All sorts of cab / “A” Units get all over the place with leased power, payback power and whatever but what about B units? Do they count the same (measured in horsepower?) as an A unit or would there be a discount/lower rate because they don’t have the cab and are less flexible for use?
Put another way…does sticking an odd B unit into a consist regadless of road make sense?
Or… even after AB / ABBA sets were broken up did B units tend to stay with A units of their own road… or go walkabout?
They could be given as horsepower hours, but I would think it would be less likely. Horsepower hours is based on horsepower so the rate would be the same as an A unit. Most of the time engines given to payback horsepower hours would have the concurrence of the road recieving them, I would thing most roads would want them leader capable.
Short answer is its possible, but much less likely than an A or hood unit.
The catch is that most run-thru and power hour sharing agreements etc. didn’t come about until maybe the 1980’s, a time when F units were either gone or quickly disappearing from railroad rosters. With earlier lease agreements I think it would be rare to lease say just a B unit, but you might lease and A-B set and break them up at some point I suppose. In the fifties DM&IR leased Great Northern and B&LE F units, but I’ve only seen them used together in A-B sets and not broken up.
Not so fast…PRR/CB&Q had several run through trains that dated back to the late 50’s…I recall seeing run through Santa Fe power on the PRR in the mid-60s.This wasn’t a routine thing but,Santa Fe units would show up on Trailer Trains.
As far as f units go anythingis possible I guess. I know they if you look at leased units ACL HAD SEVERAL B UNITS RIGHT BE FORE THE SCL MERGER trains 1969 diesel issue had pictures of ex prr and ex cb&q b units that were leased from ge after the prr and theq traded them in on new power. also to be considered are the GN f-units they were leased to the q in the mid 60s and the possibilities of second hand f s such as the cnw fleet out in iowa during the 70s which had ex cgw units as well as secondhand units from all over. Lastly as far as f-units in power pools SF and the Frisco had one going in the 60s where the power was 1 set of frisco u-25bs and the other 5 sets were f -7s Trains magazine issue dealing with u-25b being the deisel that did it for ge