post-war. US  passenger traffic peaked before WWI, I believe in 1916, even including the WWII bulge. Accordingly, "the passenger problem" was already being discussed in railroad board rooms by the late 1920s, and the postwar prosperity made automobiles far more accessible. In general I'd say that your plan was slightly on the heavy side for 1953 and considerably so by 1960, especially in terms of locals.

I can't imagine needing sleeper service for any of those routes. Erie-Pittsburgh is about 125 miles, which would be three hours even with stops. Buffalo-Pittsburgh is about 220 miles, likely five hours or less on a limited. Even if you had sleeper service, it was unlikely to be more than one car per day in each direction. On the C&O only one sleeper ran from Washington to Cincinnati on each of three trains, and that is a far longer trip. To give passengers a good night's sleep you'd have to allow occupancy such that the car would be stationary almost as much as it was in motion.

Don't overlook two other possibilities, though. One would be sleepers conveyed from elsewhere, say St Louis or Atlanta. Check into what routes Pullman was serving, I don't know the traffic patterns into your cities. Another possibility is to create some swanky resort destination. The C&O had the Greenbriar and Hot Springs resorts (it owned the Greenbriar). If you didn't know about the resorts, you'd never ever guess that there would be regular sleeper daily service from NYC to White Sulphur Springs WV and to Hot Springs WV. C&O of course did not run to NYC, those sleepers were carried from Washington to NYC by PRR. There was also one sleeper per day to the Springs from Cleveland and Chicago. This was maintained even in the depths of the Depression-they were even in the 1932 timetables. C&O was a coal road that had only three name trains on the whole railroad, longer but otherwise analogous to P&A in this regard.

Sorry about error in title

Was going to have title say "late 1940s - early 1950s" but changed it, and deleted the wrong text.  It has been corrected.  

Ken L. 

Decline

I would think that you would have less service and the facilities would be downsizing.

For example, in 1950 the RDG didn't run a single train directly from Philadelphia to Harrisburg.  They ran several from Allentown to Harrisburg and several from Philadelphia to Pottsville, but none Phillie to Harrisburg .  East of Harrisburg the train would be limited to about 8-9 cars total, because the RDG train station in Phillie was a short stub ended terminal with minimal to no turning facilities for cars.  At most a car or two would go through.  The RDG didn't offer Phillie to Harrisburg service because anybody who wanted to make that trip would take the Pennsy.  They had a more direct route with faster schedules.  The advertised routes to Buffalo on the RDG in 1950 were Phillie to Allentown, LV to Buffalo, they had two trains that carried a (one) sleeping car through for connection with the LV.  The trains were not through.  In 1950, all the connections with the B&O were only advertised between New York and Washington, none of it was a direct connection (psgrs transfer between stations).  No other service on the RDG offered sleepers, and only the Harrisburg to Allentown trains offered dining club cars.

In 1950 the B&O which had a route from Buffalo to Pittsburgh to Phillie, didn't offer any through service.  The only amenity between Buffalo and Pittsburgh was a reclining chair car, they didn't advertise any dining or sleeping car service.

Is there demand to support 10 trains a day, 5 each direction between Erie and Pittsburgh, given that there were a couple other railroads in that corridor?

Rather than through trains there would be more likely to be connections.  A NYCS connection at Erie for a train to Pittsburgh, maybe a through car.  A connection at Harrisburg with the RDG to Reading and Allentown, with connection to Phillie, maybe one car through to Phillie.  An entire through train, probably not. 

Oh... that's different!

In the late 40s there was still something of an overhang from the war years. While traffic was obviously down after 1946 due to the obviously reduced military business and troop traffic, it was in most areas still hanging around the levels of the mid-1920s. C&O had intended to launch a fancy new streamliner, The Chessie, in the late 1940s and even bought streamlined lightweight equipment for it and for the other three name trains. But they couldn't get the numbers to work out, and by 1950 they had cancelled or sold half of the lightweight equipment and The Chessie never launched. At the same time, the three C&O name trains carried on, and were fairly well supported into the 1950s. So there was no justification for any new service, but existing service was maintained.

Throughout the 40s and 50s, the locals were being cut back as far as allowed. On C&O and I imagine many other roads, most of those locals were reduced in frequency, were abandoned altogether, or were cut back to a single mixed train consisting of a combine. In the 1950s a number of roads experimented with RDCs as a way to maintain service (often as mandated) at significantly lower expense. RDG, for one, and I'm sure there were others. In fact, C&O had experimented with this as early as 1929, having six Brill gas-electrics to cover three local routes that produced little revenue but were important to the railroad.

The big passenger roads such as ATSF, SP, PRR and NYC still had plenty of business.

What I need to find...

