Who runs where?

[Vmb2]

Folks I am a little confused!

Comming from the UK, where the railways have gone from a private four company(area) system to a unified system and then a state owned infrastructure with franchied train opperators, I thought Britains railways were illogical.
Americas railways, which I believe have always been privatly owned, seemed to offer a simple logic: UP trains ran on Up tracks and so on. Therefore when I saw a third line on the San Barnadino-Barstow route that was logical; they are competing carriers.
Now it seems I have seen pictures implying that UP trains could be running on SF tracks and vice versa is this so and would the motive power be supplied by more than one company producing a mixture of liveries on the locomotives? Could someone please explain?

Gordon

[arizonachris]

Not sure, but, I think UP bought SP a while back. It's a mixed bag here, with some CN stuff as well. (Canadian) Ahh, forgot Northfolk and Southern. Probably a dozen more as well.

[Chock]

Most US railroads are indeed private companies, however, there have been (and still are) some exceptions, such as Amtrak and Conrail.

Conrail was formed by the US Federal Government to keep rail services operating in some industrialised areas that relied on rail transportation when the private companies that had served them were in financial difficulty (i.e Penn Central, Erie Lackawanna and others), however, Conrail passed back into private ownership eventually (it is now owned as a partnership by CSX and Norfolk Southern). That happened not too long after the 'Staggers Act' (named after a US Congressman) was passed in the US under the Carter administration. The Staggers Act effectively deregulated freight services in the US, which prior to that Act, were often hamstrung by needing approval for pretty much every move they made and sorely restricted in how and what they could charge for their services. With the coming of the Staggers Act, the tracks and service which Conrail operated could be organised more competitively, which is why Conrail went back into private ownership.

Amtrak was also formed by the Federal Government in order to keep passenger rail services going in a similar fashion to why Conrail was formed to keep freight services alive, however, unlike most countries around the world, it is difficult to run a profitable passenger transport rail service and keep ticket prices acceptable in the US, so Amtrak remains effectively a nationalised industry similar to how British Rail was in the UK before that was privatised. Like how British Rail used to be, this has led to Amtrak running crappy old trains for years because of its convoluted funding options, however, in recent times that has been somewhat remedied and it is now getting some decent investment thrown at it.

All of this complexity relates to why there are several reasons you might see various locomotives and rolling stock on different railroads. Primarily it is because freight railroads in the US are regionionalised, but freight itself often has to go beyond those regional boundaries. So most freight railroads have partnership contradeals with neigbouring railroads that allow 'trackage rights' to one another's railroads. You will sometimes see freight yards where two rail companies adjoin one another, which have one set of company locos up one end and another company's locos up the other end, and they will shunt freight between the two in order to allow freight to continue its journey pulled by a different loco. However, if they were to follow that principal strictly, freight would end up being offloaded from one boxcar and loaded up into another in order to continue its journey, and of course that would mean that a lot of rolling stock was then not earning its keep properly and a lot of time and unnecessary unloading and loading was going on. Since that would be costly for all concerned, it is simply easier to come to an amicable arrangement, and that often extends to allowing locomotives to go beyond what is strictly the boundaries of its own rail network. So, for example, in the Eastern US from New York State up through New Jersey, Pennsylvania and on to the Canadian border, you will see big US railroads such as Norfolk Southern and CSX teaming up with small regional US railroads such as NYS&W and DH, as well as big foreign railroads such as Canadian Pacific. This means that a Canadian Pacific locomotive could quite feasibly end up coming down from Canada, through the CSX and NS tracks and on to NYS&W's smaller lines, as could a liveried boxcar from any of those railroads, and indeed other railroads besides. This is especially true if a locomotive is operating as a 'Thunderbird' (i.e. a loco that is kept on standby in case of a breakdown).

Another reason you may have seen mixed liveries of locomotives and freight rolling stock in the US, is because despite the Staggers Act, there are still occasions where the Federal Government gets involved in keeping railroads going in the US. Such was the case when the Delaware and Hudson Railway got into financial difficulties. After much convoluted swapping around when Conrail was being formed, the D&H was owned by Norfolk and Western, then it was made an independent, ostensibly to compete with Conrail, then it got into financial trouble again after being sold off a few more times (once for a mere 300 thousand quid despite having literally millions-worth of track and rail assets). Because of that mess, the Federal Government ended up appointing the NYS&W as a company that would run the D&H under a Government subsidy. Eventually the D&H was bought up by Canadian Pacific, but it still operates as the D&H since the US were a bit leery about a Canadian Railroad owning a US one. So, you could at various times see a Delaware and Hudson loco in company with a Conrail one, a Norfolk Western one, a Norfolk Southern one, a Guildford Rail one (another company which owned D&H at one point), an NYS&W one, or a Canadian Pacific one, and possibly all of them at the same time.

