Realistic cars on a TH&B layout

B

Biased turkey

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Apr 10, 2006
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Montreal, Canada Eh
I'm from Québec, but like the TH&B railroad.
I'm not a rivet counter but would like my layout to be plausible, so what other railroad cars could I couple to my GP7 or SW9 TH&B locomotive ?
CP ? CN ? Delaware & Hudson , Grand Trunk ? Boston & maine ?
What else ?
 
TH&B was jointly owned by CPR and NYC. It was CP's link between Toronto and Buffalo. The basic rule of freight cars is: mostly from the nearby roads, then fewer of the faraway roads, but not many from the parallel roads (CN).
 
Thanks a lot to all the people who took some of their precious time to reply.
I have enough info to start selecting my rolling stock, and I have a broader choice that what I was expecting.

Thanks Paradise275 for the TH&B link. It has plenty of interesting pics and info but unfortunately for me, the pics only show the TH&B rolling stock and not the other railroads rolling stock.
 
A guide to one railroad will likely only show that railroad's equipment. Freight cars, however, are freely interchanged, and end up wandering all over the country. More than over the country - I see autoracks from Mexico around here on a fairly frequent basis.

The same is not true for locomotives, passenger cars, or cabooses. These tended to stay on home rails, except in pool service. Nowadays, of course, most railroads don't run their own passenger service, and cabooses are obsolete. However, locomotives are now interchanged! The "horsepower-hour" system allows railroads to borrow each others' engines for short periods and use them in any service. I don't know when this system was put into general use, but it was after the TH&B's era.
 
When the TH&B was still in existence, I have seen, at times, locos from NYC, CPR, SOO, Penn Central, Reading, Conrail, C&O, B&O, and Union Pacific on its rails. I have pictures of some, but no way to post them, at present. As far as freight cars go: if it operated in interchange, it probably visited the TH&B.

Wayne
 
The basic rule of freight cars is: mostly from the nearby roads, then fewer of the faraway roads, but not many from the parallel roads
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I was just reading Don Ball, Jr.'s The Pennsylvania Railroad 1940s-1950s and noticed that this didn't seem to be true. The photos normally focus on locomotives, but there are enough freight cars visible to get an idea of roadnames. PRR cars are, of course, the most common, but the most numerous foreign cars are NYC - PRR's direct competitor.
 
Quote:
The basic rule of freight cars is: mostly from the nearby roads, then fewer of the faraway roads, but not many from the parallel roads
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I was just reading Don Ball, Jr.'s The Pennsylvania Railroad 1940s-1950s and noticed that this didn't seem to be true. The photos normally focus on locomotives, but there are enough freight cars visible to get an idea of roadnames. PRR cars are, of course, the most common, but the most numerous foreign cars are NYC - PRR's direct competitor.
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But many photos in Ian Wilson's "Steam..." series seems to bear it out... Lots of CN and some other cars, with CPR (main competition) hardly at all... not to say it did not happen.

Andrew
 
MasonJar said:
But many photos in Ian Wilson's "Steam..." series seems to bear it out... Lots of CN and some other cars, with CPR (main competition) hardly at all... not to say it did not happen.

Andrew
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I've noticed that too. Of course there are exceptions , but how often do you see CN grain cars CNWX on CPR, rarely. Autoracks and other "pooled" equipment are the notible exceptions. CN and CP have always been fierce competitors servicing often the same locales until massive abandonments started in the 70s.

Although shippers had the option of routing cars, it seems like a loaded CP car of lumber for CN Wingham often travelled all but the last mile from the CP transfer track exclusively on CP. Railroads had thick routing guides to ensure that if a CP agent was permitted to route a customers car, it made the most profit for his company and preferred connections.

Even today western CPs preferred connections are UP , while CN seems to favor BNSF.

In the old days a lot of CPs overhead traffic was from Chicago to New England. Trains 902 and 904 and westbound counterparts carried traffic from C&O, Wabash, NYC to B&M or MEC while CN handled competetive traffic through Portland on thier Grand Trunk lines.

In summary CN and CP maintained a competetive stance rather than a complementary connection , in general.
 
Of course there are exceptions , but how often do you see CN grain cars CNWX on CPR, rarely. Autoracks and other "pooled" equipment are the notible exceptions.
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I notice that: CN cars practically never appear on CP, certainly never in grain trains. And yes, autoracks are the exception. Every time, they come from all over North America - TFM autoracks are the only Mexican cars I see up here.
However, locomotives are now interchanged! The "horsepower-hour" system allows railroads to borrow each others' engines for short periods and use them in any service. I don't know when this system was put into general use, but it was after the TH&B's era.
Click to expand...
At some point, I found the answer to my own question. The first engines in horsepower-hour service were the Oakway SD60s built in 1986.
 
Because the TH&B was in such close proximity to the U.S., many cars destined for other parts of Canada could be seen on TH&B trackage. A TH&B train coming from Buffalo could have more than half of its cars from various American railroads, but when split up for delivery to their final destinations, might comprise only 2 or 3 cars of the entire train. I always felt that one of the bonuses of train-watching in Hamilton was that the train was usually as interesting as the locomotives. Hamilton was a major manufacturing centre, and parts and raw materials came from all over North America.
As for locomotives, in addition to those that I noted in a previous post, the TH&B employed locos of its own plus those of its owners, NYC and CPR. Originally, a train from Buffalo would run, with NYC locos, to Welland, where a TH&B loco would take over, and the train would then be taken, using a CPR loco, from Hamilton to Toronto. It didn't take too long for all three roads to decide that a pool of locos from all three roads would make more sense, and that the originating loco could make the entire trip without change.

