In my travels last week I saw something that I thought was a bit odd. I saw an NS loco MU'ed to a CSX unit, pulling a string of well cars.
Is it common for competitive railroads to share motive power?
Joe Staten Island West
I was at Selkirk Yard (Selkirk, NY) Monday and saw a NS, CSX, UP, CP, SF (BNSF Pink and Gray scheme) MUed. Also present were PAR, CN, KCS, and BNSF in orange and green.
In addition to power sharing agreements, there are also lease units which may not have been repainted and so retained the last paint job which could easily have been a class 1.
Richard
Someone else probably knows teh details far better than I...
With all the computerization of both business systems and motive power, such agreements are more precise than ever. Back with 20th century-era diesels, you had a cruder analog version using hourmeters, but now such loan agreements typically track the use digitally so that horsepower/hours are paid back one-to-one. So these agreements cover not simply the number of locos, but how powerful they are and how many hours they run.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Its called "Seamless transportation"..
Railroads interchange complete trains including motive power.In short it speeds up terminal dwell time and transit time by not having to classify(switch) the cars into new trains.
Think of it..A BNSF train rolls into a NS yard,engines refueled and inspected,train is inspected and a NS crew boards and off they go all in less then 3 hours.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
BRAKIE Its called "Seamless transportation".. Railroads interchange complete trains including motive power.In short it speeds up terminal dwell time and transit time by not having to classify(switch) the cars into new trains. Think of it..A BNSF train rolls into a NS yard,engines refueled and inspected,train is inspected and a NS crew boards and off they go all in less then 3 hours.
I understand that scenario because BNSF and N'S interchange in say Chicago. But N'S and CSX are competing for the same customers in the east.
So would sharing power in a sense be violating anti trust laws in a way?
Anyway that's a business law question not. In my MR they can all run together.
joe323 In my travels last week I saw something that I thought was a bit odd. I saw an NS loco MU'ed to a CSX unit, pulling a string of well cars. Is it common for competitive railroads to share motive power?
Your question here and other RR business questions are along the same line that I had posted about in my thread , "A Complete Book of Railroad Operations", wondering if there was such a source of information, and I got some good answers from some RR veterans here. A few other threads of mine asked about paint schemes, leasing, used euipment etc..
joe323So would sharing power in a sense be violating anti trust laws in a way?
AFAIK, no. Otherwise, there's a whole lot of people in a heap of trouble.
Besides, what's left of effective anti-trust law in the US would fit on a matchbook cover
Railroads have always shared resources. Yes, sometime rivalries caused that to lapse in various ways, but it usually works. Witness the loaning of wreckers in case a line was blocked to clear an accident. Leased motive power and rolling stock goes way back, nothing illegal about it.
No,since its a joint operation between railroads.. Years ago this was called "pooled trains" the only difference the host railroad's locomotives had to be in the lead due to the type of signals used.
At one time a train was interchanged with locomotives and caboose..Again the host railroad would add one of their locomotive as the lead unit.
Railroad competitors today is only I believe is Union Pacific and BNSF. Union Pacific is in agreements with Norfolk Southern, the same for BNSF and CSX.
I'm unsure about Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, but I do see Norfolk Southern,BNSF and Union Pacific sometimes.
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.
angelob6660Railroad competitors today is only I believe is Union Pacific and BNSF. Union Pacific is in agreements with Norfolk Southern, the same for BNSF and CSX.
Sorry,I've seen photos of UP trains with BNSF power and vice versa.
Railroads have agreements (contracts) between each other (interline service agreements) that state how they will handle the exchange of locomotives, cabooses and EOT's. For various trains that operate on run through schedules between a point on railroad A and a point on railroad B, they have agreements about who will supply the power for the train, what type of power will be used, who is responsible for fuel and maintenance.
