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Mixed Lots

A mixed train is a train that hauls both passenger and freight cars. In the early days of railways they were quite common, but by the 20th century they were largely confined to branch lines with little traffic. more...

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As the trains provided passengers with very slow service, mixed trains have largely disappeared today.

Mixed trains in New Zealand

Mixed trains were once prolific in New Zealand. Although express trains operated on the main lines, it was often not profitable to run dedicated passenger services on rural branch lines and they were served solely by mixed trains. On the more significant provincial routes, it was not unusual for a dedicated passenger express to operate during seasons of peak traffic volume and for mixed trains to provide service during off-peak periods, such as in the case of the Rotorua Express in the late 19th century, or for the provincial express to operate twice or thrice weekly while mixed services ran daily, as in the case of the Taneatua Express.

The undesirability of mixed trains for passengers led the New Zealand Railways Department to investigate railcar technology in the early 20th century; overseas designs could not be directly introduced to New Zealand due to its rugged conditions, 3'6\" narrow gauge track, and small loading gauge. Trials of railcars such as the RM class Model T Ford railbuses proved unsatisfactory and railcars rarely replaced mixed trains. When railcars became successful in the 1930s, they primarily replaced unprofitable provincial carriage trains, although some mixed services in regions including the West Coast and Taranaki were replaced by railcars.

Mixed trains were more prolific in the South Island as it had the majority of New Zealand's rural branch lines, but as private car ownership increased, passenger figures decreased and many rural trains ceased to cater for passengers in the 1930s, although some mixed services lasted into the 1960s in isolated regions with poor roads. In the North Island, the last mixed trains operated into the 1970s, such as the service provided on the North Auckland Line that ran until 1976. Mixed trains in a sense returned to the South Island for a few years in the 1990s, when a few wagons of express containerised freight were attached to the TranzCoastal express that operates between Christchurch and Picton. However, this was much unlike the mixed trains of previous decades that performed lots of shunting en route and operated slowly; the TranzCoastal did not perform shunting as it was expected to maintain its passenger timetable and convey its time-sensitive freight swiftly between Picton's port and Christchurch.