[daschnoz]

Is there a place where I can find a list of who Norfolk Southern has:

• Haulage rights agreements (NS pulls "the other guy's" trains over NS track)?
  I can then start to build my rolling stock collection around that. (or not overlook them when buying new ones)
  
• Current trackage rights agreements ("the other guy" runs their trains over NS rails)
  I can expand my loco and rolling stock fleet to include them as well.

I'm trying to center my layout around a "modern day PRR", so I'm going to try to keep my fleet of locos in the PRR, Penn Central, Conrail, and Norfolk Southern families. Obviously, any of the railroads that were absorbed as part of mergers/acquisitions which created some of the above mentioned companies could also have loco and rolling stock representation.

 

[cv_acr]

Just to your first point, you don't need trackage rights/haulage rights to see rolling stock from other railways.

Cars are naturally interchanged between roads all over the place in order to get to their destinations. The way a Union Pacific car shipped from Los Angeles gets to New York is via the NS or CSX.

There are also ways that foreign locomotives can actually get into NS trains.

Either through direct rental/leasing, through "run-through"/joint operation agreements (for example unit coal or oil trains from the west to eastern power plants or refineries) where an entire train set is handed off from one railroad to another; sometimes with both railways proving power to a pool; and through something called "horsepower-hours repayment" which takes into account how many engines from the foreign railroad spent time on NS (and vice-versa) as part of run-through and joint operations and then NS (or the foreign rr) lets the other railroad borrow a number of their engines for a certain amount of time to balance things out. This actually lets you mix engines from foreign railroads that connect to NS into your consists.

 

[daschnoz]

Thank you. It makes perfect sense. They scratch each other's backs.

While great for my layout, this is BAD news for my finances.

 

[flyboy2610]

IIRC, I read somewhere that a good mix is 40% home road rolling stock, 40% nearby road's rolling stock, and 20% from farther away road's rolling stock. However, I doubt that anyone is really going to notice if the mix on your layout is different. Unit trains for coal are most likely to be home road or leasing company rolling stock. Not so sure about grain, though. Most of the tank cars I see around here (Lincoln, Ne.) are leasing company rolling stock, or owned by private companies (Cargill, etc.).

 

[cv_acr]

IIRC, I read somewhere that a good mix is 40% home road rolling stock, 40% nearby road's rolling stock, and 20% from farther away road's rolling stock. However, I doubt that anyone is really going to notice if the mix on your layout is different. Unit trains for coal are most likely to be home road or leasing company rolling stock. Not so sure about grain, though. Most of the tank cars I see around here (Lincoln, Ne.) are leasing company rolling stock, or owned by private companies (Cargill, etc.).

Yeah, it's not a bad *general* approximation, but it can definitely vary on specific railroads or lines.

A railroad that forms a "bridge" route between other lines may see just about everything.

A minor branchline or shortline railroad that just serves local industrial customers will obviously have a more restricted selection of types of cars, depending on the types of industries on it. If there's a lot of chemical industries, 90% of the cars will be shipper owned or leased. General boxcar freight will be mostly home (or connecting for shortlines that don't have their own cars) road for outbound loads, and whatever source railroad inbound loads originated from.

(Example - the railroad I model was primarily a resource hauler in the nothern Ontario wilderness. It does cross and connect with major CN and CP routes but doesn't really form a part of any major route itself. So most 90% of the cars are home road, with some minor interchange and bridge traffic from CN and CP. No grain, no intermodal, no coal, no autoracks, etc. Some fuel but little other chemical traffic, except for things related to mining and paper making.)

But for generalities and if you're not modeling a specific line, it's a decent rule of thumb for *general-service type RR-owned equipment*. Intermodal, autoracks, etc. really skews it since 90% of those cars are owned by the TTX pool.

 

[Tallaman]

Two railroads that operate in Florida reported 30% of their miles as company owned cars and 70% were privately owned (private car lines such as TTX, Union Tank, GATX, Trinity Rail and Chevron). That ratio has changed a little since precision scheduled railroading has been implemented and I'm not sure of the latest ratios (I will check my data). Some of the railroads also try to make car lines use railroad owned car because the railroad owned car may be better maintained and more efficient.

