Where to start with Canadian / North American railways?

[justin1985]

So, eBay very sneakily slipped an Intermountain Z scale hopper in a very attractive CN livery into my "suggested" items list when I was browsing Märklin Z, and I couldn't resist! It reminded me of sitting in a rather boring conference session in an amazing conference room overlooking Vancouver harbour, and the Canadian Pacific switching yard, last year - watching the trains much more than the conference. So I found an American Z Line GP38 in Canadian Pacific CP-Rail livery to go with it ... 

 

But, apart from having watched that switching yard from the hotel window (lots of block trains of tankers and double-stack intermodal wagons) and watching some YouTube line side videos - I really don't know anything about North American railroads at all! I've just about picked up the fact that Canadians tend to call it a railway though!

 

Are there any websites, YouTube channels, or maybe books, that anyone would recommend as a dummies guide to how North American railroads are operated and organised?

 

I'm not really planning to build a layout, but it might be fun to put together a CP themed train to run on my German Z layout. A few specific questions:

 

There doesn't seem to be an era or epoch system for North American railroads. Is there a rule of thumb to help find wagons that would have run together?

 

The GP38 loco that I ordered is in "CP-Rail" livery with the white and black wasp stripes. That certainly doesn't seem to be the most recent livery (Canadian Pacific written out in full with a "chief" logo seems most common in recent videos?). But how old is the CP-Rail livery? 

 

Are traditional box cars pretty much dead now? Would they have still been common in the era of the CP-Rail livery? Which car liveries would be a good match? 

 

Do mixed trains (different types of freight and cars) still exist? Or did they still common in the era of the CP-Rail livery?

 

How much through traffic is/was there between the different railroads? I guess you'd see plenty of CN cars on the CP, and some from neighbouring US railroads. But would you ever have seen, say, Penn Central, freight cars on the CP system? 

 

What about cabooses? Is it like British brake vans, in that they were mainly needed only when a train didn't have continuous braking, and therefore have died out? I remember the Canadian caboose that you can go inside at Mangapps Museum in Essex was really striking, and fun! So one of those would also be quite cool if its at least vaguely plausible?

[GP9u]

Welcome to the entrance to a fairly deep rabbit hole...       I stood there about 25 years ago, and dived in when I started modelling modern CP. 

 

Here's a book that helped me understand North American railways:

https://www.amazon.com/Railroad-What-Does/dp/0911382046

 

And here's an excellent and comprehensive guide to current Canadian railways:

https://www.bytownrailwaysociety.ca/index.php/sales-desk/canadian-trackside-guide

 

There are several RR picture sites with great Canadian content, here's an example:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locoList.aspx?id=CP

 

And for something different that you don't find in England, modern shortlines in Southern Ontario:

http://www.osrinc.ca/

https://www.gwrr.com/railroads/north_america/goderichexeter_railway#m_tab-one-panel

My current modelling is based on these, but in O scale not Z.  These can give you an excuse to model cabooses as shoving platforms if you prefer modern equipment.  

 

By the way, if your GP38 has "zebra stripes" and a red/orange cab, it's probably CN not CP.  You can likely find it on the rrpicturearchives site above.

 

Have fun!

 

Pete

 

 

 

[warbonnetuk]

Well.....where to start.

 

As a beginner I'd suggest having a look at Trains magazine (either digital or bigger WH Smiths) and the publishers' (Kalmbach) website as it covers a lot of subjects. Kalmbach also do a wide range of books that cover a lot of basics and can be found secondhand on-line.

 

Time period and paint schemes can be a bit tricky as locos and rolling stock can goes for decades without painting so its worth checking online for dates. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/

is a personal favourite but there others including stuff on general hosting sites e.g. Flikr

 

Boxcars def arent dead but single car load traffic is contracting. Check out the webcams on Virtual Railfan for the variety of cars used in mixed general freight trains

 

For caboose use it depends on the railroad / way but generally they went out of common use in mid 80's. They are still used for local switching (shunting) work where the train needs to be propelled any distance.

 

Prob creates more questions that answers but hope this helps

 

 

[justin1985]

24 minutes ago, GP9u said:

Welcome to the entrance to a fairly deep rabbit hole...       I stood there about 25 years ago, and dived in when I started modelling modern CP. 

 

Here's a book that helped me understand North American railways:

https://www.amazon.com/Railroad-What-Does/dp/0911382046

 

And here's an excellent and comprehensive guide to current Canadian railways:

https://www.bytownrailwaysociety.ca/index.php/sales-desk/canadian-trackside-guide

 

There are several RR picture sites with great Canadian content, here's an example:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locoList.aspx?id=CP

 

 

Many thanks - these seem like a great start! 

