Everyday when I go to work driving through I-95 in Baltimore, I am always checking out what the latest trains are moving around. Well Today there was a mixed rolling stock train being pulled by 3 Union Pacific AC4400’s. I was surpirsed to UP engines pulling here on the east coast in Baltimore where everything seems to be CSX or Conrail. From what I could see, most of the rolling stock was UP as well… Why would UP being pulling in the Mid-Atlantic?
Run thru exchange power. Click on the link in my signature & you will see CSX locos in California [:D]
It’s probably not run through power. Class ones borrow eachothers power all the time. I spent this weekend on the BNSF transcon and almost every train had at least one NS engine in the consist.
As a note, I’m in Los Angeles and see lots of NS and CSX power on UP/BNSF trains out here, so it must go both ways.
yes it goes both ways.also with csx here in ohio they throw some leasers(rent a wrecks) in the mix too.makes train watching fun.
stay safe
Joe
ps I was on a honey do list errand too
You mean there’s no merger in the works? [:D]
Here is something completely weird. Abuot two years ago I saw a slow heavy haul coal drag on the NEC in North Philadelphia. And guess what??? On the point were two UPAC6000CWs. I said to myself what is going on here?? Why would there be a UP coal drag runing at less than 5 mph on the high speed NEC?? For a min there I was beinning to think Amtrak and Up were going to merge. lol
I too have seen lots of UP power over there in the greater Philadelphia area, mainly on NS tracks. I have also seen some pretty rare locomotives over in my area as well. The other day I saw a BVRY GP9 heading up a manifest.
Over a year ago I saw a UP SD70M on a coal train leaving Shelocta…I had run out of film just before I saw it…it’s generally Conrail SD80MACs here, so that was quite a sight. I miss when Conrail owned the line…saw some strange stuff, but was too young to go railfanning back then.
I guess it’s time to post this again…
Or it could be paying back or accumulating “horse power hours”
Run through agreements are typicaly between “city pairs” on a particular route that goes through two or more railroads territory (tracks).
Units accumulating or paying back horsepower hours can show up anywhere in any service as the power desk sees fit.
Railroads, especially the class ones, are always borrowing power from eachother. The way they keep things even is called “horse power hours”. For instance lets say UP borrows a NS SD40-2, An SD40-2 is 3000hp and will be counted as 3000 horse power hours for every hour it spends on UP. If it’s there for a day the UP would owe NS 72,000 HP hours. Now say somewhere else NS has borrowed a UP AC6000 for a day. Sience the AC6000 is 6000 hp it will accumulate 144,000 hours in the same time. So now there is a debt owed to NS of 72,000 hp hours. Each railroad keeps track of the balance between them and each one of the other railroads and if the balance gets to be too much, the oweing railroad will send some units to the owed railroad to balance things out. They usually use there own power for this but they could also lease units from a leasor or another railroad to pay back hp hours owed. They could send the owed railroad a whole bunch of units to pay off there debt quickly or more economicaly they send a few units to the owed railroad and it takes a lot longer. In that case a foreign unit might be roaming around the owed railroads property for a while and could end up in the farthest corners of there system. They are typicaly treated as if they were there own units and would assign them as they would any other power (though sometime the power desks will keep them in a certain geographic area or service)
OK, so Chad, What you’re saying is, the railroads are sharing locomotives because they’re going to merge?[;)] Right?
Murph; I think you might have something there.[:O]
For the last several months here in this area,every time I see
an NS train,the “motive power” is equally divided between
NS and UP units; mainly NS CW 40-9s and UP SD 70Ms.
So I guess that pretty much means “merger” is on the horizon ?! [swg]
Sarah;were you able to get a picture of that BVRY GP-9 ??
If so,I’d like to get a copy if possible.[:)]
If that was the case, from my point of view CN and CSX would be merging… While I’ll catch the occasional leaser, and I’ve seen UP, WC, SOO, and BNSF (including one today being used by CSX for a local!), the primary foreign power on the Montreal Secondary is CN. A lot of it is probably run-through, but I’ve heard that CSX owes a lot of HP Hours so they are likely also borrowing so they can cover the run…
I wonder what they would call this merger??
Throw all your Scrabble tiles in a bowl and draw four out. There’s your new name. (Don’t laugh - “Exxon” came from a computer program that spewed out hundreds of letter combinations…)
Yea, That’s the ticket.[;)] Get your pictures now before we see new paches on the pached locos.[:D]
There is really only one railroad. They keep the different names to keep people confused and keep the government from spotting the monopoly (see the Montana Grain and Merger rumor threads). Sometimes they slip up and mix power. They are really all owned by the government anyway to move people to reeducation camps (see the shackle train threads). The attempts to kill Amtrak are really to keep from mixing reeducation trains with paying passengers. It is only a matter of time before that occurs and the press gets wind of it.
There is a train now heading up to Seattle from Tacoma with BNSF, UP,CSX and a NS loco I love it when we get to see the foreign power. It is great when we have some of the fallen flag roads show up.
On all Class 1’s today…a working engine is an engine that can be used to move freight…whose reporting marks are on that engine are a distant second in priority in how that engine will be assigned to move freight.
Through the use of the each companies computer systems they keep accounts of the horsepower hours that foreign line engines accumulate.
UP & CSX have numerous run-through operations using the New Orleans and Memphis gateways and also operations through the St.Louis and Chicago gateways.
Currently there are movements of Powder River coal going to Baltimore which normally use UP power and cars for the movement.