For the modern era modelers.
Is the whole consist or do they put a home road locomotive in the lead position? Do they swap, add or eliminate mid train or rear locomotives? Does the receiving road get billed for rental, fuel, and servicing? What happens if a locomotive breaks down far from it's home road. Does it get towed dead back to the home road or repaired by the borrowing road?
As a steam era modeler. There were leased units. And demonstrators but run through wasn't a thing.
Pete.
Run through power is managed by an agreement between the two railroads to run power through between the two railroads.The agreement can specify the types of power, the amount of power, where the engines will be run to, whether or not it will be fueled and if there will be any offsets.
The power is tracked by "horsepower hours", that is the horsepower of the unit multiplied by the number of hours the power is on the other railroad. If UP delivers 3 SD40's on a train to the NS at 1201 am on April 2nd and the NS returns the engines to the UP at 5 pm on April 4th, they engines would have been on the NS for 65 hours. 9000 hp x 65 hours = 585,000 horsepower hours. The NS would owe the UP 585k hphrs. Generally the NS pays that back by giving the UP engines for an equivalent time. If the NS gives the UP two C40-8's for 36 hours, then the UP will owe the NS, 8000hp x 36 hrs = 288,000 hphrs.
Rairoads are running dozens of sets of power back and forth between each other, so they are contanatly accumulating hphrs between them. The totals can easily reach the millions of hphrs.
Horsepower hours are accumulated over time and on a monthly or every other month basis the railroads agree on the hphr balance and then eventually with try to balance or pay back the hphr deficit which ever railroad owes. They can do that by subsitiuting engines on runs, adding another run through run, debtor road giving "free runners" to the owed road that they can use however they want.
If for some reason the owing road can't pay back the hphrs they can be converted to cash and pay cash money to balance things or they can work out some other deal. The NDM owed the MP lots of hphrs back in the 1970's. The NDM didn't have enough engines to pay back the hours so the NDM paid the MP back in gondola cars. If you ever see a picture of a blcak 65 ft mill gon with white grab irons lettered for the MP, that was a gon that the NDM used to pay back the MP. The cars were part of a run the NDM ordered and they were painted like and NDM car but lettered for and delivered to the MP.
Fuel is handled by the railroads measuring the fuel in the fuel tanks on delivery to the other railroad and the difference between the fuel in the tanks when the engine is returned. If the UP give the NS 3 SD40's with 2000 gals in each tank and the NS returns them with 1000 gals then the NS owes the UP 3000 gals of fuel (3x2000 gals-3x1000 gals = 3000 gals). On the other hand if the NS returns the engines with 3000 gals in each one, the the UP owes the NS 3000 gals (3x2000 gals - 3x3000 gals = -3000 gals). Once again this is added up over a course of months and balanced on a monthly or semi-monthly basis. Oil and sand are calculated as a fraction of fuel.
If an engine needs minor repairs, they are billed to the owning road. If the UP engines on the NS need new brake shoes, the NS installs brakes shoes and bills the UP for the reapirs on an AAR agreed basis.
If the engine needs a minor inspection the road having the engine might do them.
If the engine needs a quarterly or annual inspection the engines will normally be returned to the owning road before the inspection is due. If they can't make the date, then the engine has to be shut down and returned dead.
If an engine fails on another road the road will contact teh owner and see if the engine should be repaired or returned. Normally it is returned to the owner.
In any case if the engine fails or is shut down, the horsepower hours calculations stop accruing.
There are emergency leases, where an engine on a railroad fails (typically a short line) and they need to lease an engine for a short term daily rate basis until their engine can be repaired.
There are also short term leases, 6 months to a year. The UP might be short of power and the NS has extra engines, so the UP leases the NS engines for a a year at a daily rate. The engines leased remain in NS paint.
There are also long term leases where a leasing company leases engine to a railroad for terms of 6 months to years, usually for a daily rate. The engines stay in the paint of the leasing company.