 

[Tallaman]

But back to the topic theme, my understanding is that railroads all have trackage rights on each other's track, subject to dispatch by the host and going trackage rates per mile. I have seen multiple Union Pacific consists on CSX track in north Florida.

 

[CTValleyRR]

But back to the topic theme, my understanding is that railroads all have trackage rights on each other's track, subject to dispatch by the host and going trackage rates per mile. I have seen multiple Union Pacific consists on CSX track in north Florida.

So a UP TRAIN is actually running in FL? Or is it just the consist (NOT the locomotive(s)) being hauled by a CSX train? This latter situation would not be considered trackage rights.

I've seen plenty of UP rolling stock here in the Northeast, but never a locomotive.

 

[cv_acr]

But back to the topic theme, my understanding is that railroads all have trackage rights on each other's track, subject to dispatch by the host and going trackage rates per mile.

No.

Each railroad is it's own private property. Trackage rights are specfically negotiated agreeements on specific routes.

Interchange of freight cars is not trackage rights. Neither is about 90% of the situations where you see engines from one railroad on another.

 

[Tallaman]

No.

Each railroad is it's own private property. Trackage rights are specfically negotiated agreeements on specific routes.

Interchange of freight cars is not trackage rights. Neither is about 90% of the situations where you see engines from one railroad on another.

Just relaying what a CSX employee told me. They all have a trackage sharing agreement with each other.

 

[Tallaman]

So a UP TRAIN is actually running in FL? Or is it just the consist (NOT the locomotive(s)) being hauled by a CSX train? This latter situation would not be considered trackage rights.

I've seen plenty of UP rolling stock here in the Northeast, but never a locomotive.

I video recorded a long consist pulled by three UP diesel loco's over the Suwannee River bridge in north Florida with a variety of cars. That was CSX track at the time and has since been sold to the Gulf and Atlantic Railroad, a short line railroad. I have also seen shorter trains pulled by UP locomotives through Tallahassee, where I live, also CSX track at the time. I'll upload the video if I can.

 

[daschnoz]

I video recorded a long consist pulled by three UP diesel loco's over the Suwannee River bridge in north Florida with a variety of cars. That was CSX track at the time and has since been sold to the Gulf and Atlantic Railroad, a short line railroad. I have also seen shorter trains pulled by UP locomotives through Tallahassee, where I live, also CSX track at the time. I'll upload the video if I can.

Maybe CSX loaned some power to UP recently, and that was the "horsepower-hours repayment" return back scratch that cv_acr mentioned in an earlier post??

 

[GNfan]

Not so sure about grain, though.

Next door to where I used to work was a facility that received corn in 100-car-plus unit trains. The lead locomotives were always BNSF, but I occasionally noticed CN or CSX locomotives in the middle.

 

[Lehigh74]

I'm trying to center my layout around a "modern day PRR", so I'm going to try to keep my fleet of locos in the PRR, Penn Central, Conrail, and Norfolk Southern families. Obviously, any of the railroads that were absorbed as part of mergers/acquisitions which created some of the above mentioned companies could also have loco and rolling stock representation.

If you are going to limit yourself to anything that merged into PRR, PC, Conrail or NS, you could easily have more than 30 railroads represented. Take a look at this merger chart.

https://www.railroadsignals.us/mergers/index.htm

 

[daschnoz]

If you are going to limit yourself to anything that merged into PRR, PC, Conrail or NS, you could easily have more than 30 railroads represented. Take a look at this merger chart.

https://www.railroadsignals.us/mergers/index.htm

Thank you. That's a great reference.

 

[CTValleyRR]

I video recorded a long consist pulled by three UP diesel loco's over the Suwannee River bridge in north Florida with a variety of cars. That was CSX track at the time and has since been sold to the Gulf and Atlantic Railroad, a short line railroad. I have also seen shorter trains pulled by UP locomotives through Tallahassee, where I live, also CSX track at the time. I'll upload the video if I can.

Interesting. I did not know UP operated anything that far East. Perhaps is was leased power?

 

[Lehigh74]

Interesting. I did not know UP operated anything that far East. Perhaps is was leased power?

Could be leased power or could be run through power (the loco stays with the train until it reaches its final destination).