Would, in “real life”, one see a New Haven Line freight train include cars from New York Central or would this be a ‘no-no’. I am, as always, re-working my layout and appreciate your comments. Many thanks.
NYC/NYNY&H existed during a similar time period and they exchanged cars. I saw it myself.
FJ and G:… Thanks David.
Most cars were used in “interchange” service, aka the car was loaded with merchandise to be delivered somewhere. A shipper gets an order and contacts the railroad that services his area, he requests a car. The car he gets may or may not be owned by the railroad in question. The car will be handed off to whatever railroads are necessary to get to the the delivery destination. It is much more efficient to do things this way than to unload and reload the car at every interchange point. This evenually lead to the idea of large “pool” cars wich came into fruition in the 60’s with lease corporations “owning” the cars and renting them to the various railroads, e.g. RailBox, Railgon, Trailer Train … It used to be pretty rare to see a train made up of cars owned only by one railroad with the exception of the crack freight specials like the PaceMaker and EarlyBird service.
Absolutely. I grew up near Framingham, Mass. It was and is still an important center for CSX now. It was the B&A (NYC) with The NH crossing over the B&A north to south. Both roads had a large yard and engine servicing facilities there and yes, they mixed all kinds of cars. Of course, now it’s all CSX still using both yards and facilities
Chuckn/qqqman: Good news for me! Many thanks.
Living in the city, I never knew that. Thanks for the lessonb all.
I’m so happy to have grown up with 1st generation diesels and when the classic roads like nyC/PRR existed; but I do envy those 10 years older who recall steam; they were lucky and must now be depressed; once you see a living beast, you can’t go back (saw one in China in '85)
Sure! Just check out trainorders.com, they’ve got tons of older videos with all types of roads pulling all types of freight cars.
Most freight trains would consist of cars from many different roads, but with the home road predominant.
There would be some trains that were almost all home road cars (I saw one on CN yesterday). Some railroads ran an evening train that collected empty foreign cars and passed them on to the next road to avoid the daily rental charges (per diem).
Appreciate all your input. Thanks again.
FJ and G, I never paid much attention to road names on trains while growing up, though I’m too young (and in the wrong part of the country) to know NYC and PRR. In regards to steam, my dad has told me stories about sneaking on board the local Seaboard (SAL) when it stopped for water, in Laurinburg, NC. He and his friends also use to swim in the water tower, though probably not as pretty a sight as “Petticoat Junction”. 
My latest NYC lantern: