History of push/pull passenger operation?

Anyone know when passenger trains first started being "pushed" by locomotives in service? Any quick history lesson would be much appreciated, strictly out of curiosity. Thanks.

In Gemanyin 1936(later east Germany) the steam trains in Lubeck had push pull operations with the cab cars actually controlling steam engines.
The only personm on engine was the fireman.

and the funny thing was they had double decker coaches.

DutchRailnut wrote:In Gemanyin 1936(later east Germany) the steam trains in Lubeck had push pull operations with the cab cars actually controlling steam engines.
The only personm on engine was the fireman.

and the funny thing was they had double decker coaches.

Thanks... and very interesting. I don't think I would have guessed that it was first used in a steam locomotive operation. Any idea of what they actually used for "control" from the cab-car?

servo controled steam valve, reverser had to be handled by fireman, brakes were controlled from the cab car.

Here is a PRR push-pull from the mid-1960s.

I thought the first push/pulls in the U S were on the C&NW during the Ben Heineman era.

Sometime in the 1940's, before diesels took over the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the bridge connecting Jersey City and Newark over Newark Bay had a fire. Dad brought me on the stub service that ran from Communipaw Terminal to somewhere around West Side Avenue: a Camelback on the west end, with one coach, with the back-up eastbound instructions given by air signals or whistles by the conductor on the vestibule. Whether it was faster than the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail on a portion of the same route today, I don't know.

The CNJ rebuilt some coaches into cab-control cars in the 1960s…a couple survive on the Green Mountain Railway.

-otto-

Of the surviving CNJ cab cars are any operational?

At least one of the cabs is operational, last I knew it was being used out of White River Jct. on the excursions from that point (as of a couple years ago).

ljeppson wrote:I thought the first push/pulls in the U S were on the C&NW during the Ben Heineman era.

That may be true. Somewhere I found a picture of 1-2 C&NW coaches pulled by GTW steam. They were on the Michigan lines headed for Muskegon. They may have been transported by carferry into Milwaukee. It would seem strange but possible to be in a Detroit-Durand-Muskegon freight, tucked in behind steam.

It may be funnier to find those C&NW coaches rebuilt, repainted & running on the MCS now. I found a few pictures on the Net where the coaches had Chicago & Great Western lettering in place of the C&NW. Mostly the cars were in bad need of a new paint job.

Having visited Lubeck, I believe that it remained (barely) in the West part. The British used a good deal of steam push-pull (similar scheme) in the 1950s; One place I'm sure of was the branch now preserved as the Keighley & Worth Valley (http://www.kwvr.co.uk); Their quarterly magazine is called "Push & Pull". IIRC, the C&NW push-pull double deckers were in service by 1963, I think the CNJ was a little later.

I could be wrong, but weren't some of the early steam powered elevated operations in New York City and Chicago push-pull? I read about them some years ago and don't recall mention made of a locomotive waiting at a terminal to couple on to the end car of an arriving train. I know the Forney engines were often run in reverse mode, so perhaps a push-pull wasn't out of the question.

Please feel free to correct me if my memory is faulty on the subject.

=

Early "L" operations in Chicago had bi-directional steam engines that had to run around their train, or have another engine at the terminal tie on to the incoming train for the outbound movement. There was, of course, no room for turntables.

From what I recal push pull on the CNW was envisioned around 1958. The Bi-Level 400 intercity cars were designed to be re-built for suburban service when the line would eventualy get out of the long haul business. Those cars were the first of what became the new series of HEP equiped bi-level cars for CNW. The original St. Louis and Pullman Bi-Levels were originaly equiped with steam heat and battery lights.

I was once told that thhe push pull concept on the CNW was ignited by the tail-hose rush hour reverse moves of suburban trains on the Skokie district. Crewmen disliked tailhosing in the winter months so several suburban, single level coaches were equiped with a windshield and windshield wiper to protect the brakeman during the reverse move. It was said that this lead to the formal push pull concept.