I want to have two of my favorite railroads running on my 11x4 feet ho scale layout. I have already got the frst railroad Canadian National up and running for about a year now. But I also want to add a second without having to do much moving of the tracks in place so I though that I could model an interchange bettwen the Exsisting Canadian National line and a new Chessie System line. So my question is do the railroads use special tracks for the interchange? What locomotives are usually used(switchers, 4axle road power??) and do the two railroads share locomotives at the nterchange point? I already have a bunch of Canadian National locomotives but thought I would need one for the other road two. so my only Chessie system loco(B& O) I own right now is a GE 35 TON in B&O blue paint (looks like this one- )http://tycotrain.tripod.com/ahmhoscaletrainscollectorsresource/id30.html
would this be a good locomotive for an interchange or do I need to get a new one like a GP40(only problem is i’m short on money)
Thanks for your help
ShaunCN
A lot of the answers to your questions depend on how and what you mean by interchange. If you are just talking about 2 railroads exchanging a few cars then its is worked just like and “industry” Railroad A sets out cars in a track and railroad B picks them up and vice versa. There might be two tracks at the interchange, there might just be one. If you are talking about interchanging a whole train then you have your choice, you can interchange the trains with power or you can interchange without power. If you interchange with power, then you can have each railroad contribute half the power or one railroad contribute all the power.
So if you are interchanging an entire train you can have:
a - each train pulls up to the interchange track and cuts off its engines and caboose (if used) , puts the power on the train being delivered and goes.
b - Each railroad contributes a set of power. The CN power run to the CSXT yard and the CSXT power runs to the CN yard. Teh next day the train from the CN has CSXT power going home and the train from the CSXT has CN power going home.
c - Every day the train from the CN runs with CN power to the CSXT yard and the train from the CSXT also runs with CN power returning home.
Dave H.
You could also run runthough trains between both RRs using both railroads engines.
hm do you have M.R. that talks about interchanges. i about 150 so i can not tell you which it is.
I think it was the October or November 2003 issue.