...is how much Passenger Traffic there was, for instance, on the PRR from Chicago to Philadelphia.  This would help in determining demand for such travel, presuming a NYCS/P&LE/P&A/RDG Limited existed, a reasonable percentage of that Passenger Traffic could be taken from the PRR.  Perhaps not as much as I had hoped.  

As for the RDG connection, since I'm adding a line and connection that never existed, if the P&A had it's own facilities in Harrisburg, I need to access how reasonable and plausible would it be for the RDG to take control of the train.  I'm presuming since this would be a train consisting mostly Pullman cars.  Perhaps only Coach cars, though Chicago to Philadelphia would take more than a day, so a Pullman Sleeper on that train could be appropriate, correct?

Eliminating the P&A only Limited's from South Erie to Pittsburgh and vice-versa seems to be needed.  And since it would be an extreme out of the way route, any Passenger trains that are in Erie, would not head to Harrisburg/Philadelphia, so those trains are gone as well.  Not what I wanted to hear, but I needed to hear it if I am going to keep things plausible and therefore believable.

Thanks again! 

​​​​​​​Ken L 

One stab

I Googled for a 1950 PRR timetable and got this: http://streamlinermemories.info/PRR/PRR50TT.pdf

Page 10 alone shows 12-15 name trains per day connecting Chicago to Pittsburgh on various locals and limited. There were 9-11 trains per day connecting Chicago to Philadelphia, and they all went on to NYC. (I don't know PRR practices well enough to know whether "44-46-144" represents one or three trains. On the C&O it sometimes meant one, sometimes two and sometimes three.) Of those, only the Gotham Limited and the nameless 44-46-144 carried sleepers Chicago to Pittsburgh.

I don't think you need to eliminate the Limiteds. In fact, they might have the most reason for existing - if they are fast and at the schedules that work for the clientele, they would have a competitive edge on other trains whose schedules were set up around other more commercially important cities. Most of those PRR trains were scheduled to put eastbound passengers in NYC or Philadelphia just before 9am. Since it was 5-6 hours from Pittsburgh to Philly, that would make arrival in Pittsburgh about 2-3am, not exactly the most convenient time. A train dedicated to (or at least more dedicated to) arrivals in Pittsburgh could do better than that.

I'd be more inclined to reduce the locals - that's what was happening the most in the industry in 1950.

Edit: Oh gee, look at page 20 of that timetable...

Other routes

Historically, not very reasonable.  The RDG didn't operate any connection where a TRAIN was run through to the RDG, other than the Royal Blue service, which was the B&O Phillie to New York and it didn't use the RDG's station in Phillie.  The only thing the RDG operated through was maybe a car or two.

Not to say that you can't do that, but there is no historical basis to model it after.

Also remember that the all the tracks at Reading Terminal are stub ended, the longest track is 14 70 ft cars and an engine.  There isn't much of any Pullman facilities on Reading in Phillie (they at most handled a half dozen Pullman's a day, 3 in 3 out) and they only had a handful of dining-club cars, with no full diners.

In 1950, the PRR offered 3 trains between Phillie and Erie, all of which offered some sort of sleeper service, none of which went through Pittsburgh, all of which went through Williamsport and Corry (taking just under 11 hrs, from Harrisburg to Erie) Ironically the NYC connection to the RDG was at Williamsport, but they offered no passenger service to Williamsport and had no passenger connection to the RDG there.  All of the PRR service out of Pittsburgh terminated at Oil City and there was a connecting train from Oil City to Corry.

PRR service from Pittsburgh to Oil City took 4 hrs and from Oil City to Corry took 1.5 hrs and Corry to an hour, total of 6.5 hours (not counting the 3.5 hr layover in Oil City to change trains).  It doesn't look like the PRR offered direct service from Pittsburgh to Erie.  They did have "direct"service Phillie to Buffalo (16.5 hrs and required 2 train changes).

Connections

That means 3 trains, connections.  It could be train #44 from A to C, #46 from C to E and #144 from E to H.   There will probably be dwell times in the total running time to change trains.  

For the P&A's purposes, it would not be unreasonable to have a Buffalo to Pittsburgh train (via Erie), a Pittsburgh to Harrisburg train and then a connection via the RDG to Phillie, with no one through train, maybe a through coach or sleeper car, Pittsburgh to Phillie if its overnight (ignoring the fact that the RDG didn't offer any through service Harrisburg to Phillie).

If the P&A trains Pittsburgh south and Pittsburgh east are timed to depart within an hour of the arrival of the Buffalo to Pittsburgh train they could feed the connections.  conversely the train from the south and the train from the east would be scheduled to arrive Pittsburgh an hour before the train from Pittsburgh to Buffalo departs.