 

25 minutes ago, GP9u said:

By the way, if your GP38 has "zebra stripes" and a red/orange cab, it's probably CN not CP.  You can likely find it on the rrpicturearchives site above.

 

Sorry, my mistake, its not black white zebra stripes, but red and white stripes - and a white and black "pac man" type logo at the non-cab end! Like this one: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1019358 

 

So I guess the date of that photo gives me a bit of a clue - 1993. I found another (the particular loco AZL depicted) here  http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2524194 dated 2011, and looking quite tatty, so I guess that gives me a date range for building up a train to run with it! 

 

22 minutes ago, warbonnetuk said:

Boxcars def arent dead but single car load traffic is contracting. Check out the webcams on Virtual Railfan for the variety of cars used in mixed general freight trains

 

For caboose use it depends on the railroad / way but generally they went out of common use in mid 80's. They are still used for local switching (shunting) work where the train needs to be propelled any distance.

 

Prob creates more questions that answers but hope this helps

 

Very helpful! So if am for a train circa mid-90s to early 00s, I might well be able to justify a few traditional boxcars. I'm guessing the longer length ones were longer lived?

 

Cheers!

 

J

[mdvle]

19 minutes ago, justin1985 said:

Sorry, my mistake, its not black white zebra stripes, but red and white stripes - and a white and black "pac man" type logo at the non-cab end! Like this one: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1019358 

 

Commonly called Pacman, it's proper name was Multimark and it was introducted in 1968

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimark

 

But North American railroads don't repaint things as quickly as European trains do, and so it likely lasted well past the introduction of the next scheme in the 1990s.

 

 

[Gilbert]

Some inspiration for you...

 

 

[GP9u]

Yep, there are still a few Multimarks here and there. Not many left now. Since then there's been plain Action Red, then the new red (which was warmer like SOO Line Candy Apple red), with CP Rail System, CP Rail Dual-flags, just CP Rail. And currently the newest red which is a tad more orange again. This has the new Canadian Pacific font with the beaver logo to start with, then just the lettering as the 3M reflective vinyl beaver logo was too costly (or so I've read).    

 

The car mix varies a lot by region.  Here in Southern Ontario, we have a lot of auto-related traffic. Maybe 50-100 Multis (Auto-racks) and a mix of Hycube box cars, mostly 60ft, in an auto parts train. 

 

As well a lot of grain hoppers in season, plus tanks cars of HFCS (corn syrup), oil, acid, Chlorine etc.  Then bulkhead flats of lumber (timber).  There are still quite a lot of 50ft box cars around such as Railbox, paper cars etc. Some regular gons or old coal gons for scrap metal and coil gons of new steel. As well some reefers for OJ and food products.

 

There's more car variety on the shortlines vs CP and CN. 

 

Out west you'll see more unit trains of grain, potash, oil, sulphur, forest products, some coal still.  You do see more CP cars on CP and CN on CN, but in the modern era, you can see reporting marks from all over, and a lot of leased cars.

 

Pete 

[Gilbert]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/646778685374576/

 

[dave1905]

Quote

Are there any websites, YouTube channels, or maybe books, that anyone would recommend as a dummies guide to how North American railroads are operated and organised?

 

North American railroads have for the vast majority of time operated as independent private companies.   The Canadian National was owned by the Canadian Government and during the period following WW1, the US roads were operated by the US Railway Administration (USRA) for a few years, but retained their private heralds and operations.  In the 1970's the passenger service in the US was nationalized in Amtrak and Via in Canada.

 

Each independent railroad had its own rules (under a general framework put forth by the American Assoc. of Railroads, or AAR) and its own format for naming trains, etc.

 

Quote

There doesn't seem to be an era or epoch system for North American railroads. Is there a rule of thumb to help find wagons that would have run together?

 

There isn't, but in general terms there is the "Transition" era when both steam and diesel engines operated (1940-1960) , the second generation era (1970-1990) and then the current era (2000-2020).

 

Quote

Are traditional box cars pretty much dead now? Would they have still been common in the era of the CP-Rail livery? Which car liveries would be a good match? 

 

34 ft boxcars were common until about 1890, then 36 ft boxcars until about 1910, 40 ft boxcars ruled into the 1950's, 1960's, 50 ft boxcars through the 2000's, with a decade or so overlap.  NA cars lasted about 30-40 years, so 50 ft boxcars built in 1990 are still out there.

