I am speed matching all my locos now to get road engines in a consist that will haul a whole train up my big hill (switchers excluded and E series do just fine on their own)
I have many different locos of US roads. I just use a different group for a day or so then swap them over for a set of different road names for a change (that means I have a generic sort of layout, of course Purists need not chastise me.)
I have enought duplicates of the same road name to make consists with matching road names—lots of UP and NYC etc.
However I have a lot of “singles” I guess you’d call them----a Monon here and a Western Maryland there etc. etc.
What I have done is match up these singles using the Family Tree of Railroads
that shows mergers and acqusitions etc., thinking that it would be feasible that locos of different road names but allied in a merger might find themselves on the same consist before all were repainted or changed over. Thus I have a consist of a Monon BL2 with a Western Maryland BL2, then a consist of a B&O GP7 and a Western Maryland RS3 etc.
Now I will not always run these together, but on those days when they are going out over the big hill, they will need to have their helper ready to go and speed matched.
Am I way wacked out in my thinking?
Up here in the Great White North, CN and CP rarely have another loco in a set…although CN has several BCOL not repainted yet that are used together.
You can always use the excuse that the locomotives are in what is called “Pool” service. This was somewhat prevalent before the big mega-mergers. For instance, Western Pacific on their “High Line” here in California, had ‘pooled’ power with Great Northern, Northern Pacific and Spokane, Portland and Seattle, so it wasn’t uncommon for locomotives of all the companies involved to be heading a train. And before the Southern Pacific-Rio Grande merger, Rio Grande locomotives became very common on Donner Pass.
I’m sure there are many other examples of ‘pool’ service. What I would do is what you’re doing–keeping them in a kind of “Family Tree” arrangement–that is using locomotives of railroads that would most likely to be connecting with each other for their traffic.
Your definitely doing it the right way following that tree. These days you can see a whole bunch of “borrowed power” running together. In the earlier years, things were a bit more territorial.
BASICLY Model steam engines run seperatly - rather than doubl headerd - because of too many variables. Even AB combinations - require identicaf brands, model, and production runs, to be sure.
EXCEPTION: everythig with DCC 'modules with ‘speed steps’ - and only then,within certain perameters. Same brand, same model, E’s and 'F’s are a good bet to match, or with DCC a consist can be to ‘match’ - as long as it stays in the same consist.
MY Stewart FT set (3 powered) is enough to make the club’s 2.5% between floors climb, but I keep one xtra chassis if i need to add another ‘B’ unit formore head-end power for an FT ABBA combiation. Same for my 3 Atlas 8-40 B’s which can be switched from DC to DCC.
Run throught power (locomotives from far away railraods) staying on trains from one coast to the other is very common these days I have seen CP, CN, GTW, UP and HLCX (Helm Leasing) engines here in south centarl Pennsylvania. You can run any road that you wish and call it pool or run through power.