BN pulling UP cars?

[Anonymous]

Trying to keep a little realism on my layout...

I the real world, would a train with BN locos up front ever pull UP boxcars or PRR hoppers or... well, you get the idea

I've never really looked [B)]

[Anonymous]

sure. go out rail fanning. you can often find the locos of one railroad pulling cars belonging to all differnt railroads. a BN with a UP box in the consist would seem perfectly normal to me. the PRR hopper may be a lil off, b/c hoppers especaily in railroads like PRR stayed pritty close to home and were generaly used in coal drags, but that dosent mean that it still may not show up. i know enough, but other people can probly give you better and more accurite info if thats what your looking for.

[coachayers]

Certainly. Back in the days of different track guages and different couplers, cars stayed on home lines. Loads had to be transferred from car to car at points where lines came together. After the Civil War, the track guages were standardized as were couplers and other things. Deep in "home" territory, the majority of cars will be home road, but near interchanges you will find all sorts of different roads and colors. What is even more interesting is when two railroads have a run through agreement, or "share" a train. Some Norfolk and Western passenger cars were painted in UP colors and ran coast to coast for example. You would also see a Union Pacific diesel in a group of Norfolk Southern engines pulling a hot shot train through Virginia.

Bob

[ndbprr]

PRR probably not. There aren't that many left unpainted for a railroad that has been gone for close to 30 years now. At last count it was under four hundred and it makes teh day of one of us Pennsy fans to dee one. UP all the time as well as any other contemporary railroad. One caveat however. Real industry specific cars like FEC potash cars or iron ore jennies are pretty much captive on home rails. Other than that have at it.

[BRAKIE]

For years the PRR haul N&W coal to Sandusky..C&O pulled Clinchfield coal to Toledo,B&O pulled L&N,Southern coal to the lakes.Of course these off road hopper cars could go to a steel mill or other off line coal fired industry located on another railroad.

[dknelson]

The last PRR car I saw was an old flat car used as an idler car next to a flat car carrying an oversize load. The decking was pretty much gone but then it had no load to carry itself. And that was maybe 10 years ago, well within the BN era which started .. when, around 1970? 1971? In the early years of the BN there would have been plenty of PRR stuff still in interchange service.
One of the interesting facets of car forwarding is freight cars whose "home" when empty is on a foreign line because they are in dedicated service. For example, the Seaboard Air Line had boxcars which were stenciled to be sent to, I think, Manitouwoc or Sheyboygan Wisconsin on the Chicago & North Western because they were in dedicated service: healing Wisconsin built air conditioners down south!
Likewise lots of railroads autoracks are to be sent to the DT&I in Michigan when empty. They do not return to their home railroad unlike most empty freight cars.
In short, then, any car in interchange service is likely to be seen on any other railroad, the exceptions being such things as unit train coal gons/hoppers which just run back and forth from mine to utility etc.
Dave Nelson

[AltonFan]

In the last year, I've seen relatively new former Conrail cars carrying PRR (and NYC) reporting marks. Apparently this was a part of the division of Conrail rolling stock in preparation for the acquisition of Conrail by NS and CSX.

[DSchmitt]

As you see from what others have said the answer is a qualifed yes. I have seen guidlines in magizenes suggesting the % split between home road, RR with direct interchange connections, and RR without direct conections. I don't know if an index search would find them.

Consider that the cars of a railroad that is a fierce competitor with parellel routes would be less likely to be seen than a car from a connecting route or even a car from a distant route. If the car had to run on your RR the competitor would generally want to interchange it at the last possible location and you would generally have to return it there.

Railroads make alliances with connecting railroads that may change and affect the car mix. They may even make alliances with competitors if the circumstances warrant.

As mentioned befor there are also cars in dedicated service. They will usually move in blocks. One side light to this: I have read that there was a class of Western Pacific box cars in dedicated pool service that never ran on the WP.

One strange thing I saw once was a coal train on the Southern Pacific south of San Jose CA. The entire train locos, hopper cars and caboose was Denver and Rio Grande. This was in the 1960's.

Another factor is the number of car the RR owns. My observation for instance is that overall Western Pacific car were quite rare even on the WP, while the majority of cars on a Southern Pacific train woud be SP.

If you are a real stickler for accuracy you may be able to find switch lists for your area modeled and era.

Personally I run cars I like the looks of and don't worry about it.