How exactly does pool service work? Does one railroad pay to use another’s locomotives?
I understand that the dispatcher usually uses whatever equipment he has in the yard, but how exactly does the foreign locomotive get there in the first place? I thought interchanges only occured with cars.
Lastly, supposed CSX had a UP unit that went bad order, would CSX repair it or would they send it back to UP?
From my understanding Pool service is not the correct term for engines on non home roads. Pool service is more of a general assignment term for home road equipment in service on the home road. for example an assigned caboose would be used by a crew or terminal. A pool caboose could be found anywhere it was needed. But on to your questions. Railroads often repair cars and bill the home road for minor repairs like brake shoes or adjusting brake slack. Major repairs say if involved in a wreck probably require consultation with the home road before return or repair. I suspect the same thing applies to engines. Burned out headlights or brakeshoes, air leaks or traps, etc. can be fixed but if the prime mover goes down it is probably returned dead in tow. I believe the proper term for engines is a run through but I could be wrong. Generally the host railroad keeps track of hours of usage and they compare the sheets at the end of a given time period. If one has exceeded a certain number of hours in difference the other railroad loans an engine or engines to work off the hours. I don’t know of any cash compensation but it could be possible. Sometimes engines run through to an assigned terminal and are not supposed to go beyond that. here in the Chicago area Conrail would allow UP, CNW, NS, IHB,and BNSF engines between Chicago and at the farthest Elkhart Indiana where the major east west yard was located. Sometimes engines would go farther east by mistake and sometimes by additional agreement. Purpose of the running to Elkhart was to get the trains out of the mess of Chicago as fast as possible. Things tend to get bogged down otherwise around here there is so much traffic.
Thanks for the info. That makes sense.
Wouldn’t it be more practical though to just use home road locos? Then railroad A wouldn’t have to owe railroad B any hours.
What if the majority of your traffic is seasonal? Then you need lots of engines some of the time and none at other times. That’s why we soemtimes see DM&IR engines on the EJ&E during the winter when the iron ore traffic stops/
Its called a “run through agreement” and all the major railroads have them with each other.
They track the locomotives by “horsepower hours”. That is the time and horsepower of locomotives on each other’s railroads. So if 2 SD40’s run from the UP to the CSX and are on the CSX for 48 hours then the CSX owes the UP 288,000 hphrs (2 engines x 3000 hp/eng x 48 hrs). Then the railroads balance out each month. If the CSXT owes the UP hphrs, then they will let the UP use some engines to pay back the hphrs. If the hours can’t be paid back in some manner then the there is some dollar figure attached to the hphr and the owing road has to pay that, but 99% of the time the imbalances are handled in kind.
On most railroads the dispatchers don’t assign power, a mechanical function or an Asst. chief dispatcher or equivalent assigns power. The foreign got there because it came from another railroad. For the last 50 years railroads have been running entire trains, power and all between them selves. The UP makes train in Texas that go Albany, NY and trains in Nebraska that run the SE corner of Georgia. Trains made in Atlanta run all the way to Los Angeles with the same power, over 3 different railroads.
And no, interchanges do occur with locomotives. And cabooses. And ETOD’s.
If it was a very minor repair and they wanted to use it, they would fix it and use it back, billing the UP at
I was under the impression that pooling was different from “Run Through”…
As I have understood it a pool arrangement - of locos or cars - meant that a specified group or specified individual locos or cars were put into common use by two or more RR signing up to the arrangement.
Again, as I have understood it, a Run Through arrangement is where one RR has a contract to haul a train - often a unit train - which often starts on its own tracks but ends or passes through the tracks of another RR. Largely to keep things simple (ie save switching out locos and crews) the original locos stay on the train for the whole trip. Just whether the crew stays on, is changed or picks up a pilot from the second road seems to vary… and not just with the over-all agreement.
As far as I know a Run Through would also retain its originating road’s caboose…
I don’t acually know this as fact so I would be glad if someone would confirm or deny this for me.
