In real world would you ever see WSOR equipment on Wisconsin Central trains and visa versa?
Do you mean freight cars in the other railroad's trains, or do you mean locomotives on the other railroad?
The answer is yes for freight cars because the WC and WSOR had important interchanges/junctions.
As to locomotives, the answer is "yes, sometimes." The WSOR had trackage rights on the WC from their interchange tracks at Ackerville (Slinger WI) down to Waukesha WI, where a separate WSOR main to Milton Junction existed. (The WSOR had and has main lines that are not connected to each other.)
I once saw the WSOR business train - beautiful E units and highly glossy passenger cars all in matching paint schemes -- on the Wisconsin Central going south towards Waukesha. In Waukesha the WSOR regained home rails and headed west. But they had freights that did that too.
I believe those trackage rights still exist on the CN which has the lines that WC had back then.
Another thing: both the WSOR and the WC were "steam friendly" railroads and both hosted excursion steam pretty often. Sometimes the Soo Line 1003 which is housed on the WSOR in Hartford WI would travel down to Janesville using WC tracks for the gap. the CN is much less steam friendly and will not allow steam to head up a train, so a diesel has to pull any steam dead in tow. It was better before!
When I say the WSOR is steam friendly, not only do they host steam now, but when the C&NWr-1 4-6-0 # 1385 was on the property, the WSOR actually used the locomotive on one of its local switch jobs just to give their customers a show. Now that's steam-friendly!
Dave Nelson
Ringo58 In real world would you ever see WSOR equipment on Wisconsin Central trains and visa versa?
Have also seen WSOR powered manifest trains pulling out of Muskego Yard in Milwaukee headed for Chicago over CP. So either trackage rights there or some sort of haulage agreement.
dknelson When I say the WSOR is steam friendly, not only do they host steam now, but when the C&NWr-1 4-6-0 # 1385 was on the property, the WSOR actually used the locomotive on one of its local switch jobs just to give their customers a show. Now that's steam-friendly! Dave Nelson
Really glad you said that because I was planning on using my only steam loco on the layout as a last resort to keep up with customer demand! exept mine is a 2-8-0
But thanks for all the information! Will definitly mix and match my rolling stock
Ringo58, once the railroads agreed on a "standard" gauge one of the driving forces was the necessity of having to unload freight from the car of the originating railroad whose gauge was incompatible with the connecting carrier's. The benefit was, a car loaded at water's edge on the east coast could travel all the way to the west coast over any railroads rails without breaking the seals or touching the freight again.
The Pennsy and New York Central were two of the fiercest competitors in railroading yet, everyday you would find hundreds of the "enemy's" cars on your rails. Same goes for say, Southern Pacific and Santa Fe on the other side of the country. Why? If the preveious system that tied owner's cars to home rails had remained in place, railroading would have probably ceased to exist as a continental transportation system. A wagon could have made slow but steady progress by simply changing horses and drivers but the westward migration quickly proved the impracticality of THAT!
The answer lies in the car service rules that requires an empty car to be returned home if it can't be sent in that direction with a load. These rules take two seperate paths. Specially equipped cars are usually stencilled with specific instructions as to how they are to be handled once they are empty. They usually say something such as "When empty return home via service route" which means basically to send it in the direction from which you received it, by the route it took getting to you. Some are much more specific, often sending cars to another railroad or certain city or junction point. One that stands out to me even now was "When empty return to L&N RR, Appliance Park, Louisville Ky." even though the car could have belonged to the Southern (an L&N competitor), Illinois Central (another L&N competitor), Milwaukee Road, Santa Fe--you pick it.
The joker in this deck is the plain ol' "free runner" with nothing but initials and a number on the sides. This car only has to be routed IN THE DIRECTION of home. The Association of American Railroads have divided Canada, the United States and Mexico into "zones", comprised of states and, provinces. A car only has to be routed to a zone instead of a specific railroad or location. If PRR and NYC have rails in the same zone it makes no difference who owns the car, your only obligation would be to send it to the nearest "home" zone.
Locomotives are a different issue. Until the 1960s, they tended to stay on home rails. Improving highways and a growing trucking industry were sucking the high value freight away from the railroads at an alarming rate. One of the tactics adopted was to run the power right past the end of my railroad and onto yours. The crew and engine change that used to take 1-2 hours now took much less than an hour quite often as little as 10-15 minutes by just swapping the people. During 1974, I lived in Gulfport, Mississppi on the L&N. Each day there were run-thrus between New Orleans and Jacksonville, Florida with Southern Pacific and/or Seaboad Coast Line power. In today's railroading, there is no reason to make treks of hundreds of miles to see the power of a railroad--sooner or later it will come to you.
Fortunately my version of the PRR does not allow NYC cars on its rails. The NYC and its cars are inferior and banned. Guess I will be hearing from NYC modelers.
ndbprrFortunately my version of the PRR does not allow NYC cars on its rails.
A impossibility at best. However both PRR NYC freight agents loaded home cars above any other road..
During the Penn-Central era PRR routing clerks would not route a car over NYC and NYC routing clerks would not route a car over the PRR even if the routes was shorter.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"