Just discovered slight problem with Chicago-Philly Pass. Trains.

So as I'm looking at how the P&LE connects to the P&A, for freight traffic it is easy.  Transfer runs from the P&LE to the Pittsburgh Jct. RR, the from the Pittsburgh Jct RR to the P&A.  The Pittsburgh Jct. RR has the bridge that crosses over the Mon. River to reach the south side to the north side of the river.  

My dilemma now is, how would a passenger train that originates in Chicago, reach the P&A trackage in Pittsburgh?  I presume that Pullman, NYCS, P&LE, and P&A Passenger cars would all be used in this train.  (I'm presuming the P&A has a larger Passenger facility close to the Reading at Harrisburg, so passengers easily get off the NYCS/P&LE/P&A train and get on a Reading Train to continue on East.  I'm not modeling Harrisburg, so all I need to do is create a plausible backstory, I don't have to worry about actually modeling it.  Just need to justify the trains themselves).  

Would the train arrive at the P&LE Station, and then taken by the P&LE on the Pittsburgh Jct using trackage rights for such a move, and vice versa for trains arriving into Pittsburgh on the P&A taken to the P&LE station?  

The way the trackage is arranged, a back and forth movement is needed to reach the P&LE from the P&A and vice-versa.  Passenger trains cannot simply "pull into" the P&A station or P&LE station from the other's RR.

Thanks again! 

Ken L

It varies

Sometimes it was pretty inconvenient. In Chicago, sometimes you had to take a taxi ten blocks to change trains. There were plenty of other locations where this happened too. C&O was at a considerable disadvantage to N&W in the Norfolk, VA business because it didn't have a passenger terminal on that side of the river. Norfolk passengers had to take a ferry from Norfolk to Newport News, where they could board the train. N&W had a terminal right in Norfolk. Less inconveniently for the customer, back-and-forth movements would have been done if that was the only way to make the arrangement.

You're changing history, you could make up a "Harrisburg Union Station" to the point that perhaps P&A went in with RDG to make their actual station into "Harrisburg Union Station."

Certainly for Pullman lines, you would more likely transfer the Pullmans from one train to the other rather than have the passengers change trains themselves.

Connections and facilities

Hi,

as has been mentioned, I think you can justify the amount of trains you originally posted, if you can offer connections. The train from "South Erie" to "Pittsburgh" would have cars coming from Chicago/St.Louis/.. and some of them would continue to other destinations in the east... Especially if you can schedule the trains so that they leave and arrive at convenient times (who wants to arrive at their destination around 3 a.m.). So a sleeper train might actually be slow in order to arrive at a more suitable time...

By having cars from connecting trains, you can even go for shunting operations Just be gentle with your passengers.

As for station facilities... As you stated, most intermediate stations will be quite simple. There might be a small platform for dining car resupply - the passengers want fresh milk and egg in the morning

For your terminal stations, you might consider combining the "express/mail" facilities into one, depending on the size of the station. There might be a spot/track to store and resupply the diner until just before departure, especially if your railroad provides the diner for a train that is mostly connecting cars otherwise. The coach yard needs to hold a spare coach and may provide equipment for cleaning/heating the cars during storage. There might even be some limited repair done locally.

In case one of your terminals is shared with another railroad or in a tight inner city spot, you might have the coach yard and passenger facilities at the last regular station before the terminal (which adds even more operational fun).

Have fun!

PS: sitting on overcrowded trains quite often, I wonder if passenger trains should rather have some spare capacity in order to be attractive to more passengers... I'm not talking about running empty trains, but a few spare seats... Having people standing regularly will push more people to taking their car to work, meaning less passengers...

Possible solution: Using P&LE facilities for non-Freight service

Here's my current dilemma.  I can't fit properly the Freight Yard, Locomotive Facilities and the other industries the AVR served along with the Pittsburgh Jct. RR Yard and fit a "New" P&A Passenger Facility.  Maybe a moderately sized station for Two-Four Tracks for incoming trains from (South) Erie, with maybe a siding to put the Diner Car to be resupplied for the trip back north.  But what about where would the Mail and Express cars go since I was hoping not just to have these cars on Passenger trains, but like on the NYCS have dedicated "Mail and Express" Trains.  Though not as many as there was between Buffalo and Chicago, I would have to think Buffalo to Pittsburgh would justify at least one daily M&E (I was hoping for two, but that might be pushing my luck in terms of plausibility.)  I can't find a facility on the various online maps available (Sanborn Maps, that detailed website showing the various Pittsburgh Maps, etc) for either the Post Office or for the REA.  I do see where there is a train shed, the station itself, and what looks like a turntable to turn equipment around (such as an Observation Car?) But no buildings identified for the REA or US Post Office.  Though there are several tracks close together with no platform in between (a coach yard??) that are not identified but right next to the Train Shed/Passenger Station.  

