Are there any hard and fast rules when railroad have to run over each other tracks do to reroutes or constuction or wrecks? Is there a standerd fee?
Detours are covered by the National Detour Agreement, which covers operations, liabilities, fees and a host of other things.
The railroads have a national agreement covering reroutes and detours due to accidents and acts of nature (derailment, fire, floods,etc). detours due to other causes (crew shortage, maintenance curfews, route congestion, etc) are not covered by that agreement and are negotiated seperately between the railroads.
Temporary trackage rights are a separate thing.
Dave H.