Foreign heralds and partnered liveries

[Convicted One]

What is the underlying logic behind the Union Pacific painting the heralds of rr's with whom it shared passenger connections, onto it's own locomotives? Such as painting Wabash insignia onto the old E units running their shared service between (Example) St Louis and Denver?

 Ditto too for the liveries of passenger cars, such as the cars owned by Wabash, but painted armor yellow ( yet featuring wabash style lettering)...

 Seems like  equipment flexibility would be more important than dedicating assets to a single corridor.

[doghouse]

 

Maybe its akin to what the airline industry does today with their 'partner carriers.'   

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The non-UP equipment painted in Armour Yellow was actually owned by the connecting road for assignment to the UP equipment pool, which hardly classifies as a single corridor.  This also applied to C&NW,SP and MILW as well as Wabash/N&W.  The E's with Wabash heralds were actually owned by Wabash and there were Special Instructions in UP Employee Timetables regarding their operation since train numbers could not be displayed in their numberboards.

Such an arrangement also occurred with CofG, ACL and NP (in season) cars being painted in IC colors for the Chicago-Florida pool on the "City of Miami" and "Seminole".

Also see "A Twist on Tuscan Red", an interesting article in a 1967 issue of TRAINS.

[wjstix]

What you're asking about weren't connections, they were joint operations / trains. Remember that the UP only went as far east as the Nebraska-Iowa border; to get to Chicago their passenger trains used C&NW trackage until 1955, then switched to the Milwaukee Road. Some early streamliner passenger diesels used on UP "City" trains ("City of San Francisco" etc.) had heralds for both UP and CNW on them, since the train ran on both railroads.

CNW already were (or had) painted their passenger cars yellow so they already fit pretty well with the UP cars, although CNW did re-paint some cars into full UP style with red lettering etc. When Milwaukee took over the UP trains, they switched to UP's passenger paint scheme too, even though the cars continued to be lettered for the Milwaukee.

Slightly similar was the Empire Builder. A lot of the reason why Great Northern's Empire Builder cars carried "EMPIRE BUILDER" on the letterboard was because the train went over three railroads - Great Northern, and subsidiary SP&S and the Burlington. BTW both SP&S and CB&Q owned EB cars painted like the GN cars, but with their own railroad sublettering.

 

[Convicted One]

  The E's with Wabash heralds were actually owned by Wabash and there were Special Instructions in UP Employee Timetables regarding their operation since train numbers could not be displayed in their numberboards.

 

Ok, now you've got me wondering:  Why would wabash want to own locomotives that are dedicated to polishing foreign rails with foreign road crews?

 Seems like it would be far more economical just to pay UP to haul a "wabby" section.

[wjstix]

  The E's with Wabash heralds were actually owned by Wabash and there were Special Instructions in UP Employee Timetables regarding their operation since train numbers could not be displayed in their numberboards.

 

Ok, now you've got me wondering:  Why would wabash want to own locomotives that are dedicated to polishing foreign rails with foreign road crews?

 Seems like it would be far more economical just to pay UP to haul a "wabby" section.

I think the term "dedicated to polishing foreign rails" might be where you're getting a little off track. Think of it more like a pool arrangement. Let's say railroad A runs from Chicago to Atlanta, and railroad B runs from Atlanta to Miami, and they decide to run a train together from Chicago to Miami called The Sunshine Express. They decide they need four sets of passenger cars, so railroad A pays for two sets of cars, each saying "SUNSHINE EXPRESS" on the letterboard but with railroad A's initials on the car showing they own the cars. Railroad B does the same. They then buy four A-B sets of E units to run the train, each set carrying the heralds of railroad A and railroad B. Each railroad also agrees to provide two extra sets of E units (lettered just for their railroad) as reserve power to allow for regular maintenance on the engines.

In that scenario, you might well see an E unit set lettered for railroad B pulling the train into Chicago, or engines from railroad A running far off their home rails into Miami. In reality, trains often were run by more than two railroads. The current Railfan and Railroad has a good pic of an early E-unit bearing the herals of joint-owners Union Pacific, Chicago & NorthWestern, and Southern Pacific, which was used on The City of San Francisco train which ran on all three railroads on it's trip from Chicago to San Francisco.

[cbq9911a]

The underlying logic was to create a unified image among the connecting carriers.  Using Union Pacific (pre 1955) as an example, if each railroad used their own liveries, you'd have C&NW green and yellow, UP yellow and gray, and SP Daylight colors on the City of San Francisco, which would be a mismatch.  Thus, Union Pacific specified a unified consist of yellow and gray.  Same thing with GN and NP.  Specially painted cars could be usually be used elsewhere without problems.  The Burlington had to be careful not to assign an orange and green car to the North Coast Limited or a two tone green car to the Empire Builder.

In the years prior to Amtrak the unified image was relaxed, so you'd have yellow and gray cars mixed with silver and red SP cars.

[wjstix]

 Same thing with GN and NP.  Specially painted cars could be usually be used elsewhere without problems.  The Burlington had to be careful not to assign an orange and green car to the North Coast Limited or a two tone green car to the Empire Builder.

I hadn't thought about that, but since the CB&Q owned some cars painted in Empire Builder colors (with "EMPIRE BUILDER" on the letterboard with CB&Q sublettering) and some painted to match the North Coast Limited (which I believe said "NORTHERN PACIFIC" on the letterboard with CB&Q sublettering) I suppose they had to be careful to keep track of which was which, since on paper the cars would look the same.

Of course, NP broke up the continuity of the NCL itself by throwing in a stainless steel slumbercoach in the otherwise all-dark and light green consist, and after 1967 GN trains were a mix of orange-and-green and big sky blue!!  

By the way, about the "sublettering" as I called it - one thing that can be confusing is that the reporting marks (the railroad's initials and the car number) is what shows who owns the car or engine, regardless what other lettering is on it. For example, even though all of the Vistadome North Coast Limited cars said "NORTHERN PACIFIC" on the letterboard, some of the cars had reporting marks for the SP&S or the CB&Q, who actually owned the cars but contributed the cars to the pool to be used for NCL service, since the train was a joint SP&S-NP-CB&Q train.

Same goes with reefers...many people get confused by the billboard lettering and such on reefers, but the reporting marks tell you who really owned the car.