My Santa Fe layout has two interchange points with other RR (Rock Island and Frisco). Would one RR pass freight thru the ASTF to reach a third RR if that was the shortest/fastest route or would a RR avoid an intermediate RR if the first RR did have an slower/longer interchange point of its own with the third RR but it was a very indirect route?
I know there would be situations where the use of three RR to get the freight from point A to B would be necessary but I am trying to know if it would be protypical for freight to move from my RI point via ATSF to my Frisco point?
I am trying to understand the rules the RR typically use in routing freight when they have a choice of routes.
I think it depends on the time frame. During the railroad regulation there were almost fixed fares for city pairs. So a circuitous route on the own track didn’t bring more revenue with higher cost and most likely a loss. IIRC shippers had the choice of routes.
This changed with deregulation. Now a railroad will keep a shipment as long as possible on its own tracks with higher revenue.
Regards, Volker
I don’t know about the situation with those specific railroads, but I’d assume if railroad A had a shipment going to a location on railroad C, and railroads A and C interchanged freight, they would just interchange the freight from A to C…unless the A-C interchange point was 100s of miles out of the way. In that case, they might use railroad B to move the cars from an A-B interchange point to a B-C interchange point.
Of course, you could have situations where railroad A is on say the west side of a metropolitan area, and railroad C is on the east side. They might connect somewhere to directly interchange cars, but might find it faster / easier to use terminal railroad B to run the cars from one yard to the other.
Isn’t what the OP is asking about be like a “bridge line”, or “bridge route”, with the ATSF being the “bridge”?
The WC acted as a bridge line for the CN, bringing midwest and Chicago traffic through Wisconsin and Minnesota, for the CN’s western Canada areas, instead of the CN having to divert that traffic through Michigan, and around the Great Lakes.
I also think that the MRL is a bridge route, or line.
Thanks. Kinda what I figured. This is during the 70’s and my RI link is in OKC while my Frisco link is in southern OK at Ardmore OK. I put interchange points for both to provide destinations for my ATSF freight… Trying to see if additional traffic might be generated by moving freight between the RI and Frisco.
Short answer is no, there wouldn’t be any bridge traffic like that.
According to the 1928 railway Atlas, at Ardmore the CRIP and SLSF connect 13 miles east of the ATSF (Frisco Junction, OK). The SLSF and CRIP at Ardmore are both at the end of a stub ended branches so there is no through connection on either railroad to go any place.
In the Nov. 1970 Official Railway Guide, the CRIP branch toward Ardmore has been retired. The SLSF goes as far as Ardmore, but its on the end of a stub end branch breaking off the line between Ft Worth and Tulsa. If the CRIP wanted to get something to Ardmore on the Frisco they would probably give it to the SLSF at Holdenville, OK, which is only about 75 miles away.
Both the CRIP and SLSF go through Oklahoma City (on through routes) so any through interchange would happen there and they would have no need for a bridge line over the ATSF.
This is on the prototype. On the OP’s layout that seems to look different with direct interchange possibility.
If we take the layout situation and disengage ourselves from the prototype would bridge traffic be possible around 1970?
I think it would be possible as freight rates were still regulated between points and the shorter run on the own RR might promise higher profit than a longer run on the own route.
Regards, Volker
The OP’s original question was “what would the prototype do?” I answered his question, what the prototype would do.
If he wants to make it up and do whatever he wants then he can just that and asking the question becomes unnecessary.
You may think that it could happen but that doesn’t mean it would happen. There is no logical route involving 3 railroads and Ardmore that would be an economic benefit to any of the railroads or would be an advantage to any shipper. Any time you interchange a car, the car loses 12-36 hours, because it has to be switched, change trains, wait for connections. Only on model railroads do they make precision connections on interchanges.
The OP never named the interchange points, he just named the connecting roads. He adjusted the prototype to his needs. Nevertheless he can try to run the layout like a real railroad would do.
Lets call his road ATSF and the connecting roads A and B. What would happen during regulation and after deregulation in case a direct connection between A and B would be a quite circuitous route?
The OP can than decide if bridge traffic is the correct way.
I only know what I read and have expressed my understanding above, but I don’t have railroad experience.
Regards, Volker
You probably missed this post in the middle of the thread.
"Thanks. Kinda what I figured. This is during the 70’s and my RI link is in OKC while my Frisco link is in southern OK at Ardmore OK. "
And that’s the point I was trying to make by describing the routes. There is no “bridge”. Pretty much routing a car on the Rock to OKC, then the ATSF to Ardmore and then the SLSF ends up being a ba
Caveat: Anybody can do whatever they want on their own railroad. If they want the Strasburg Railroad to be a transcontinental line, great.
