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[jaybird1]

Could someone explain trackage rights and how they work and who schedules the different trains form all the railroads that use that track?

[Anonymous]

The idea of trackage rights are pretty simple; a railroad that doesn't own a certain lenght of track is allowed by the railroad owns the track to run on to. Some popular examples are the Joint Line in Colorado, the UP Mojave Sub and Cajon Pass in California, the Metro North's NEC in Conn among others.

Trackage rights come to be for a number of reasons. In the old days, when railroads where still building their own routes, often a railroad with a completed route would let another use their line to aviod having another line right next to their own (the Joint Line, Mojave Sub and Cajon Pass are all examples of this).

Another reason might be if the two lines already have side by side lines, its easier to run them as one double track line instead of two single track lines (like the old SP-WP in Nevada).

In more modern days, trackage rights are given to compeating lines after merges to prevent the goverment from claiming that one railroad has a monoploy on an area (an example of this is BNSF having trackage rights on UP's Centarl Corridor, the former Rio Grande).

Control of train movement on any shared line is the job of the railroad that owns the tracks,

I hope that helps
-John Ireland

[daveklepper]

Note thsat there are other cases of one railroad using another's tracks other than the trackage rights as defined above.   First, there can be jointly owned lines, as certain tracks in the Powder River coal field area, built and owned by both BNSF and UP.  Only one railroad has the responsibility for maintenance and dispatching with the other paying a share of the costs.  Possibly the Denver - Pueblo line is now in that catagory, although in the past when there were two tracks, one was clearly D&RGW owned and one Colorado-Southern (Burlington System) with joint operation and the Sante Fe having trackage rights.   Then there is the case of the B&O's Royal Blue passenger train service from Jersey City to Washington.   This was clearly an interline operation, with revenue going to the Central RR of New Jersey, Philadelphia and Reading, and the B&O, but B&O equipment, locomotives, and CREWS, both on the engine and trainmen, ran through.   In fact, the transition from B&O to Reading at North Broad and Reading to CNJ at Bound Brook were made without stopping.  Other freight and passenger operations are through operations by two or more railroads with crews usually chaning and sometimes locomotives too.  Intersting that on the UP, for a while the City of San Francisco ran through with the same locomotives Chicago - Oakland, while the CZ swapped power at both Denver and Salt Lake City.  MP power on the Colorado Eagle ran through to Denver over the D&RGW from Pueblo.

Intgerurban and streetcar systems had numerous cases of trackage rights, and one that still exists is the South Shore running on CN or Metra track north of Kensingtonn to Randolph Street, Chicago.   They also had joint operations like the Cincinnati and Lake Erie cars running into Detroit.

The Milwaukee streetcar system used a section of track actually owned by the North Shore at one time.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

There were two sets of trackage rights involving interurbans and the Chicago Rapid Transit Co. 

The North Shore Line had rights on CRT from Linden Ave. in Wilmette south to 63rd & Dorchester, later cut back to Roosevelt Rd.  CRT had rights over the North Shore Skokie Valley line between Howard and Dempster Streets.

The Chicago Aurora & Elgin had rights over CRT from Laramie Ave to Wells Street Terminal.  The CRT had rights over CA&E from Laramie Ave to the Westchester Branch.  CA&E handled no local traffic between any stations served by the CRT, including those on its own tracks; i.e., west of Laramie.

There was an excellent article in TRAINS in the 1970's which explained trackage rights and various other operations where one railroad's trains operated over somebody else's tracks.

[Anonymous]

Dave and Paul, nice posts, but shouldn't haulage rights also be mentioned and the difference between the two be discussed to completely explain  why two (or more) roads are sharing the same track?

Art

 

 

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Haulage rights are probably analogous to codeshare arrangements among airlines.  They are a response to the end of interline rates.  Strictly as an example:  BNSF has a haulage rights agreement with NS between Kansas City and Detroit for through traffic from west of Kansas City.  BNSF will solicit traffic between Los Angeles and Detroit and bill the shippers the going single line rate over BNSF from Los Angeles to Detroit.  BNSF contracts with NS to handle the shipments between Kansas City and Detroit in NS trains for an agreed fee.  The shippers never have to deal with NS.

Haulage rights are a marketing arrangement, trackage rights are an operating arrangement.

[Railfan1]

Take a look at this.

http://www.trains.com/trn/default.aspx?c=a&id=273 

[zapp]

We can also service customers on the other roads line, when we have haulage rights.