Now, passengers coming from Chicago, via the NYCS/P&LE from out west would arrive first at the the P&LE Station, and what I'm thinking is to have the cars from the Chicago-Harrisburg (if not actually Chicago-Philadelphia) train "transferred" from the P&LE station to the P&A Station, P&A Equipment placed on the head end and it proceed east to Harrisburg.  Any REA and RPO Cars headed east would be added on as well.  The question becomes, where to locate these two buildings.  There isn't enough room to add the buildings on the P&A trackage but there is room on the P&LE side of the aisle (the aisle representing the Mon. River) but again I can't seem to locate such facilities on the P&LE.  

Does anyone know if there was a US POst Office Building and/or REA Building serviced by the P&LE in Pittsburgh near the P&LE Station?  If so, where.  I realize I can do anything since I am freelancing, but I'm doing my best to be fairly accurate to what the other RR's trackage did as the more I do my own thing, the less plausible things become.  

Thanks again.

Ken L. 

Station

Why would there need to be a post office or REA building near the PLE?  The post office doesn't put a post office at each railroad station.  They have a MAIN post office and bring the mail to and from the stations to that post office.  The PO and REA building would probably be near the biggest railroad in town (PRR?) and the rest would unload mail and REA at the stations.

Out of space

Hi,

previously you stated that your space is tight next to the yard, so having passenger facilities there would be difficult. That would work well with my previous suggestion to have the facilities not at the main station in the city, but rather at a city-outskirts station. Passenger trains stop at the terminal station only briefly and then continue (or reverse) to the next (previous) station for service and Express/Mail handling.

Many of the bigger terminal stations I know in the center of Europe work like that. Some are big enough to have (some) trains turned around or even serviced in the station, others (like the new Berlin main station) are so small that all trains have to leave the station within a minute or two. Facilities are usually five minutes away. Or more. In Munich, the passenger train yard is two or three suburban stops outside the main station.

Which leaves you with a couple of options.

• You could model the main station and have the facilities modeled at the next station (which would otherwise be a very insignificant stop).
• You could model just the main station and have the facilities "in the staging yard."
• You could move your main station so it is not parallel to the yard. Rather before or after the main yard.
• You could move your main station to be "in the staging yard" and just have an inconveniently placed ready track so that the passenger train must be shunted back on to the layout after arriving in staging.
• Same thing, but just for express and mail rather than a ready track.
• You could have the facilities in the staging yard and just use a wye on the layout for turning the train (which of course has to happen between arriving and departing and will usually happen whenever you'd rather have the wye for shunting your main yard
• There may be more

In the end, I'd say it comes down to either of two things: does any of these fit your prototype/model setting? Can you model it in a way that it is believe-able and works for your operating concept?

Moving scenes to other locations on the layout is a fact that is due to our space restrictions, you can still follow the spirit of the prototype. I just read the column in last month's RE about "layout as a piece of art" where it is said there "should not be too much in a single scene." Putting some distance between your main yard and your main passenger station/facilities is not a bad thing.

Have fun!

PS: by having the passenger train facilities "in staging" you don't have to find out how the mail and express are delivered

Would the REA and RPO Cars...

...be delivered to the Post Office and REA Buildings?  If they were offloaded at the Station, how would they get from the P&A Station to the PRR Station, for instance?  

Ken L. 

Mail

If you spotted a car at post office next to the PLE how would you get a bag of mail to the PRR? You aren't going to put one bag of mail in a 60 ft baggage car and switch it all over town.

How does the post office get mail from a rail served main post office to a non-rail served branch post office?  I'll bet if you can answer that question you can figure out how to get mail from a station to a post office without using a rail car.

In my created reality,

....there are at least a few RPO Cars full of mail.  More than just one or even a few bag fulls.

Ken L.

Volume

An RPO "full" of mail probably has less than 25-33% of the volume of the car occupied by mail.  You could probably load all the mail in an RPO into 2 trucks, and the post office has hundreds of trucks, that's how they move mail around to places NOT served by rail.

Reading Service

Dave 1905,

good reply but please allow me to make some corrections. First off, the Reading Company exchanged Pullman’s with the LV at Bethlehem, not Allentown. These were not the only Pullman service runs on the Reading. The Interstate Express operated from Philadelphia and Binghamton, NY, forwarded to Syracuse via the Lackawanna. Overall routing was RDG-CNJ-DL&W. B&O Royal Blue Line trains carried sleepers over RDG trackage as well.

Also diner-club Car or Parlor- cafe cars ran on the New York Clockers and on the Main Line from Philley to Pottsville and Shamokin.

Barry P.