Question from a newby to the US railroad system

Hi all,
My name's Dan and I'm from England. I've been railfanning on and off over here over the last year spending time seeing friends etc, and yesterday we went over to bellevue OH for a couple of hours. During that time we saw a freight come in from the west with dash 9 CN #2684 heading with Illinios central SD70 #1029 and a couple more NS units. I looked on the nsdash9 website and theres nothing there about NS hire locos at the moment, I assume nothing is on long term hire right now? My questions are, is it normal for a Canadian national locomotive to come this far into the states and are Illinois central a current operation railroad company, as I've never seen them before. To be honest at first i thought i was seeing a heritage livery, but just generally burmused by the two loco's. Thanks to anyone who can help.

Hello Dan, welcome to Railroad.net. To begin with, "Canadian National is a North American railroad". Here's a nice system map. It is also not the national railway of Canada, but was divested and has been a publicly traded corporation since 1995. It owns almost as much rail in the US as it does in Canada. It owns the one time Illinois Central Railroad in fact, over which CN locos run all the way to New Orleans. That acquisition took place in 1998. The IC's SD-70s were bought new that same year, so it is not surprising that they have not all been re-painted yet. I gather there are about 30 still running around in IC livery. that must have looked interesting lashed to NS engines. did you get pictures?

It's quite common to see CN and CP power in the states as they both have extensive operations south of the border. As to why you saw CN units on an NS train, generally when a train crosses from one company to another it's easier to leave the power on the train and simply change crews. There is a general agreement between the various railroads that allows them to share power. The route miles will usually even-out.

Thanks guys! well that all makes sense about leaving loco's on to crossover, so i'm assuming thats why I see the UP.. etc units on trains. Its nice to see as it spices it all up for sure.
I do have photos Eliphaz, now uploaded for ya on my flickr site.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/76410933@N03/

I just spent half an hour looking at your photos. :D Thanks for that, you do nice work !
I've also always been very interested in the railways of Britain, though Ive never been there.

For what it's worth, it's pretty common to see locomotives from other railroads all around the US on other railroads' tracks. For example, at one station in South Carolina, on a main Norfolk Southern line, I constantly see Union Pacific, Kansas City Southern, etc. locomotives. I recall seeing Norfolk Southern units on passenger trains on its lines every now and then, too (which seems more intuitive).

57603oh wrote:Hi all,
My name's Dan and I'm from England. I've been railfanning on and off over here over the last year spending time seeing friends etc, and yesterday we went over to bellevue OH for a couple of hours. During that time we saw a freight come in from the west with dash 9 CN #2684 heading with Illinios central SD70 #1029 and a couple more NS units. I looked on the nsdash9 website and theres nothing there about NS hire locos at the moment, I assume nothing is on long term hire right now? My questions are, is it normal for a Canadian national locomotive to come this far into the states and are Illinois central a current operation railroad company, as I've never seen them before. To be honest at first i thought i was seeing a heritage livery, but just generally burmused by the two loco's. Thanks to anyone who can help.

\

As was pointed out, this is a common practice in the US. Such trains/engines are called "run-thru's" which permit faster operation and smoothe transitions resulting in power being more available. In a sense, this "borrowing" of locomotives relieves power shortages, etc. A very good move all the way 'round!

GF

As for accounting, its all done through horsepower-hours. UP hands off a coal train to NS. In some areas, the NS will simple recrew the train and keep going. If the train is bound to the old Conrail territories, it likely will recieve a cab-signal equipped add-on unit to give it cabs. ALL the time that the original UP power is in power mode on NS territory gets billed to NS as a function of hp/hrs. But, because teh same happens in the other direction: NS units lead the empty ethanol unit train out to St. Louis and points west. UP recrews and keeps going. Now NS bills the time is engines are in power on UP trackage to UP... the two bills are used to cancel out eachother and only the difference is actually considered for payment.

Pool power has gone a long way to improve railroad efficiency and network fluidity.

jgallaway81 wrote:Pool power has gone a long way to improve railroad efficiency and network fluidity.

Don't forget standardization of radios, operator controls, etc.

All the changes required to make pool power truly possible have also had great effect.

You can load a train full of containers in LA and, other than changing crews, it can move as an entire train unit (engines and all) all the way to New Jersey, pick up a new train built up of something else, and turn around and head directly back to LA.

Huge savings in economy when you can be that efficient.

The above explanations answer this for me:

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 3&t=102423