Do railroads profit when providing "run through" power?

[Anonymous]

File this away under "half baked" curiousity, but today I was watching an east bound freight on the former Wabash, headed by a trio of Union Pacific power.

Pulling Dupont covered hoppers, coil steel, and empty auto racks, it was pretty easy to figure this one was headed to Detroit.

Of course, there is no way of knowing if the head end power was leased, loaned, "swapped" or whatever, but it got me to thinking about "run through", and whether or not originating railroads customarily make any "overhead + profit" when providing run through power?

If they did, then doing so might be seen as a way for one railroad to "sap" the revenue stream of another, getting at least some cashflow out of the related haul, in the borrowing railroads own territory.

Just curious.

[Anonymous]

Good question.

My guess would be that the railway that the run through power is being run on would end up owing power hours to the railway whose loco's are in use.

But I don't really know, I suppose the railways could also work out other deals between them.

[dwil89]

This is a good question...Why do host railroads use runthrough power...The Riverline, which runson the West side of the Hudson RIver from Selkirk, NY to Kearny, NJ, sees its share of foreign power, either solid, leading, or in consist with CSX. Run through power is seen more often now on NS, through Pennsylvania, as trailing units in Cab signal Territory. BNSF, SP,UP,and Warbonnet, among others can be seen on trains, especially intermodals. It seems that when the intermodals come into Chicago from the west, often times NS will just trade out the leader for one of its own, and leave the foreign power tacked on behind,...The consist usually heads to Harrisburg, or points East, and then returns West....I have seen on occasion, certain foreign units 'pingponging back and forth between Conway or Chicago, and the East. Horsepower hours repayment to NS? Or just out of convenince due to power shortages? Dave Williams http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nsaltoonajohnstown

[BNSFGP38]

If it dont make dollars, it dont make sense right?

[cpbloom]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dwil89

I have seen on occasion, certain foreign units 'pingponging back and forth between Conway or Chicago, and the East. Horsepower hours repayment to NS? Or just out of convenince due to power shortages?

It seems like repaying HP hours is a never ending cycle. I see BNSF units here in Columbus OH; and they sometimes stay around the area for quite a while before they leave. Also I can go to railpictures.net and ALWAYS see NS units on Cajon pass.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dwil89

This is a good question...Why do host railroads use runthrough power...

With more and more emphasis being given to "on time" performance, one seeming advantage would be the time saved by merely walking a new crew onto an existing train, rather than having to physically swap out power units, as territories change.

Maybe I'm being overly simplistic in that assumption, but it seems like I read something about that in Trains magazine, where UP was giving CSX "runthru" power for the transcon produce trains...

[tree68]

Even assuming the simplest of explanations - run-through power - arriving at a zero balance would be nearly impossible. At the end of a run, one of us owes the other some HP hours. I may owe you 10 HP hours (keeping it simple), but if my loco ends up running up15 HP hours (you can't just park it when the hours run out, as if the crew would know), then you now owe me 5... Easy to see that it's a never-ending game.

What might get really confusing, though, would be a run-through engine traversing a couple of RR's besides the owner's...

[dehusman]

99% of the foreign Class 1 locomotives you see are on horsepower hours. 99% of the units that end in the letter "X" (LMX, FURX, GECX) are being long term leased by somebody and could be on hphrs also.

Basically all railroads charge each other the same hphr rate, which boils down to a cost plus rate. Hphrs are balanced monthly between the class one railroads and run in hundreds of millions of hphrs. Rarely does money change hands, most of the time the hphrs are ballanced by simply putting more locomotives over on the railroad you owe the power.

When a locomotive traverses several roads, the hphrs are always between the railroad that gave the unit and the railroad that recieved the unit, not between the railroad whose name is on it and the railroad that recieves it. If NS gives CSXT a train with 2 UP and BNSF engine, then the NS gets the hphrs from the CSXT, not the UP and BNSF. In turn the NS owes the UP and BNSF hphrs, so in the end it all balances out.

Dave H.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the detailed explanation, dhusman. It looks like you are saying thatt the Railroads simpoly found it easier for the book keepers to settle the matter than to fight a war of logistics in keeping owned power on home turf?

Still, it seems somewhat amusing that these roads who never stop looking for a way to cut each others throat, are so trusting of one another with millions of dollars worth of physical plant, but I guess that so long as each party has their throat on the same knife, it works out for all?

Yet, I guess if I was a particularly large railroad who'd gobbled up half the continent in the past few decades, and had beaucoup motive "spoils" from the lines I had gobbled up, I'd probably look forward to every opportunity available to put those assets into some revenue generating capacity, as alternate to the scrappers torch.