 

Quote

Do mixed trains (different types of freight and cars) still exist? Or did they still common in the era of the CP-Rail livery?

 

Yes, definitely.  Solid trains of coal and grain existed since the 1800's.  "Unit" trains became common in the 1960's and 1970's.   Double stacks became common in the 1980's.  As double stacks and intermodal cars became common, they siphoned off the boxcar traffic and boxcars declined.  But mixed trains continued, more heavily in gons, tank cars and covered hoppers.

 

Quote

How much through traffic is/was there between the different railroads? I guess you'd see plenty of CN cars on the CP, and some from neighbouring US railroads. But would you ever have seen, say, Penn Central, freight cars on the CP system? 

 

Pretty much any railcar in NA could be on any railroad.  Transition era rule of thumb is roughly 50% home road, 25% connecting lines and 25% other lines (others say its closer to 33-33-33 split).  The chances of seeing a road's boxcar, gon or flat is pretty close to the proportion of the NA fleet.  Hoppers tended to stay on home roads.  In the modern era (1990's or newer) the proportion is closer to 50% private owner (equipment initials end in the letter X), 25% home road and 25% other roads.

 

What about cabooses? Is it like British brake vans, in that they were mainly needed only when a train didn't have continuous braking, and therefore have died out? I remember the Canadian caboose that you can go inside at Mangapps Museum in Essex was really striking, and fun! So one of those would also be quite cool if its at least vaguely plausible?

 

Cabooses were required on every freight train up until the 1980's or so when they were replaced with "end of train" devices that radioed air brake pressure information to the engines.  They are still used on locals and trains that work industries where the train might have to make a shoving move over a mile in order to give the crew someplace to ride during the shove (a "shoving platform").

[mdvle]

1 hour ago, justin1985 said:

I've just about picked up the fact that Canadians tend to call it a railway though!

 

Sort of.  The official names are Railway, but in general usage railway/railroad will be used at random - we are heavily influenced by US media.

 

1 hour ago, justin1985 said:

Are there any websites, YouTube channels, or maybe books, that anyone would recommend as a dummies guide to how North American railroads are operated and organised?

 

Might be some stuff in the back issues of Model Railroad Hobbyist - a free online magazine - https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/

 

(note that in the last couple of years they have started doing a 50% of issue free, 50% paid for, but there is still a lot of free stuff to browse).

 

Quote

There doesn't seem to be an era or epoch system for North American railroads. Is there a rule of thumb to help find wagons that would have run together?

 

No era/epoch.  A lot of freight cars lasted a long time, and were rarely painted.

 

The biggest thing to avoid is the roofwalks on things like boxcars - they were phased out a long time ago.

 

Other than that involves research, which for your purposes may not be relevant - if you just want a train to run on an existing layout you can always invoke the proverbial rule 1 and run whatever you want.

 

Quote

 (Canadian Pacific written out in full with a "chief" logo seems most common in recent videos?).

 

Not it is not a chief, but a beaver.

 

Quote

How much through traffic is/was there between the different railroads? I guess you'd see plenty of CN cars on the CP, and some from neighbouring US railroads. But would you ever have seen, say, Penn Central, freight cars on the CP system? 

 

Freight cars can travel anywhere in North America - I have seen Mexican autoracks here in Southern Ontario.

 

Quote

What about cabooses? Is it like British brake vans, in that they were mainly needed only when a train didn't have continuous braking, and therefore have died out?

 

North American railroads adopted continuous braking decades prior to the UK, so they weren't there under those circumstances.

 

Quote

I remember the Canadian caboose that you can go inside at Mangapps Museum in Essex was really striking, and fun! So one of those would also be quite cool if its at least vaguely plausible?

 

Backdate to the 70s or the early 80s and very plausible.

 

47 minutes ago, justin1985 said:

Very helpful! So if am for a train circa mid-90s to early 00s, I might well be able to justify a few traditional boxcars. I'm guessing the longer length ones were longer lived?

 

Steam era was 40' or shorter, transition era brought in 50', and later 60' arrived.  Doubt you will find any 40' boxcars in the 90s.

 

There are also 89' boxcars for specific loads.

 

Edited July 27, 2020 by mdvle

[mdvle]

Two other possible sources of learning - Rapido Trains and Athearn.