To understand a bridge line you have to know where the other railroads go. Here is the area in question.
Note that all three railroads have parallel routes. It serves no purpose to use the ATSF to bridge between the CRIP and the SLSF through Ardmore on that route. The SLSF terminates at DFW, the ATSF and the CRIP run south to Houston and the Gulf coast.
If the shipment is destined to a point on the SLSF between OKC and DFW it doesn’t make sense to use the ATSF because there are routes directly between the CRIP and SLSF that are shorter, simpler and neither the SLSF nor the CRIP want to have to split the revenue with another railroad.
If the shipment is destined to any point north, east or west of Ardmore, it doesn’t make any sense because the SLSF would essentially have to backhaul it to OKC to get it there.
If the shipment is destined to anyplace south of Ardmore it doesn’t make sense because the SLSF would have to hand it off to another railroad and both the ATSF and CRIP go to DFW and both of them have connections to all the same railroads that the SLSF would have.
Its just not a good route to use as a bridge line between those 3 railroads because they are all parallel and more or less serve the same end points (all 3 pass through OKC and DFW).
I also think that the SLSF was semi-actively discouraging using the interchange with the ATSF at Ardmore. If you look at the SLSF system map in the Official Railway Guide, they don’t even show the ATSF route through Ardmore on the map. T
The key thing that is buried in all that is if you are modeling the line in the early 1970’s, pre-Amtrak, since the depot obviously is a joint CRIP-ATSF station, there is the very plausible option to operate both CRIP and ATSF passenger trains or a joint train with both ATSF/CRIP cars or engines. Prototypical, probably not by that era. The CRIP didn’t advertise any service on that route in 1950 or 1970 and the ATSF only had No 15 and 16, the Texas Chief (chair cars, big dome lounge, sleeping cars and a dining car) in 1970. But if a person is going to be creative, having a herald on a real depot is a pretty good place to start. The Rock also had other examples of long distance sharing of routes. From Pueblo to Houston it shared a route with the FWD, the Joint Texas Division. So having a “Joint Oklahoma Division” could be less of a stretch.
Modern railroads have “Interline Service Agreements” that describe where they interchange, how they interchange and what blocks they make. They may also describe what routes or areas aggregate to which interchanges. The UP and NS will agree that shipments originating on a certain part of the country on the UP going to a certain part of the country on the NS go through one specific interchange. A shipment originating in the Great Lakes region or North East going to Texas would be routed through Salem, IL. A shipment originating in the Mid Atlantic region would be routed through Memphis and a shipment from the south would be routed through New Orleans.
Railroads may also build run through trains or blocks. The UP might build a train at N Platte with blocks for Selkirk, NY and it would run through Chicago without switching. The CSXT under Hunter Harrison abolished all the run through blocking between the CSXT and the western railroads, he felt it was cheaper and faster to do all the switching and blocking on the CSXT. Different strokes.
I wasn’t going to go this way but,it will show how unpopular interchange of cars was…
A new word had became the norm in head quarters “Seamless Railroading”.A sales pitch for the mega mergers to come.
In short, a loaded boxcar would no longer need to spend a week in Chicago’s interchange bottle neck instead, this boxcar could bypass Chicago all together.
In 1965 the Rock was trying to get rid of its passenger service, the service to Houston was a huge money loser. However the ICC and public service commissions wouldn’t let the Rock abandon the service. The Rock made an offer to the ATSF that they would give the ATSF 3 EMD passenger engines and 6 newer stainless steel pasenger cars and the ATSF would operate the “Rock” train from Oklahoma City to Houston as space on its Texas Chief. The advantage to the ATSF is by getting those cars and engines it allowed them to retire some of their older equipment. The Rock had to arrange for “motor coach” connections (bus) to 6 of the stops served by the Rock on its route over to the ATSF line to satisfy the the ICC and the public utility commissions.
As the OP, I want to thank everyone for this enlightning discussion. I don’t have my data handy but I think the Frisco had a station or freight depot (gone now) very close to the ATSF depot. I also think they had some shared trackage in/around the depots so all their activity was very close to each other.
In the spirit of “its my layout, I will do what I want”, I have already planned to ignore the existance of Amtrak and let my ATSF passenger service continue well into the 70’s so I can run my Santa Fe F7A/B passenger service between OKC and Ardmore.
Heck, I might even talk the Frisco and RI to let me run some bridge service between OKC and Ardmore. [;)]
