In watching trains going through Austin and San Marcos on the Union Pacific, I frequently see BNSF or NS diesels MU’d together with UP units. Are these BNSF or NS locomotives on loan or lease to UP? I know BNSF has trackage rights on parts of the UP, but I thought that applied to separate trains.
Thanks for the info.
They could be on lease, they could be paying back horsepower-hours. There might be some other arrangement I am forgetting about, I am sure someone who knows more will reply soon. Also, UP and BNSF had sold many of their second generation locomotives to leasing companies and/or returned them to their lessor, so they might not actually be BNSF or UP locomotives.
I’ve noticed the same - NS may be on a power pooling arrangement but some of the older engines have FURX numbers - a leasing company.
dd
BNSF runs thru FURX, NS, and even an occasional CSX thru here every so often. Even did some UP engines - and UP has tracks here in our town. Makes a nice change of scenery.
Mook
These days it seems on the american roads, locomotives are like the TTX Boxcars in a lot of cases, next load, any road.
Up here in British Columbia I see very little shared power on the Canadian roads, every now and then I’ll see a CSX locomotive on a CN or BNSF train, and I’ve seen a few NS locomotives on the BNSF mainline.
I’ve still never seen a UP locomotive in person.
CP seems to be the railroad that runs the majority of their own power, though they have been running a lot of leased Blue CEFX AC4400 units around here lately, I call them the Big Blues, most of them look like they are Brand new, though they are starting to get worn in pretty good now.
I’ve never seen CN power on a CP train or CP power on a CN train running on the mainline.
The railroads of the US have numerous RUN THROUGH agreements between them where the trains operate on each others property without stopping for anything more than a crew change, if that. With Run-Throughs the power that arrives on the property continues to run on the train to it’s ultimate destination…that destination may be 100 miles from the ‘property line’ it may be 2000 miles from the ‘property line’. To facilitate the Run-Throughs the companies have negotiated power sharing agreements that calculate the power in ‘Horsepower Hours’…an SD-40 on a property for 1 hours equals 3000 horsepower hours. With the use of computers and interchange records the calculation of Horsepower Hours is a relative nonevent. The management Horsepower Hour balances is one of the tasks of the Locomotive Manager positions on each of the Class I’s. It is not unusual for say, an NS locomotive to be operating on the UP to be in the CSX Horsepower Hours account as CSX received the engine from an NS run through then dispatched the engine to the UP on a run through to the UP. Who is accumulating what balance on Horsepower Hours can become a confusing situation…but that is an accounting problem only. The railroads will use whatever locomotive resources they have available to move the traffic.
That’s interesting what macguy noted about power on canadian trains. I’ve noticed the same thing here in Minnesota. BNSF runs through my home town and I see all kids of different power through here. From CSX, NS, CN, FURX, MRL the list goes on and on. But when I venture 20 minutes away to watch the CP mainline through MN rarely will foreign power run by except for the CEFX lease units (most are AC4400’s but sometimes SD9043MAC’s). I’ve seen an FURX unit or even Wisconsin Central once, but it’s almost always CP or Soo Line power on these trains. Interesting…