 

If you go to the Rapido Trains website they give an overview of the history of each item they produce - they don't have a lot of freight cars yet but it is a start.  What they typically don't tell you is what years the paint schemes are appropriate for*

 

https://rapidotrains.com/

 

As for Athearn, in their announcement PDF's they tend to give start dates for each paint scheme

http://www.athearn.com/Articles/Hobbywire.aspx

 

* in addition to the dates of pictures, if the date is unknown you can also (if the picture is large enough) look at the data on the side of the car which will include dates.

[dibber25]

Modelling CP Rail on Vancouver Island is a good way to model Canadian without needing space for huge trains. This pair of GPs were switching Topshelf Feeds, an animal feed  supplier that used grain, soya beans etc brought in by rail in cylindrical grain hoppers. There were usually a couple of box cars which came from businesses in Store Street, Victoria, which was actually served by a tramway-style line down the centre of the street. There was also propane traffic in tank cars and dust suppressant for the dirt roads, delivered in tank cars. Trains were seldom more than 6-10 cars, and cabooses were still in use at that time. (CJL)

[pH]

1 hour ago, mdvle said:

 

Commonly called Pacman, it's proper name was Multimark and it was introducted in 1968

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimark

 

But North American railroads don't repaint things as quickly as European trains do, and so it likely lasted well past the introduction of the next scheme in the 1990s.

 

Indeed! I have a picture of a GP38AC still in the 'small multimark' colourscheme in September 2018:

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/41022-occasional-canadian-photos-mostly-from-vancouver-area/&do=findComment&comment=3289242

 

[BR60103]

Cabooses (Vans on CPR) were offices for the non-driving crew. They were responsible for any extra work required, such as protecting the rear end when the train was unexpectedly stopped with flags, lanterns, and torpedoes. If there was a problem a crewman from each end would walk the train to locate it. To go into a siding the headend crew would turn the switch and the caboose crew would turn it back. Now some poor schmuck has to stand at the switch until the train goes by and then walk back to the locomotive.

The caboose had no normal braking responsibility (all cars were "fitted") but could open the airline if necessary. Before radios this was used to signal the head end crew.

Up until middle of last century (?) the caboose would also be a dormitory for crews that had to spend the night someplace else. 

 

"Foreign" rail cars are common. The railways like to keep traffic that originates on their line on it as far as possible. There are also dedicated cars on fixed routes -- there used to be some Union Pacific cars that carried aircraft wings from just outside Toronto to someplace else. 

 

CP and CN run "parallel" routes across the country, but often quite a distance apart.

Edited July 28, 2020 by BR60103

[RusselBridge2017]

I would recommend joining a local NMRA group, for all the negatives some people diss this society with I met some friends for life at the Bath/Claverton Group and gained a massive amount of knowledge, encouragement and help there...

 

[long island jack]

Have a look at this guys work on youtube

 

ave 

[dibber25]

9 hours ago, dibber25 said:

Modelling CP Rail on Vancouver Island is a good way to model Canadian without needing space for huge trains. This pair of GPs were switching Topshelf Feeds, an animal feed  supplier that used grain, soya beans etc brought in by rail in cylindrical grain hoppers. There were usually a couple of box cars which came from businesses in Store Street, Victoria, which was actually served by a tramway-style line down the centre of the street. There was also propane traffic in tank cars and dust suppressant for the dirt roads, delivered in tank cars. Trains were seldom more than 6-10 cars, and cabooses were still in use at that time. (CJL)

....and here's the rear of the train, empty tank cars and the caboose. To me, trains still look wrong without one. (CJL)

[dave1905]

Quote

Sort of.  The official names are Railway, but in general usage railway/railroad will be used at random - we are heavily influenced by US media.

 

Railroad and railway are more or less interchangeable.  If you study railroads you will find that often times or not they will change between the two as a result of bankruptcies and reorganizations  (the East and West railroad goes bankrupt and becomes the East and West Railway).  For example if you watched the show "Downton Abbey", the family loses their fortune when the CP collapses in the early 1900's.

[justin1985]

Many thanks for all of the really helpful replies - I feel like I've already learned so much!

 

14 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

No era/epoch.  A lot of freight cars lasted a long time, and were rarely painted.

 

The biggest thing to avoid is the roofwalks on things like boxcars - they were phased out a long time ago.

 

Other than that involves research, which for your purposes may not be relevant - if you just want a train to run on an existing layout you can always invoke the proverbial rule 1 and run whatever you want.

