Thanks for the input. Looks like the prevailing opinon is to stick wiuth the SP through Fernley.
Ray
Contrary to model railroad operations, interchanges weren't very fast, often only being pulled once a day. Often by a local. Then they had to switch the cars and make connection with whatever train was going in the direction the car was going. It's not unreasonable to figure a day added to the transit time for every interchange.
Yes, the railroads would,contrary to any other instructions, would route the car over their lines irregardless of the distance. The shipper or consignee could specify a route, or they could leave it up to the agent. Mileage wasn't really a factor, since mileage didn't enter into the cost. Time and reliability were two concerns. Time is usually figured in days, because normally an industry is only switched once a day. The only way you gain time is to get there soon enough to make a day earlier's local. One route might take 27 hours and the other 33 hours, but unless that gets you on the a local a day earlier, it doesn't matter.
Even if a railroad took longer, if it were more reliable, allways taking the exact same transit time or always being able to pull or spot a car on time, then customers might prefer it.
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cv_acr Also just because a route is less miles, doesn't mean it's faster. The "shorter" route not only interchanges at least twice between different railroads, but goes through a number of junctions, and the car may be handled by 4-5 different trains to go that route. Could take a week to make that move. Plus the whole splitting revenue with another railroad thing, so you'd try to keep things on your own line where possible.
Also just because a route is less miles, doesn't mean it's faster.
The "shorter" route not only interchanges at least twice between different railroads, but goes through a number of junctions, and the car may be handled by 4-5 different trains to go that route. Could take a week to make that move.
Plus the whole splitting revenue with another railroad thing, so you'd try to keep things on your own line where possible.
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In that era the rate between two points would have been fixed, so there would be no advantage to longer routings (as if it were like taxi service that charged by the car-mile...)
On the other hand that revenue would have to be split between two railroads if a routing used them... so a railroad might use a circuitous route to keep the whole business on their lines.
The shippers could pick the routing based on what was important to them. If the car was empty I doubt that the owning road would send it offline. That would probably generate charges by the foreign road.
Probably the all SP only route so the don't share revenue with the WP.
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I'm curious as to whether a railroad would route an on-line car the most direct route, or only on their rails. Specifically, looking at an industry in Susanville, CA destined for delivery on the SP in southern California. The SP only route would send the car eastwards to Fernley, NV and then back over Donner Pass to Rosevilles and eventually southward on either the Coast Line or the San Joaquin Valley line. This routing is shown in Red below:
Route Option A by Ray Hamilton, on Flickr
The shorter, more direct, route would send the rail car westward from Susanville on the SP to the Western Pacific at Westwood and then south through the Keddie Wye to Marysville, where it could again be routed on the SP through Roseville and further south as on the direct option. This route is shown below:
Route Option B by Ray Hamilton, on Flickr
Another routing not shown would be for the Western Pacific to hold the car all the way to San Jose, and then deliver to the SP for further travel along the Coast Line.
So, does anyone know which routing would have been followed?
BTW. the maps used for this illustration are from the 1949 Railroad Atlas
https://trains.rockycrater.org/pfmsig/atlas.php