New to Trains, Lines sharing cars?

[Alpenfreight]

Hey all,

I'll admit that I'm pretty new to the world of trains. I liked trains as a child, but it's only recently in my adult life that I've taken more notice to them and have been reading a lot to learn the ways of the railroad. One of the things that confuses me most is how railroads interacted with one another. (any of the following may be false)

Let's take Cajon Pass for example. UP, SP, and Santa Fe all operated there throughout the 60s and 70s. How did they coexist in this environment? I see pictures of trains that included cars marked for all three railroads. Did they share all of the traffic? Certainly they were all trying to out perform one another, so why would they carry each other's cargo, or atleast their cars?

I know that when mergers happen the units and cars will become mixed, but before any mergers what are the rules about carrying cars of a different railroad?


NYC, SP, ATSF??????

[artimrj]

I don't beleive there are any rules like that. Everyone shares.

[RickKfoury]

Great question. Freight cars can travel a great distance, depending on where in the country the goods must go. For example, if you're sending textiles from New England to Texas its easier (and cheaper) for everyone to leave the product in say a Boston & Maine car and just go all the way rather then transfer it from car-to-car all along the trip. The railroad that owns the rolling stock keeps track of where their cars travel in the country, and its up to the other railroads to return them in time. Also, there is a thing called "per diem fees". When an owning railroad sends their cars over another railroad, they expect this fee to be paid until the car returns, no matter how long that takes. These rates are set by the AAR and are the same for all cars of a certain type, regardless of who owns the cars. It was done this way in the past and although I'm not super up to date on modern operations I believe its still done the same way. Other than that, no rules. Keeping freight in its original cars allows the goods to get to where they're going easier, quicker and cheaper. No amount of competition (even hardened rivals) could make a railroad want to pay extra! Plus you get to see a whole variety of cars all over the country Take a look at a freight waybill from the old days, they usually list the cargo and identity of the freight car owner as well as all the systems the car traveled over to reach its destination.

[buzz456]

Want to check out sharing look at Chicago Rail Link. It is a short line in Chicago owned jointly by all of the six majors and sorts everyone's cars for ongoing freight.

[Ericmopar]

In the case of Cajon Pass, Santa Fe and Southern Pacific originally owned the two mainlines. Santa Fe the lower two tracks and Southern Pacific the upper track (Colton Cutoff)

That being said Santa Fe shared shared their mainline with Southern Pacific using a contract called "Trackage Rights" in which S.P. shared in the maintenance costs of the right of way.
The trackage rights simply got transferred over with the line mergers into BNSF and U.P.
Also, U.P. originally had to swap trains in Barstow Ca with Santa Fe and S.P. That has changed with the U.P, S.P. merger in the 90s. Now Union Pacific's, Salt Lake subdivision has trackage rights straight through Barstow all the way to Los Angeles.

The rolling stock is swapped based on route miles traveled and also transportation fees across the different railroads. It's very complicated accounting.
It's over simplified, but one of the things related to locomotives, is simple swapping. IE if Norfolk Southern has 20 of BNSF's ES44s then BNSF might have 20 equivalent N.S locos in use on it's line, being expected to fuel and repair them.
They get turned into leases when the loco swapping is not balanced.
I've seen so many N.S. locos on the Transcon, going through Kingman Arizona, that I sometimes wonder what side of the country I'm on.

I also suspect a lot of tax dodging creative bookkeeping is at work there... The railroads are probably "leasing" to each other and using it as a write off, when if fact they are actually just swapping like engines and rolling stock.

[buzz456]

No creative tax dodging, just the most efficient use of assets while doing the most effective job for their customers.

[ColoradoRailfan]

Any railroad can share on any tracks of the subdivisions. Pretty much it.