Finally there are long term leases, the UP leases 200 SD70's from EMD for 5-10 years, the engines are painted for UP and look just like any other UP engine.
In a former life I used to manage a locomotive fleet so had to deal with all there variations on a daily basis.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Wow Dave. That's a lot to unpack but I believe you answered everything plus. The horsepower per hour is interesting for sure. I'm sure borrowed locomotives don't sit around for long and are constantly on the move.
Having a few modern locomotives in my collection doing nothing. I can now consist a few for a run through session on the clubs layout and give my steam and first gen diesels a rest for an op session or two. Just have to scrounge up a bunch of double stacks now. Modern freight cars are non existent in my collection. Just wouldn't look right having a few SD70 and big GE locomotives dragging a bunch of H21, H22, and GLA hoppers around running solid bearing trucks.
Thank you very much.
The one thing I didn't see him address (although I'm sure he knows more about it than I do) is how the decision of 'lead locomotive' is made.
For a while on NS their preferred 'train management software' only ran on their GE locomotives, so those were usually seen leading in a mixed consist.
Railroads with specialized signal systems may have to have "their" locomotive in the lead for the rest of the power consist to be compatible.
If you have DP somewhere in the 'rest of the train' the leader would have to be properly equipped.
I don't know if anyone uses Harmon Select-A-Power any more, but some of you modelers might. It was my understanding that all the units in a given consist had to enabled (you could have up to seven IIRC, eight-bit addressing like SCSI for hard drives) if you wanted to use the fancy derating -- perhaps you could bunch the equipped locomotives up at the head end. Someone like Ed will have the technical documentation on the system to get the straight dope.
Canadian locomotives have amenities most US power lacks. I'll leave it for someone like SD70dude to explain the finer points, and whether a given consist that is to operate into the United States, if the Canacian leader is 'not legal for trade' in the US, would have such power in a position easy to cut off at an appropriate location near the border.
OvermodThe one thing I didn't see him address (although I'm sure he knows more about it than I do) is how the decision of 'lead locomotive' is made.
Hugely era dependent.
Back in the 1970's the leader was the engine pointed in the right direction.
On the UP the leader was the engine with compatible cab controls (CCS for the UP, ACS for the run throughs to the CNW, and later on ATS for the trains running north of Chicago on the CNW).
Later still if it was a DPU train then a DPU equipped engine on the point and trailing positions.
On the UP Hanna basin coal trains got a C30-7 equipped with hump controls for slow speed operation through the flood loaders.
In more modern times air conditioned or wide cab units were preferred as leaders. Generally crews preferred EMD and newer units as a leader for ride quality.
As I said earlier, other than some special equipment, the leader is the one pointed the right way.
OvermodRailroads with specialized signal systems may have to have "their" locomotive in the lead for the rest of the power consist to be compatible.
Starting about 1960, New York Central had a run-thru arrangement with the CB&Q between Chicago and the Twin Cities. Because of...I forget if it was a cab-signal system or what. But anyway, there always had to be a Burlington diesel leading.
This run-through agreement has continued through all the various mergers (BN, BNSF) and break-ups (Penn Central, Conrail) until today.
dehusmanIn more modern times air conditioned or wide cab units were preferred as leaders. Generally crews preferred EMD and newer units as a leader for ride quality. As I said earlier, other than some special equipment, the leader is the one pointed the right way.
Some times these "preferences" may actually be written directly into crew labour agreements. My understanding is CN agreements require microwaves in the cab.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
OvermodCanadian locomotives have amenities most US power lacks. I'll leave it for someone like SD70dude to explain the finer points, and whether a given consist that is to operate into the United States, if the Canacian leader is 'not legal for trade' in the US, would have such power in a position easy to cut off at an appropriate location near the border.
Canada doesn't use PTC, so not all older power is equipped. Trains crossing the border into the US must be sure to have PTC compliant leaders.
