I tend to hijack threads with ancillary questions and gawkings (sorry), so instead of clogging AbleBakerCharlie's thread I figured I'd start a freshie. His question got me wondering... did railroads in the West ever buy used power from railroads in the East?
I have an Erie F unit someone gave me... a good runner and a cool look, but I model (very loosely) the SP&S, NP and GN. I expect that historically all the used equipment SP&S got was hand-me-downs from parents NP and GN. So I'm not asking if it really ever DID happen, cuz I'm sure it didn't, but was there any convention or rule or reason that a railroad in the west would ONLY buy from nearby roads? To beat the horse a bit more... if, say, the Milwaukee Road was in the market for a used loco, would they for any reason ONLY shop at Union Pacific or DRG&W or Northern Pacific but not consider old Pennsy or Western Maryland cast-offs just because of the distance? Or did any railroad buy any old loco from anywhere else if it was what they needed at the right price at the right time?
("just lookin' for a reason")
Thanks,
-Matt
Returning to model railroading after 40 years and taking unconscionable liberties with the SP&S, Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads in the '40s and '50s.
Depends on what they were looking for.
Railroads tended to lease/buy engines from railroads in the "family" if they could From a corporate standpoint it is zero net cost.
However if the family didn't have what they wanted, they would buy from others.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I am no expert, just my opinion here. But I would assume a railroad would contact a locomotive broker/dealer and find what they needed. If a good deal for a batch of great used locos came from FEC or B&M, so be it.
If I want a used car, I don't go to all my neighbors and ask if they have one for sale. I go to a dealer and ask for my needs. If they get a local car, great. If it has to come from Cleveland or someplace, who cares.
EnzoampsI would assume a railroad would contact a locomotive broker/dealer and find what they needed.
Here's a list of demonstrators, leased, and demo units the PRR had. Even though they had thousands of locomotives, they still needed help.
http://jbritton.pennsyrr.com/index.php/tpm/latest-articles-blog/140-foreign-locomotives-on-the-prr
The crews liked the AT&SF oil burners so much so that at the end of the lease they were so worn out to be unfit and uneconomical for rebuild.
Pete.
Well, as Dave points out, it often had more to do with corporate ownership than any geographic relationship. The Missabe Road got engines from other US Steel railroads, like B&LE or EJ&E for example. They also leased engines from other roads, notably Great Northern F-units.
In the transition era, railroads getting rid of steam sometimes sold them or leased them to other roads, but often there was enough scrap value in the engines that the railroads just sold the engines for scrap metal and used the money towards new engines.
Although in the sixties railroads might sell their old first-generation diesels to another railroad, they might get as good a deal using it as a 'trade in' on new second generation engines. EMD was particularly noted for accepting pretty much any locomotive in trade in deals for new engines. I know Soo Line got a good deal on GP-30s because EMD used the trucks from Soo's trade-in Alco FAs.
I might be wrong, but I think leasing companies - companies that bought used engines, fixed them up, then leased them out - didn't get to be 'a thing' until maybe the 1980s.
EnzoampsBut I would assume a railroad would contact a locomotive broker/dealer and find what they needed.
A locomotive broker is a modern thing. Pre 1980's it would have been handled railroad to reailroad.
wjstix In the transition era, railroads getting rid of steam sometimes sold them or leased them to other roads, but often there was enough scrap value in the engines that the railroads just sold the engines for scrap metal and used the money towards new engines.
I'm interested in this aspect. If a railroad acquired a second hand steamer near the end of the transition era, 1956 in my case, would they likely reletter it for their road or just leave it as is figuring the steamers would be gone soon and not worth the trouble to reletter it.
My fictional railroad is a subidiary of the NYC and has a number of NYC cast off steamers which I continue to run in their original lettering. I acquired a Delaware and Hudson 4-8-4 because at the time, there wasn't a quality Niagra available. I've considered relettering it for my fictional railroad but if it is plausible to continue to run it with D&H lettering, that would be my preference.
To me the need for engines for a specific service and the necessary tractive effort to perform the needed service. Then you look to see which railroad has locomotives for sale that might fit your needs. Send an operations person out to go over the engines to see what shape they are in. You do not want to buy a lemon. If they are in good shape mechanicaly say we are interested and negotiate a price for them.