For most, but not all, agreements the railroads track the use of engines by horsepower hours (hphrs). The railroad takes the time in hours from when they delivered an engine in interchange to when they recieved the engine back in interchange and multiply that by the horsepower of the the engine. It doesn't matter whether the engine is being used or how much its loading, its being charged for every hour its on the other railrod (unless the other railroad reports the engine as failed, then the clock stops). So a 4000 hp engine deliverd at 1:00a on July 25 and returned at 3:00p on July 31 would be onthe other railroad for 6 days 14 hours or 158 hours and would accrue 632,000 hphrs. The only thing some railroads use GPS for is fuel readings to calculate fuel charges.
Engines in these services are supposed to stay in those services and the railroads are not supposed to divert foreign engines to other services.
At the end of the month, each of the railroads compare hphr accounts and calculate the net balance. If railroad A owes railroad B 24,536,000 hphrs and railroad B owes railroad A 25,168,000 hphrs then it ends up where railroad B owes railroad A 632,000 hphrs. To pay back then hphrs railroad B will either give railroad A a free runner to work off the hphrs or add more of their engines to a run through pool.
If the hphrs get so far out of balance that the railroad in debt can't pay back the hphrs, then there is an agreed upon value of a hphr and the owed railroad can demand cash payment of the hphrs. This is fairly rare, most accounts are settled by one road giving another road additional units.
This accounts for the vast majority of foreign class 1 power seen on other roads. Class 1 roads actually leasing power to each other happens but it is usually a small number of units for limited times.
Railroads will lease power from locomotive builders or may lease power from 3rd party locomotive leasing companies. That power will either be lettered for the railroad (long term lease) or be lettered for the leasing company (typically shorter term lease).
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
UP units in particular have been turning up a lot on BNSF lately. Here is one working as a DPU on a manifest:
Keep in mind that some of these arrangements cover unexpected traffic levels, maintenance headaches, of other spot issues. In other cases, due to recurring seasonal or regional traffic conditions, these exchanges become a bit of a routine. And for large systems like UP and BNSF, just having surplus power located in the right place makes a difference if the either need or are asked to supply additional motive power.
Railroads just don't give another railroad power if they happen to be short. If the BNSF is short of engines the UP won't crank up surplus UP power and give it to the BNSF (unless the UP owes the BNSF hphrs.) If a UP trackage rights train has an engine failure on a BNSF line, the only reason the BNSF would give the UP train an engine is if the stalled train is tying up tthe BNSF and the BNSF needs the track capacity, otherwise the UP would have to get UP power to the UP train on the BNSF trackage.
If a railroad stores surplus power it is most often for surges of traffic on their own lines. Class 1 railroads leasing power to other roads is very small compared to the use of run through power or power on hphrs.
Leased power is very different from power on hphrs in the way the power is accounted for with regard to hphrs. A leased unit is considered "owed" by the road leasing the unit and so hphrs accrue towards the road leasing the unit.
If an NS unit runs through on a BNSF train then the unit is considered a NS unit and the BNSF pays hphrs to the NS. If an NS unit is leased to the BNSF then its considered a BNSF unit and the BNSF generally doesn't pay hphrs. If the BNSF leases an NS unit and puts it on a runthrough train to the CSX, the CSX owes hphrs to the BNSF, not the NS for the use of the NS unit. In most cases if a railroad leases power to another railroad, the other railroad will try to not run the leased units off line because it complicates the hphrs balance and there is a good chance the engine will be returned to the lessor instead of the lessee.
Guys,Let's call it what it is "Seamless transportation".
Of course some yard and transfer jobs was eliminated,some yards closed or downsized and some terminal roads lost transfer traffic..
On the bright side some yards was enlarged,extra road crews hired,less terminal dwell time and we get to see a rainbow of motive power when trackside.
The future of railroading has arrived.
Of course that old professional iconoclast,John Kneiling, talked about this in the 60s in Trains Magazine.
Technically they're not "sharing" engines per se. They work out agreements so say BNSF and NS operate a train together, like a train of Powder River Coal going somewhere east of Chicago. It goes part of the way on BNSF and part on NS. It's easier to just leave the engines onboard and change out the crews.
In Washington State I've seen Norfolk Southern with BNSF diesels fairly often recently. I was surprised. The N.S. engine was in the lead.
Jim
Raised on the Erie Lackawanna Mainline- Supt. of the Black River Transfer & Terminal R.R.