For the Canadian requirements, CN power seems to have a microwave, hot plate/kettle and a stretcher. CP only the hot plate/kettle and stretcher. UP has some engines outfitted for run through service on CP.
If a run through train is a DP train, I would imagine the leader would be equipped to run through as-is. Depending where the interchange is done, it can sometimes be a pain to find a leader when the leader on the inbound is either not equipped or has failed enroute.
Until all the cab signal systems were discontinued on UP in favor of PTC, UP trains still had to deal with the legacy systems on trains that never left the UP. Coal trains going to some power plants in Wisconsin would have to have UP's CCS, CNW's ATC and then CNW's ATS. The UP eventually changed the ATS territory to CCS. It's why foreign line engines didn't lead on the Overland route. Now with PTC, it doesn't matter as long as the leader is PTC equipped.
Jeff
overmode wrote: "I don't know if anyone uses Harmon Select-A-Power any more..."
When I was on Conrail we had them.
They were actually very limited devices. Worked on up to a 6-unit consist.
What they did was simple (hope I recall this right): there was a button for each unit, and pushing the button dropped that unit from whatever notch it was operating in down to "notch 1".
The rationale behind this was that a unit was most fuel-efficient when running in notch 8. So if you had a 4-unit consist and could maintain track speed with only 2 wide open, you could send units 3 and 4 "back to notch 1". And if you needed the third, you coudl "bring it back up", etc.
Using the Select-a-Power wasn't mandatory, it was up to the engineman. I found they worked well enough to be useful quite often.
I'm going to guess that they were taken off the engines at some point when more sophisticated "remote controls" came into the picture.
OldEnginemanWhat they did was simple (hope I recall this right): there was a button for each unit, and pushing the button dropped that unit from whatever notch it was operating in down to "notch 1".
Was there a "button" for each trailing unit in the lead unit, or did someone have to go from unit to unit to push a button in each individual unit? And if this was the case, could this be done while the units were moving?
OldEngineman overmode wrote: "I don't know if anyone uses Harmon Select-A-Power any more..." When I was on Conrail we had them. They were actually very limited devices. Worked on up to a 6-unit consist. What they did was simple (hope I recall this right): there was a button for each unit, and pushing the button dropped that unit from whatever notch it was operating in down to "notch 1". The rationale behind this was that a unit was most fuel-efficient when running in notch 8. So if you had a 4-unit consist and could maintain track speed with only 2 wide open, you could send units 3 and 4 "back to notch 1". And if you needed the third, you coudl "bring it back up", etc. Using the Select-a-Power wasn't mandatory, it was up to the engineman. I found they worked well enough to be useful quite often. I'm going to guess that they were taken off the engines at some point when more sophisticated "remote controls" came into the picture.
Time flies so I can't say exactly when, sometime within the last 15 years or so, EMD came up with something they called, "smart consist." It was terrible. So bad that the my railroad walked away from it quite fast.
Smart Consist would work on the first three engines in a consist that were on-line. When the engineer placed the throttle in a certain throttle notch, above a certain speed, the computer would determine how to run the consist for maximum fuel effeciency. So they said.
So if the engineer had the throttle in notch 5, the computer would determine how much power was being requested and instead of all three engines being in 5, it might have the lead in notch 1, the second in notch 5, the third in notch 7. Or whatever combination the computer calculated to give the power output being requested by the throttle notch on the lead engine.
Often, too often, it seemed it would always reduce power on the lead and work trailing units harder. When setting up the system, you entered the type of unit for each engine into the computer. The listings for GE engines was basic. The EMD listing was extensive, going back as far as GP-9 being available for input. I always suspected that the system had a bias so as to run GEs in a consist all out, while throttling back EMDs. Make the GEs use more fuel than the EMDs no matter which one actually was the more fuel effecient locomotive in the consist.
Thankfully it was so bad that even upper management, the champions of all things promised to save money - whether it does or not, even realized it was a waste of money.