John-NYBWI'm interested in this aspect. If a railroad acquired a second hand steamer near the end of the transition era, 1956 in my case, would they likely reletter it for their road or just leave it as is figuring the steamers would be gone soon and not worth the trouble to reletter it.
In 1956 a major railroad is unlikely to BUY a used steam engine. What railroads were doing was leasing surplus steam engines until they could replace them with NEW diesels. The PRR leased several steam engines from the RDG and ATSF and used them for a few years until diesels were produced, then returned them to the RDG and ATSF who scrapped them.
Leased engines are usually not relettered.
dehusmanLeased engines are usually not relettered.
I had an A-B pair of Bessemer Fs that were surplus on my layout. B&O bought several (10 of each IIRC) and photo evidence shows they just "patched-out" the Bessemer lettering and slapped a B&O on the side and took the time to mount a brass Capitol dome on the nose:
BnO_F7-4645-3 by Edmund, on Flickr
Similarly, the Rio Grande had some surplus Fs that were slated for trade-in to EMD. Somehow Penn Central got wind of the deal and bought (or leased from EMD?) the engines with minimal painting done. Just get 'em on the road:
P-C_F7_754 by Edmund, on Flickr
This stuff makes modeling fun.
Regards, Ed
1) EMD and GE offered trade ins on old locos to dry up the pool of used locos available for sale or lease and force people to by new units from them
2) Never the less, some did escape and outfits like Precision National were active by the early Seventies
http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/photos/qnsl/precision.htm
Always liked their green an yellow livery
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1025361
3) One of biggest dealers in second hand steam locos was Southern Iron and Equipment, who went back to 1900
Another factor at work is the motive power philosophy of the railroad in question. For example in the 1970s and 1980s there were certain railroads that decided to stick with ALCO power, even as it was being retired in droves by Class 1s and shortlines, because their shop forces knew ALCOs well and parts inventories were pure ALCO anyway. So a railroad such as the Kankakee Beaverville & Southern would have used ALCOs from all over. There were similar ALCO rosters out east that would take advantage of the availability of ALCOs being shed by such railroads as the all-ALCO Green Bay & Western, if only just for parts.
A similar example is when the former Soo Line was selling off its former main line because it had acquired the Milwaukee Road's track, and a group of experienced railroaders acquired the old Soo Line trackage and brought back the 19the century name Wisconsin Central. They needed big locomotives and they needed them cheap, and they reasoned that if they focused on one model -- in this case the SD45 -- their shop forces and parts inventories could be highly specialized, and this coincided with SD45s reaching the end of their depreciation schedules on the Class 1s so SD45s from all over were heading to Fond du Lac WI. I saw a huge consist of all Santa Fe SD45s heading north on the Wisconsin Central. Whether they bought them from the Santa Fe directly or from a locomotive dealer I do not know, but I do recall an article in Trains about the process of evaluating an SD45 before they bought it - they weren't just blindly buying them up, they only wanted the good ones. But again they were buying SD45s from all sorts of railroads with wide geographic spread. I do think they wanted dynamic brakes so that left some sources untapped.
My point is that in these cases the origin of the used locomotive was largely irrelevant to the acquiring railroad.
Dave Nelson
crossthedog dehusman Leased engines are usually not relettered. Bingo. That's all I needed to hear. Thank you.
dehusman Leased engines are usually not relettered.
Bingo. That's all I needed to hear. Thank you.
That's what I was hoping to hear too.
A few other potential examples:
Look up the detail history of Peabody Coal Company's buying, maintenance, and operating practices. (These are the locomotives that hauled Paradise away!) Incidentally still one of the best inspirations for freelanced model liveries that has been...
PRR is notable for buying (not just leasing) locomotives from the West. While the 2-10-4s going up to Sandusky weren't relettered, the "FF2s" from Great Northern certainly were...
I doubt D&H bought PAs for the Adirondack, or a pair of Baldwin Sharks for freight, for their reliability in service... incidentally the paint on the latter comes from a 'foobie' model source, and in fact would have been a variant of the NYC lightning-stripe had a local hobby shop had a slightly better selection...
...and a savvy N&W could have leased rather than sold the boxcabs that became E33s... although we might recognize a particularly pointed case of 'get the money first' there... Note that the New Haven had no use, perhaps because no clearance, for the Virginian's other postwar heavy electric power...