[8D]
Your thinking of trackage rights, which a train from another railroad can be operated by its crew over someone elses territory. For me that’s from Ft. Worth to Childress (222 miles) and we also have an agreement to run from Ft Worth to Purcell, Ok. over BNSF.
Run through agreements are power agreements only. “Pooling” is for other equipment, such as “trailer train”, “Railbox” and other cars where several railroads can operate these cars at a specified rental rate, per ton-mile. All the railroads have a ownership stake in the equipment, such as Railbox, but none out right own the equipment.
Perhaps this example will be enlighting as to your question: in 1960 Union Pacific and Chicago Burlington & Quincy agreed to pool entire consits from the CB&Q west of Council Bluffs Iowa, in return Union Pacific gained access to points east including Chicago without resorting to trackage rights as had been the norm via the Chicago & Northwestern, it is well worth noting that this power was always pool matched as well, Geep twenties and SD twenty fours from both roads became the standard motive power along with pool cabooses. This reduced dwell time , motive power cost and interchange fees along with numerous benifits to the operating department and customers…
Dave
You can call it whatever you want, the agreement that covers it is the “run through agreement”. Cars are handled differently than locomotives. They are a ssigned to a pool that has certain restrictions set by the AAR. not so with engines.
Cars yes. Engines generally no. There are cases where a customer (or a shortline) will buy their own engines and use them to run a train over a railroad, but that’s no what the original question was.
A run through arrangement is where the locomotives and caboose or EOT do not change at the interchange. The train, power and cars are interchanged intact.
Dave H.
Run through is where the cars and engines leave railroad A, operate on railroad B and the responsibility/liability changes from railroad A to railroad B.
Trackage rights is were railroad A operates its train over the tracks of railroad B. Railroad A uses its cars, its engines and its crews to operate the train. Railroad A retains responsibility/liability for the train.
Haulage rights is were railroad A markets a service and railroad B operates the train using railroad A’s cars and locomotives and railroad B’s track and crews. Railroad A retains responsibility/liability for the train.
Dave H.
This brings in a third term “Haulage Rights”… but the whole post has lost me completely… [%-)]
Maybe examples would lighten my darkness?
TIA
[8D]
Alright, so perhaps I shoud rephrase my question and clarify.
I’m only talking about the locomotives. How does a UP AC4400 end up on CSX or any number of other roads? From everything I have read, this was not common until the sixties or seventies.
Is this only a result of the trackage rights that allow UP to run on CSX and when the train terminates, the power is availabe for use on another train?
I understand that trackage/haulage rights allow one road to use another road’s rails to serve customers or run through to another connection. The haulage rights allow the railroad that owns the line to operate the power for the cars of the latter.
It happened occaisionally in the steam era and every once in a while one railroad would lease another railroads engines, but you are correct it is primarily a deisel era phenomenon.
How does it happen?
Railroad A approaches railroad B and says I have a customer that wants to ship coal from a mine on railroad A to a power plant on railroad B. Railroad B says great, bring it on. Railroad A will supply the engines because railroad A has cab signals and railroad B’s engines can’t lead on railroad A.
So they run the trains.
Now railroad B owes railroad A horsepower hours (hphrs) for the time the coal trains are operating on railroad B. So railroad B puts excess of its engines on another train going to railroad A and tells railroad A to keep some of the engines to repay the horsepower hours. So now railroad A has “free floaters” in its fleet that it uses just like one of its own units. At the end of the month the two railroads reconcile horsepower hours and make adjustments to the number of engines on each other’s lines. If the coal trains did operate as frequently, railroad A might owe railroad B hours and would retrun all or part of railroad B’s payback engines or might give railroad B a few of its engines for a week or two to get back even.
Railroad A goes to railroad B and says I have noticed large chunks of cars going to certain areas of your railroad and you give me big chunks of cars going to places on my railroad. I will build blocks of cars going to locations on your railroad so you can by pass switching yards on your line if you will build blocks on your line to by pass yards on mine. So the railroads agree to do that. So railroad A puts its
Thanks Dave, it makes much more sense now!