Wayne
 
To add to doctorwayne's, TH&B was one of only 3 routes that CP had from Southern Ontario to the US. The others were near Montreal and Windsor-Detroit. (not counting car ferries) and the next ones would be at the Soo and the Lakehead.

Somewhere, I read a funny story about NYC locos on TH&B. They had a form of automatic train stop on them and Aberdeen yard had a pair of contacts for testing them at the start of a trip, one live and one dead. Apparently someone felt it a great joke to let an unwary engineer highball his train through these contacts.
 
doctorwayne said:
When the TH&B was still in existence, I have seen, at times, locos from NYC, CPR, SOO, Penn Central, Reading, Conrail, C&O, B&O, and Union Pacific on its rails. I have pictures of some, but no way to post them, at present. As far as freight cars go: if it operated in interchange, it probably visited the TH&B.

Wayne
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Well, Jacques, it's been a long time coming, but now that I have a scanner, here are a few examples of other roads' diesels on TH&B trackage.
The Penn Central was a regular visitor in the mid-'70s: here are a couple of geeps, accompanied by TH&B GP7 71, at Lawrence Rd., just east of Kinnear Yard in Hamilton.
img276.jpg


When Conrail took over PC and others, mixes like this were common: Conrail and Erie-Lackawanna geeps and a re-lettered PC Alco, seen Buffalo-bound near Vinemount, Ontario.
Conrail-TH_B_train_with_EL_and_PC_units_east_of_Vinemount.jpg


Here are a couple of shots of B&O geeps at the TH&B's servicing facility on Chatham St., in Hamilton.
B_O_diesels_at_Chatham_St_-_view_2.jpg


B_O_diesels_at_Chatham_St_-_view_1.jpg


And of course, TH&B-parent CPRail (and in earlier days, CPR) was often present.
TH&B 54 with CPRail M-424s, seen at Chatham St.
TH_B_54_-_July_86.jpg


CPRail switchers at Chatham St., heading for nearby Aberdeen Yard:
CPRail_switchers_at_Chatham_St_.jpg


M-424s, also at the Chatham St. servicing facility:
CPRail_M-424_at_Chatham_St_-_likely_mid-_80s.jpg


Wayne
 
Not to hijack the thread too much but Wayne I've seen a couple of your photos with Penn Central locos headed by a TH&B loco as they leave yards. I'm assuming the TH&B cuts off as the train approaches PC territory. How'd that work and where?
Ralph
 
Ralph said:
Not to hijack the thread too much but Wayne I've seen a couple of your photos with Penn Central locos headed by a TH&B loco as they leave yards. I'm assuming the TH&B cuts off as the train approaches PC territory. How'd that work and where?
Ralph
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Well, I posted some pictures of a TH&B yard switcher helping a Penn Central train up the Niagara Escarpment through Stoney Creek, Ontario. It was on the headend and cut off at Vinemount, at the top of the grade, and headed light back to Hamilton. But these trains ran right through to Buffalo, and I have pictures of TH&B geeps in Buffalo, so it wasn't unusual for them to run through with PC or Conrail trains, or on their own.
TH&B trackage on this route starts roughly in the west end of Hamilton (there were trackage rights, with part-parent CPR, on CNR tracks to Toronto) and continues east to Welland, Ontario. From here, NYC (former Michigan Central) tracks go all the way to Buffalo, NY. CPR and NYC were co-owners of the TH&B, and pooled motive power and some passenger equipment over the entire route, so it wasn't unusual to see NYC Pacifics, Hudsons and E-units in Hamilton, along with CPR Pacifics, Hudsons, and various diesels, and the locos of the TH&B itself. The TH&B owned the only two Canadian Berkshires, by the way, and also rostered two ex-NYC Hudsons, and the first Canadian-built GP7.

Wayne
 
Thanks for the pics

Thanks for the pics DrWayne

Did you ever see 6-axle CR or PC Alco or EMD power on the Kinnear(run through train)?
 
kutler said:
Thanks for the pics DrWayne

Did you ever see 6-axle CR or PC Alco or EMD power on the Kinnear(run through train)?
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Not that I can recall, although my memory has never been good. :rolleyes: I do have vague recollections of occasional CPR M-630s, although no pictures and a slight suspicion that I may be confused with big Centuries on the nearby CNR. It seems that when something interesting is happening on the rails I have neither my camera nor my brain with me. :v8::curse:;)
I do recall seeing passenger trains in the late '50s-early '60s coming into Hamilton from Buffalo behind lightning-striped NYC cab units, but I'm not really sure if they were F- or E-units. The trains were usually quite sizeable, and usually a real mixture of various paint schemes and stainless steel cars, too.
Here's an SD45 that I caught near the station in Buffalo, but I've never seen one in Hamilton.
img107.jpg


Wayne
 
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