While we are discussing N&W, what about those E units that handled passenger service in the first years after the Js were taken off passenger trains?
gmpullmanI had an A-B pair of Bessemer Fs that were surplus on my layout. B&O bought several (10 of each IIRC) and photo evidence shows they just "patched-out" the Bessemer lettering and slapped a B&O on the side and took the time to mount a brass Capitol dome on the nose: BnO_F7-4645-3 by Edmund, on Flickr
The Missabe did something similar with the B&LE F-units they had on the property for a couple of years while transitioning to all-diesels. (DMIR of course was a late-comer, using mainline steam into 1960.) Of course, both railroads were owned by US Steel.
However, leased engines were generally not relettered. They were still the property of the owning railroad, and often railroads only leased engines for a short time. During WW2, when ore traffic was idled in the winter, the DMIR leased some Yellowstones to the Rio Grande IIRC. Rock Island used to lease NYC diesels for a few months in fall / early winter for the grain rush. Even when it was longer, like DMIR leasing GN F-units, they weren't relettered.
I believe that the PRR borrowed or lease some NW Y6b 2-8-8-2's during the war to haul coal?
A lot of what is being discussed is era specific. A leased locomotive is not usually repainted except in the case of a number conflicting with the leasing road's own power. Then a "patch" renumbering is done, usually to a series not used by the leasing road. Why go to the expense of painting something that will be gone in a few months anyway? Not only that, the owner does not want the expense of repainting it back to its original scheme, either. Even when a road buys retired power from another railroad, that they don't intend to keep very long, in most cases they simply paint out the old road name, apply minimal new identification and renumber as with the ex B&LE F units. Rock Island bought a bunch of Union Pacific "F9AMs", actually upgraded F3s and painted out the UP markings and slapped RI heralds on the nose and flanks-voila! Yellow Rock Island F-units in the GP40 era of the 1970s, complete with UP's huge, slanted snowplows on the nose.
Precision National of McCook IL did the scrapping for EMD and cut up a lot of otherwise serviceable locomotives at a time when the second generation of dieselization was taking place. The need for operable locomotives to ease the short-term power shortages until locomotives on order could be delivered led them to start leasing some of these operable units out, under the Precision National PNC label. I believe one of the first units to wear their green and yellow was a former Southern Pacific GP-9.
A new industry was spawned in rebuilding wrecked and burned locomotives into leasers. Chrome Crankshaft, and Illinos Central Gulf's Paducah shops joined the parade, with Paducah doing contract work for many railroads. The 1980s saw Paducah had become VMV and was overhauling SD40s for their own lease fleet. The 80s became the era of the lease returns. The SD45 had fallen out of favor due to its crankshaft problems and fuel consumption, so the Class Ones were shedding them in droves. Remember, most railroad equipment is actually owned by a financial institution, and leased to whomever's paint it wears. Locomotives are usually considred to be fully depreciated in fifteen years so, that is the length of most leases. After 15 years, the locomotive can be bought outright at a depreciated price or, returned to the leesor, hence the lease returns. During the later 1980s, into the early 1990s former BN, Santa Fe, and Southern SD45s roamed the country with the original indentification painted out but, still in the original paint scheme. Owners such as Helm Leasing (HLCX) or rebuilders such as Morrison-Knudsen found ready markets for anything that would turn a wheel. Conrail began a big return of GP38s originally under 15 year lease to Penn Central, to become EMDs fleet of blue leasers. Devoid of many lines shed after taking over its initial components, the early GP38-2s quickly followed. Lease returns became the basis for the "surge fleet" that traveled the country, wherever the need was. During the early 90s, lease returns from Maine Central, Grand Trunk Western, Milwaukee Road, The Rock, Santa Fe, Burlington Northern, and Norfolk Southern could be seen on SP's Sunset Route here in Texas.
A lot of employee's timetables, from a number of roads have entries listing by number, weight, maximum speed, and starting tractive effort of any foreign locomotive one could reasonably expect to find on their rails. For example, Southern Pacific's Western Region Timetable No.1, Effective Sunday, April 5,1987, in addition to SP, Cotton Belt and Amtrak, has listings for ATSF, BN, B&O, C&O, WM, Caltrans, C&NW, D&RGW, EMD, L&N, MILW, Morrison-Knudsen, MKT, MP, SN, SOU/NS, UP, and WP. Note Morrison-Knudsen and EMD. The leasers had enough presence to be included in the ETT. Now, with run-through, mainline power from the few major North American railroads running hither, thither and yon, one doesn't need to travel across the country to see "foreign power",-sit tight, it'll come your way.
