Beginners question about railroads shared locos

[jxtrrx]

I like to detour past the local rail yard whenever I can, and am always amazed at the variety of roadnames all mixed together. Recently I saw a beautiful Canadian National loco sitting there for a couple of days. Obviously, I know nothing of how railroads share facilities. Can someone explain: How does a CN loco wind up in soouthern Colorado?

[hubbabubba2]

Hi!
One reason could be that it's leased to the railroad owning the rail yard. Railroads leases locos from other railroad or leasing firms when they have a shortage of locos.

Mattias

[dehusman]

Railroads have "run through agreements". They build solid interchange trains for each other. A UP yard in Texas builds a train for an NS yard in Ohio. So they don't have to waste time (and engines) changing power at the interchange, the railroads agree to let their power go through on the train. UP engines run to Ohio and NS engines run to Texas. They keep track of it all by counting horsepower hours (hphrs). A UP SD70 on the NS for 1 hour runs up 4000 hphrs (4000 hp x 1 hr). All they have to do is track how long what engine was on the other railroad. At the end of the month all the railroads compare notes and if one railroad owes another hphrs (more NS engines were on the UP longer than UP engines were on the NS) the railroad that owes the hphrs will let the other railroad use some its engines for a while to pay back the debt. So if the UP owes the NS a million hphrs (a very small amount), the UP will let the NS use one of its SD70's for 10+ days (4000hp x 10 days x 24 hrs/day = 960,000hphrs).

Dave H.

[sarailway]

Another reason could be that the loco had been sold to another operator and it was on it's way to the new owner. Sometimes in getting from A to B the in-transit loco is used on various revenue raising activities such as shunting yards or pulling a consist somewhere.

Here in Australia, locos are frequently hired to different operators for various reasons but mostly for overcoming shortfalls in motive power, just as hubbabubba above pointed out.

Keep enjoying your "train spotting"!!!!

[nobullchitbids]

It is, of course, possible, that the railroad in question obtained its equipment from Athearn, that Athearn was out of the model with the correct road name at the time, and that the railroad in question just happened to agree with the inquirer, that the paint scheme on the "foreign" power looked good!

[Anonymous]

These are truly great days for Railfans. I can remember the days when the only time you saw any foreign power was if there was a derailment on the competitors line. The owner would let their troubled neighbor use their track until repairs were finished.

[Anonymous]

Hello. About CN being in the US, they own Wisconsin central and Illinios central. They also have trackage agreement(sp?) with BNSF that lets them get all the way down to Mexico. Don't know if you guys all knew that or not, just my 2 cents. The reason an engine got to Colorado is probably one the ones mentioned above.

[Anonymous]

You never said what railroad the yard belongs to, but if I assume it wasn't CN then it could be any of the above reasons or another. If it was a CN yard well then there's your answer (but I don't think you would have asked if that was the case). After all CN's "north-south North American empire" (so to speak) probably runs through Colorado on its way from Canada to Mexico. I'd have to check a map to verify that.
I think that's what Skipeo was saying, but I think they own their own track in addition to trackage rights.

[jxtrrx]

Thanks to all for the wealth of information. It is a BNSF freight yard, which fits with the information you've given. (Today I saw a CN boxcar there... and wasn't confused at all) [:D]

[tjsmrinfo]

they major class 1's also have "pool power" where theyre locos run through on other railroads

tom

[Tilden]

I've seen a lot of differernt power running through the Cajon recently. When a road needs to push a lot of tonnage, I'm sure they will use anything they can get.
Also, awhile back, one of the loco producers had promised higher horsepower units than they could deliver. This created a horsepower shortage for the purchasing road. The producer was forced to call in leased units and provide them to the buyer to "make up" the missing horsepower. So there are many ways to a road can acquire "foreign" power.

[Bikerdad]

One other possible reason for the loco being there: Pueblo. The gov'ts R&D/testing facility for railroady stuff is in Pueblo, and its possible the loco was going to/coming from the facility as part of some test.

[BR60103]

I suppose it balances the BNSF warbonnet I saw last week in Ontario.
There will be restrictions on interchange. Some RRs have cab signals or radios that don't work with foreign power.