This is very common. Locomotives from Railroad A are on Railroad B's track in the following ways:
1. Most common is trackage rights or haulage rights. Trackage rights allow a "foreign railroad to use the track of another between specified points. Some trackage rights allow the foreign railroad to serve some or all of the local customers on the home road. Trackage rights usually, but not always, require the foreign railroad to furnish the train crews that run the trains. Under haulage rights, the foreign railroad has the right to solicit business at a point on the foreign railroad. The home railroad hauls the trains of the foreign railroad using its own crews but usually the locomotives of the foreign railroad.
2. Run-through agreements on trains or traffic that begin on one railroad and end on another -- common examples include coal trains that load at a mine on one railroad and unload at a power plant on another railroad, long-distance intermodal trains such as BNSF-KCS-NS Los Angeles/Long Beach to Atlanta, and certain other unit trains. Usually each railroad contributes so many units or so much horsepower to the pool. Locomotives contributed to the pool by Railroad A can end up in other uses on Railroad B, however.
3. Short-term, no fixed period loans called "horsepower by the hour" -- for instance, Railroad A sees it's going to be short on power at Chicago tomorrow, so it calls Railroad B to see if it can borrow some locomotives. The useage is monitored by the horsepower/hour and at the end of the month or some other agreed time, the two railroads settle accounts either with cash or loan of "payback" locomotives. Standing agreements govern rates and maintenance responsibilities. The home railroad has a recall provision; if it needs its locomotives back the borrowing railroad has an pre-agreed amount of time to deliver them back to the home railroad.
4. Long-term leases from a railroad that has locomotives it doesn't need to a railroad that needs locomotives.
5. There are also instances where what appears to be a locomotive belonging to Railroad A no longer does because it has been returned to the lessor, and the lessor has placed it onto a new lease on Railroad B but neither lessor or Railroad B has bothered to repaint it.
RWM
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