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Model Forum / General / Railroads / December 2009Lighted bagage car?
A strange question here. Among my gifts from my wife is the Rivarossi 60' baggage car, to match the 60' passenger car which I already have. I happen to have the lighting kit for the 6-wheeled truck cars, which includes the baggage car. Interestingly enough, when I saw the listing for this kit at Walthers, the baggage car was specifically mentioned as on car that it would fit. After all that, on to my question.... would there be a reason to have a baggage car lighted in transit? Just wondering if this would be a waste of a lighting kit. Thank you for any insights you may have. I am always amazed at the extent of knowledge that is dispkayed here. A peaceful anf jotous holiday to all. Michael Valinis On 12/25/2009 3:29 PM Michael Valinis spake thus: > After all that, on to my question.... would there be a reason to have > a baggage car lighted in transit? Maybe ... sorting baggage (or mail) at night? Just a guess.  SignatureI am a Canadian who was born and raised in The Netherlands. I live on Planet Earth on a spot of land called Canada. We have noisy neighbours. - harvested from Usenet > A strange question here. Among my gifts from my wife is the Rivarossi > 60' baggage car, to match the 60' passenger car which I already have. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > question.... would there be a reason to have a baggage car lighted in > transit? Just wondering if this would be a waste of a lighting kit. Actually, a baggage car would would be lighted (not that many baggage cars would have any windows, so that you would notice). A conductor or baggage handler might/would be sorting bags (and boxes) in transit to expite unloading and loading at station stops. Railway post office cars (baggage cars desiged to haul mail) would also sort mail during transit. > Thank you for any insights you may have. I am always amazed at the > extent of knowledge that is dispkayed here. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Michael Valinis > -- You could see lights out of one or moe doors of the baggage car. For them, the electrics on a train are basically free so they just left the lights on inside. That allowed thee baggage man to act like he was doing work (often he had to preparee the baggage for the next stop so the train wouldn't havee to stop long. I'll also note that the mail cars usually had sorters in there sorting the mail for destinations. -- Bob May rmay at nethere.com http: slash /nav.to slash bobmay http: slash /bobmay dot astronomy.net Thanks for the answers. Thanks for the replies. It makes sense to me now to install the lighting kit. Michael >A strange question here. Among my gifts from my wife is the Rivarossi >60' baggage car, to match the 60' passenger car which I already have. [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > >Michael Valinis > Thanks for the answers. > [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > - Show quoted text - There was a desk in there for the baggage man (no ladies needed apply) to do his paperwork. Presumably there would be a need for light. > Thank you for any insights you may have. I am always amazed at the > extent of knowledge that is displayed here. Looking over the night photos I've got of passenger trains turned up a couple of things: (A) Baggage cars that were run right behind the engine/engines as either sealed (through) baggage, express, or sealed mail cars don't usually seem to have been lighted at night -which makes sense because nobody would have been in them during transit and they weren't unsealed until they were spotted at their final destinations anyway. (B) "Working" baggage or "working" mail storage cars generally *were* lighted at night, as were RPO cars. On the old S.P. "Owl" that ran overnight between San Francisco and Los Angeles, you'd commonly see four to seven sealed (unlighted) mail storage and/or express cars, followed by one or two "working" (lighted) mail storage cars, one or two RPO cars (lighted), a "working" (lighted) baggage car, and however many passenger coaches were needed on that particular evening. Mail trains are heavy for their length, and it wasn't unusual for the S.P. to run double-headed Cab-Forward articulateds up front on the Owl all the way from Bakersfield into Los Angeles. This unusual engine configuration probably accounted for the unusual amount of film that was burned taking pictures of an otherwise prosaic over-night heavyweight mail train. ~Pete On 12/26/2009 3:21 PM Twibil spake thus: > Mail trains are heavy for their length, and it wasn't unusual for the > S.P. to run double-headed Cab-Forward articulateds up front on the Owl > all the way from Bakersfield into Los Angeles. I didn't know that, and it wouldn't have occurred to me. One doesn't think of mail as being particularly heavy (it's mostly paper), but I can imagine that a car full of sacks of mail could add up to a lot of weight. SignatureI am a Canadian who was born and raised in The Netherlands. I live on Planet Earth on a spot of land called Canada. We have noisy neighbours. - harvested from Usenet > > Mail trains are heavy for their length, and it wasn't unusual for the > > S.P. to run double-headed Cab-Forward articulateds up front on the Owl [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > think of mail as being particularly heavy (it's mostly paper), but I can > imagine that a car full of sacks of mail could add up to a lot of weight. Well, I should really have said "mail trains *were* heavy for their length" since there haven't been any mail trains for a long time now, but when you add up the weight of all the over-night mail that once passed between Los Angeles and San Francisco -and realize that it was an all-heavyweight train to boot, it actually *did* take two Cab- Forwards to handle a seventeen (or so) car train over the mountainous Tehachapi Pass district and keep it on schedule. S.P. rules normally forbade double-heading Cab-Forwards for fear of jerking the drawbars right out of the freight cars, but in the case of the "Owl" the two articulateds were needed not for their sheer pulling power but for their ability to maintain passenger-train speeds while hauling a heavy load up and down across two mountain ranges. ~Pete > On 12/26/2009 3:21 PM Twibil spake thus: > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > think of mail as being particularly heavy (it's mostly paper), but I can > imagine that a car full of sacks of mail could add up to a lot of weight. Paper is quite heavy, actually. Think of a block of paper as a block of wood - which it essentially is, consisting of cellulose, miscellaneous fillers, and air. Enough air to compensate for the density of the fillers. cheers, wolf k. |
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