Was leasing of engines to other RR’s done or very commen in the steam era as it is today. The reason I ask is I was looking at home movies my grandfather took in the early 50s and I know it was on the CP mainline around Winnipeg I don’t recognize the emblem on one of the engines. Could it have been a borrowed loco?
Brent
Not as common as today.
You should also be aware that there are different ways that engines engine up on other railroads. for example if you are standing by the tracks toaday and an engine goes by in a train that is another railroad’s, I would doubt very much that it is “leased”. The vast majority of engines you see on other railroads today are run though power, not leased engines.
If it goes by and the engine initials end in X or its lettered for a leasing company, then it is most likely a leased engine to one railroad or another.
In the steam era, it would be more likely that a foreign engine was leased ranther than “run through” power because there was less run through of entire trains.
Yes but,it wasn’t as common as today.PRR lease some Santa Fe 2-10-4 s in or around 1955…These engines was used to haul coal from the Pennor yard to Sandusky…
They was a sight to behold.
before the great consolidation of railroads in the country that created today’s mega-roads, misappropriation was more common that leasing.
Penn Central and later Clownrail was a victim of this quite frequently. we had a power desk in Philly that was supposed to keep up with all the locomotives but, they were about as incompetent as the rest of the managment at that time.
on my way to Texas i did a little sightseeing and found two of our big six axle units shoving the hump at the SSW yard in Pine Bluff Ark. i wrote the numbers down and when i came back by there a week later, they were still at work on the cotton belt hump. no doubt, they got there on a run through train (probably INCB out of Avon)
this was at a time when we were busting 1 or 2 calls a day out of E St Louis because of no power.
of course, this worked both ways since i saw SP power as far east as Altoona.
i asked a general manager about it and he said, “what do you want to do, start a war?”
grizlump
Would the RR ever cover up an emblem of another RR if they borrowed or leased a steam loco. I sure wish I could see the emblems in these home movies better. They sure don’t look like CPR though.
Brent
Is there anyway you could digitize the films? There are several people on here familiar with Canadian steam that we could probably identify the loco in question, which would likely give us a pretty good idea of what was going on.
Actually that is why we were looking at the film. My brother in law is going to get to work on doing just that, so we may have some luck.
Brent
During WWII, railroads often leased steam power from each other to alleviate locomotive shortages as the theaters of war shifted from the European front to the Pacific front.
For instance, it was not uncommon to see locomotives of the CB&Q, UP or other ‘foreign’ railroads on the Southern Pacific in California, or Missabe Yellowstones on either the Rio Grande, Great Northern or Northern Pacific. Santa Fe and the Pennsy exchanged power in the Midwest and East. Great Northern on occasion ran their power straight through from the Northwest to Oakland, CA on the Western Pacific via the “High Line” extension. Rio Grande leased–and then bought outright–mallet power from the Norfolk and Western to help with their Rocky mountain traffic.
So yes, during the waning days of WWII–and for sometime beyond, there was quite a bit of ‘leasing’ between railroads.
In fact, if you’re modeling that era, it can go a long way to explaining the ‘foreign’ steam power that you saw at the hobby shop and just couldn’t pass up, even though it doesn’t fit your layout’s prototype. [:P]
Tom [:)]
I just had another look at it and it has a rather long name on the tender in yellow or gold lettering.( not Canadian Pacific) C&O maybe? It may be a 2-10-4 or a mikado. it seems like a larger loco though. My grandfather is filming in a car going great guns along side heading west on the outskirts of Winnipeg. It was probably 1954 or so because bouncing baby me doesn’t show up for three more Christmases. I wish I could see better detail but with 55year old home movies what can you do. At least they’re colour. Sound would have been nice also (come on grandpa where’s the sound?)
Brent
i know some railroads operated across the border but weren’t there a bunch of restrictions on what locomotives could be used in international service?
grizlump
No…These leases was usually short term during a seasonal upswing in business.After the upswing the lease locomotives was returned to their owners.
Ok try not to yell at me guys. There was a lot to go through the posts with tired eye’s so my question may have already been answered. I have an ATSF B23-7 that I plan to use as a U23B to backdate the layout idea further, if I modeled the freelance (the layouts actual RR) leasing motive power from ATSF could I just paint of the Sante Fe on the long hood and repaint my RR’s name on? I had a paint scheme planned out but it was really close to UP scheme and didn’t like it, but I’ve always loved the ATSF’s blue and yellow paint. I have so many idea’s right now and my “train area” just got up sized by like 50% so now I have to rethink stuff and I may go back to this idea. Any rate it’s based on MR’s Oklahoma & Western plan (with a quick name change by dropping that stupid ampersan). If I could do the B23 this way it would greatly inprove the chances of that plan being used.
Go ahead and paint out the current markings, this too is common, add some stencils for the road number and road name, don’t be too neat about it and apply the new markings after you have applied some weathering to the existing paint. Perhaps your road also applied some personal touches or perfomed minor body repairs that altered the orginal paint to some extent, extra visibilty paint on the steps or pilots, patched paint here and there.
Dave
Absolutely! Many short lines paint out the former owners name and add theirs…
As everybody has said, you can do it.
Its just not an engine leased from the Santa Fe. It would be an engine sold by the ATSF to an engine lessor who in turn sold it it or leased it to your railroad.
Just not the ATSF.
During WWII the NKP leased a number of C&O K-3’s until they could receive their S-2 Berkshires. They were not appreciated by the NKP men as they were in sad shape.
Also the RF&P leased some C&O J3a’s after the C&O dieselized or vice-versa and when the 614 duplicated one of their engine number they used a chisel on the number board to change the 4 to a 1.
Rick