From that you can see that the US rail system is not always as privately owned as it might at first appear, nor that the various rail companies are the mortal enemies that one might imagine, but often partners in business, which is reflected in seeing them mix and match rolling stock some of the time.

Al

[SMMDigital]

You could also have special situations that call for run-through freights from other railroads.

In my state, we have a coal-fired power plant that is serviced by Norfolk Southern RR. NS has access to vast reserves of coal in the territory it serves. However, the power plant prefers a low-sulphur coal found in reserves that are 1500 miles and two RR-companies away.

So, the railroad that has the preferred coal, BNSF, sends several 120+ car unit coal trains per day from the coal mines located on it's lines, transferring to NS tracks in the east, and down to the plant. The trains unload, then go back west the same way they came in.

I don't think there are any trackage rights involved, just a sort of gentleman's agreement between the RR companies from which both benefit.

As a side note, I do believe that the train crews change when the train crosses onto "foreign" territory. Listening to the scanner, the train is almost always called out as an NS train, and the engineers/conductors are familiar with signal and place names.

Also, no, railroads are usually not mortal enemies. In an issue of Trains magazine from a couple of years ago, a RR company CEO described how several RR's pulled together to help each other out when several mainlines got taken out by floods. The CEO said something to the affect that when things like that happen, the competitors know they have to help each other, and that any company that refused run-through to an afflicted RR would pay dearly for it down the line.

[kin3]

It can get complicated quickly. But you may see any car from any railroad anywhere. If my railroad own a box car and delivers it loaded to a destination not serviced by my railroad then here is what happens. When I turn the boxcar over to another railroad, by rule, they have a grace period of time to deliver said car or pay me a set amount each day/hour they have it their account. When it is unloaded then this rate stops. The box car will have orders to return to me empty or to be used to load any load to any where. Or something like that, it's been awhile since I had to handle stuff like this. At one time they started using a whole train treated as a single unit, unit trains. Let say this train started in LA and was going to NY. As this unit train was passed from railroad to railroad they each would use their own engines. But then they started just changing crews, and not engines, therefore you would see foreign engines on railroad. The railroads are guided by rules setup by an organization called AAR (Association of American Railroads).

[SMMDigital]

Another scenario for seeing "foreign" trains in your territory may be a horsepower-hour workoff. This is a simplification, and I may not have all the facts straight, but it goes something like this:

Railroad A has a shortage of locomotive power, and Railroad B has a few extra lying around. So, Railroad B loans a locomotive to Railroad A for a certain number of horsepower hours. When the Railroad A returns the locomotive, they can either pay a predetermined amount in cash for it's use, or, they can supply a locomotive of their own to Railroad B to work off those hours.

We see a lot of BNSF and UP units co-mingled with CSX and NS out here in the east for this reason. I've also seen some photos from out west that show NS units on UP trains. So really, our railroad network here in the States could be considered one giant animal that has four territorial governers. They all must cooperate, and you might see any train from any railroad anywhere at any given time.

[TDHenderson]

I volunteer on the Fremont & Elkhorn Valley Railroad and our track paralells the BNSF Sioux City sub from Fremont to Nickerson, NE. Most consists I spoted lately have had a mix of BNSF, CSX, and NS power up front. One I saw a few weeks ago was pure NS power.

Trevor

[artimrj]

I work in Monaca, PA. (North of Pittsburgh) CSX line is out back. I see mixes of CSX, BNSF and NS and FURX. Other side of the river is Conway Yard. I see NS mostly, but with BNSF, UP and CSX engines, sometimes some Southern Pacifics and Conrail are there too, but they are patch jobs. Oh and AMTRAK goes through there too. On the CSX line in Monaca, twice a week a solid BNSF train with 150 coal hoppers all labeled BNSF parks on the siding out back to supply the Monaca coal yard. I got just about everything here.