 

 

That is a really helpful tip - I had been eyeing up some Micro-Trains 50' boxcars on UK eBay that are selling quite cheaply, but they all have roof walks. 

 

I guess this means no full height ladders - so an easy first glance check? 

 

It might be a "rule 1" train, but I'd like to keep it consistent.

 

I'm kind of looking forward to going to town with some weathering too. North American boxcars seem to give a lot more potential for interesting weathering than most UK & European prototypes - perhaps less general overall grime, and more rust and grease effects? (perhaps from spending longer on relatively exposed routes, rather than densely packed multiple track railways etc?)

 

J

[dave1905]

Quote

The caboose had no normal braking responsibility (all cars were "fitted") but could open the airline if necessary.

 

Prior to 1906-1910, the brakemen would manually apply the handbrakes on the trains by moving along the tops of the cars and setting the handbrakes on individual cars.  The caboose wasn't used for braking per se because a NA train is way heavier than a British train.

 

Once air brakes were required the other thing a caboose did was provide an air pressure gauge so that the crew could test the brakes prior to departure and then monitor the brake pressure while enroute.

[dave1905]

Roofwalks were supposed to be banned as of 1974 but that was extended until 1983.  If you are modeling after 1983, then cars built prior to 1974 would have no roof walk and high brake wheel and ladders, Cars built after 1974 would have no roof walk and low brake wheel and ladders.

[mdvle]

1 hour ago, justin1985 said:

I'm kind of looking forward to going to town with some weathering too. North American boxcars seem to give a lot more potential for interesting weathering than most UK & European prototypes - perhaps less general overall grime, and more rust and grease effects? (perhaps from spending longer on relatively exposed routes, rather than densely packed multiple track railways etc?)

 

Likely difficult to pinpoint one cause, but among the differences will be that there is a lot of stuff carried by rail in North America that doesn't happen in the UK / Europe - distances make a difference.

 

Another factor will be the general lack of passenger rail, which means things don't need to look as "pretty", so cleaning or repainting doesn't really happen (see comment above by pH about the multimark painted loco in 2018 - despite that paint scheme being replaced 25 years previously).

[GP9u]

The biggest difference I noticed about real-world weathering when I moved to Canada is the amount of paint fading of RR equipment.  Second biggest is graffiti. And as you go south into the US, the fading and graffiti increase. 

 

We're about on the same Latitude as Nice and Florence here in Southern Ontario so you can really feel the sun on your face even at -35C in February.  And paint reacts accordingly.  CP Action Red that's still on the odd SD40-2 today gets called "Action Salmon" now by some because of the chalky faded look.  As well Corporate Identity and branding don't seem to matter as much to railways here livery-wise.     

 

There's more rust on older equipment I think partly because the paint fades, wears and peels off more quickly.     

 

In the roller-bearing era, there's not as much oil and grease evident, but I'm sure there was a lot more prior to that, even worse in the steam era no doubt.

 

Pete

 

 

[dibber25]

8 hours ago, dave1905 said:

 

Railroad and railway are more or less interchangeable.  If you study railroads you will find that often times or not they will change between the two as a result of bankruptcies and reorganizations  (the East and West railroad goes bankrupt and becomes the East and West Railway).  For example if you watched the show "Downton Abbey", the family loses their fortune when the CP collapses in the early 1900's.

 It wasn't the CP that collapsed. CP is very much alive and well. Downton Abbey linked the family's lost fortune to the collapse of the Grand Trunk, which failed after the death of its boss, Charles Melville Hays. Hays was in the UK in 1912 trying to raise finance for the completion of the second trans-continental line, when his pregnant daughter fell ill in New York. He rushed back home, booking a ticket on the SS Titanic. His private car is in the railway museum in Montreal. If you're lucky and you turn up at the right time, they take visitors on a conducted tour. I had one in 2012. Hays' was one of the bodies recovered after the sinking and his car was sent to Halifax NS to collect it. His had been a last ditch attempt to solicit finance for the GTR's completion. After that, the Canadian government took over the project and it became Canadian National Railways (CN). 

Edited July 28, 2020 by dibber25

[mdvle]

3 minutes ago, dibber25 said:

Hays was in the UK in 1912 trying to raise finance for the completion of the second trans-continental line, when his pregnant daughter fell ill in New York. He rushed back home, booking a ticket on the SS Titanic.

 

It's a fascinating insight into the world of that era when one considers just how many rich and important people perished on the RMS Titanic and how we don't get that many all in one failure mode anymore.

 

Or consider how many of today's equivalents would go down with the ship.