Hey fellas,
the other day I saw something really weird. I was near UP’s Main line while I was at my train club, and right before we were getting ready to go home, We saw a train that had 2 BNSF engines, one of which had the new Swoosh paint scheme and the other one was a Heritage 2 and the third engine was a UP. kinda weird to see 2 BNSFs and a UP engine on UP mainline. some of the other people thought maybe the BNSFs were leases, if so, why would BNSF lease a brand new engine?
Sean
wow!!!
Thats not too wierd. It could also just have been a BNSF train on UP tracks. Where was this? The BNSF leases the UP main west of Denver so I am certain they do that in other places as well. Was the UP unit on the point or behind? Some units don’t have all the automatic signalling stuff that UP requires so they throw a UP engine on the point to cover the electronic requirements.
I see BNSF and UP locos on KCS trackage all the time. Why should it be unusual anywhere else.[:D]
I jsut cant understand that if they were leasing the engines to UP, why would they lease brand new engines?
And the 2 BNSF were infront of the one UP
Probably just run through power. We get all sorts of BNSF power up here on CSX powering coal trains, including brand new units.
Sometimes they are pay back for use of pool equipment. In a pool agreement, each railroad is supposed to furnish a specific % of the power. I know that when the KCS bought some new units they first went to BNSF for a period of time to pay back pool power agreements.
Jim
We have both BNSF and UP that operate through here. I see UP engines with BNSF quite often and BNSF engines being used on the UP main line. They are in the process of repainting engines with the new logo from what I understand. I saw someone else mentioned that BNSF may have track rights where you are.
Power is power… Nobody gives a hoot if its new or not.
I’m not exactly sure where Onion Specifics “mainline” is at there caz1491 but there are a number of explanations for the presence of “foreign” power in a lash-up.
They could very well be “leased” units and the lease could have required BNSF to provide. lets say, units less than two years old. The lease specifications could have been based on horsepower and BNSF would probably find it cheaper to have provided a lesser number of units of higher horsepower than more units of lesser horsepower.
Another explanation involves “pooling”. To avoid interchange fees at a particular point sometimes railroad A will assemble a train goint to X at a particular point and will hand the whole train off to railroad B at some point. Based upon a split of the mileages involved railroad A will be required to provide a certain amount of motive power as their contribution to the “pool”; railroad B makes a similiar contribution based upon their mileage involement in the “pool”. Some of these “pools” go back decades. If what you saw is a 'pool" then it is something mutually beneficial to both railroads and neither has seen fit to cancel it.
There is also a third possiblity; BNSF might be using locomotives to pay off a bill - after all, because of interchange, railroads always owe each other monies; if BNSF has an excess of motive power and UP a deficiency of motive power this could be one way to balance the books.
Trains Mag did an article about this some time back in the stone age.
I see shiny brand new UP units in Georgia all the time.
NS usually has BNSF or UP units on H88. Occasionally both! They also come in on coal trains, as well as the 205/206 very rarely. We get everything here in Binghamton. Except KCS or any other smaller carrier.