Overmod A few other potential examples: Look up the detail history of Peabody Coal Company's buying, maintenance, and operating practices. (These are the locomotives that hauled Paradise away!) Incidentally still one of the best inspirations for freelanced model liveries that has been...
I remember John Denver singing the song about Mr. Peabody's coal train but I had to look it up to discover it was originally written and sung by the late John Prine, who was a victim early on of the Covid pandemic.
wrench567 Here's a list of demonstrators, leased, and demo units the PRR had. Even though they had thousands of locomotives, they still needed help. http://jbritton.pennsyrr.com/index.php/tpm/latest-articles-blog/140-foreign-locomotives-on-the-prr The crews liked the AT&SF oil burners so much so that at the end of the lease they were so worn out to be unfit and uneconomical for rebuild. Pete.
Pete--It was 1956, and they ran those ATSF steamers into the ground. Most likely needed maintenance was not done. It was not because they weren't good engines--they were an extraordinary design producing over 5000 actual drawbar horsepower in much of the 40 to 70 mph range (documented by actual Santa Fe dynamometer tests, by S. Kip Farrington, who was there when the tests were actually done, and published the test data and the horsepower curve in his book "The Santa Fe's Big Three".)
Also, during steam years locos typically received a major tear down and rebuild approximately every 4 years. This was usual and customary...just not so much after 1956. So yeah, they were returned as wornout engines at a time when the last of steam was being retired on ATSF.
John
The PRR did the same thing as the RDG T-1 4-8-4's they leased. Ran them into the ground and returned them needing an overhaul, which the RDG didn't do since they were retiring steam and the engines were surplus.
BTW re repainting, remember that the reporting marks - the 2 to 4 letters indicating ownership, and the numbers identifying the car - are all that are required to use a piece of equipment in interchange. So if BNSF bought some boxcars from UP, they would need to paint over "UP 123456" and replace it with say "BNSF 34000". The rest - yellow paint, big UP shield, "UNION PACIFIC" spelled out, etc. - is just decoration.
Note that if two or more railroads merge, they wouldn't need to do change the reporting marks (although they may choose to do so) since ownership of the old reporting marks would transfer to the new railroad. BNSF can still have cars in interchage service with reporting marks BN or ATSF (or GN or NP etc.) since BNSF owns all those prior reporting marks.
ZePrice.
- Douglas
wjstixNote that if two or more railroads merge, they wouldn't need to do change the reporting marks (although they may choose to do so) since ownership of the old reporting marks would transfer to the new railroad. BNSF can still have cars in interchage service with reporting marks BN or ATSF (or GN or NP etc.) since BNSF owns all those prior reporting marks.
When Conrail was split, CSX used NYC reporting marks for some ex-CR equipment, and NS used PRR for some of their ex-CR stuff. Not sure if either one retained the CR reporting mark.
wjstix BNSF can still have cars in interchage service with reporting marks BN or ATSF (or GN or NP etc.) since BNSF owns all those prior reporting marks.
BNSF can still have cars in interchage service with reporting marks BN or ATSF (or GN or NP etc.) since BNSF owns all those prior reporting marks.
Actually the NP, GN and CBQ marks wouldn't be in interchange as any of those cars are over 50 years old and would be banned due to age. Those marks might appear in company service however.
Fifty year old freight cars could conceivably still be in revenue service as long as they remain on home rails. UP is running a LOT of old SP cars, in their original SP paint and Hydra-Cushion for Fragile Freight markings that are getting real close to the big Five-Oh. BNSF could legitimately run some gently used cars from its "heritage" components on a system that stretches from the Pacific Northwest, to the Gulf of Mexico.
MidlandMikeNot sure if either one retained the CR reporting mark.
NS got the CR mark. That's why the rolling stock that went to CSX got the NYC but the NS equipment didn't get PRR on them. They only put the PRR on locomotives, although I was never clear on the why, because they didn't do it with rolling stock. NS also owns the PC mark.