The foreign New Haven

When I read the post concerning “Foreign power on the Maybrook”, I thought in the reverse. How far did New Haven rolling stock go? Did the New Haven passenger fleet go as far as Florida or St. Louis? Did the New Haven box cars go to the Midwest, and beyond? Did rolling stock go into Canada?

The New Haven's freight cars roamed the entire North American rail system, like those of any other major railroad. Its passenger cars regularly ran through to Montreal, into Maine, out to Pittsburgh, and down to Washington on through trains that originated on the NH. As for where they might stray on occasion, certainly to Florida and Chicago at least.

"Run-through" operation wasn't as common before 1969 as it is now, so New Haven locomotives probably kept close to home most of the time. After the Penn Central merger, however...
Penn Central tried to concentrate its remaining Fairbanks-Morse power at the western end of the system, particularly in the Chicago area. Some, at least, of the New Haven's 1600-series (1956-built) H16-44 units got there: George Elwood's "Fallen Flags" railphoto site has, in its Penn Central section, photos of a few ex-New Haven units in the Chicago area in 1969-1970, all repainted black and with their Penn Central numbers (they were-- officially-- renumbered as a block to 5160-5174). Some may not have lasted that long: in the New Haven section of the site,
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nh/nh.html
there are 1970 photos of two in an Altoona dead line in New Haven paint and with their original numbers.
I don't know if any got re-assigned to the Chicago region before repainting.

The newest power, C425 and U25B, also migrated after the merger.
...
Metro-North doesn't keep its New-Haven painted locomotives exclusively on its Connecticut lines. So McGuiness-painted FL-9, as well as the "faux New Haven" P32AC Genesis locomotives, have often been used on ex-New York Central lines in Westchester county. But that's scraping the bottom of the barrel.

chnhrr wrote:When I read the post concerning “Foreign power on the Maybrook”, I thought in the reverse. How far did New Haven rolling stock go? Did the New Haven passenger fleet go as far as Florida or St. Louis? Did the New Haven box cars go to the Midwest, and beyond? Did rolling stock go into Canada?

I remember a trip that I took that involved Jacksonville. I took a day train and I think it was called the "Gulf Coast
Special" and it operated via the former Atlantic Coast Line north out of Jacksonville. Imagine my surprise when in the
consist was a New Haven 8600 class coach while in the coach yard at Jacksonville which at the time was pretty big were
two more 8600's for another train to somewhere. I rode in the 8600 and it felt strange so far from home. This was likely
around 1967 or 1968. Would have to check out the dates which I am not prepared to do right now.
New Haven coaches ended up all over New England, Montreal, Washington DC and sometimes points west and south of
Philadelphia and Washington as well.
After the Penn Central took over in 1969, former New Haven passenger equipment could be found almost anywhere on the
Penn Central and this continued right up till day one of Amtrak.
Noel Weaver

For the uninitiated, how did the New Haven dispatch its rolling stock such as freight cars and passenger coaches outside the system and how did it compensate the other rail companies for the transportation? Here are two hypothetical scenarios.

1)In 1937 a machinery company in New Britain shipped specialized equipment in a 40’ New Haven box car to a manufacturer of drilling equipment outside Dallas, Texas. How did the New Haven Freight Operations determine which rail route to take and what the delivery schedule would be? (Example: Pennsylvania – MKT- local electrified short line from the Dallas yards to the factory) How was the shipping cost determined given the three or more possible rail companies involved in the delivery?

2)In February 1947, the Fords took a sleeping coach in New Haven destined for Jacksonville, Florida. How would the New Haven officially schedule the three sleeping coaches with the other railroads such as the Pennsylvania, RF&P and the Atlantic Coast Lines? Again, what agreements and systems were in place to insure that coaches could be scheduled on southbound trains and the other roads paid for their services.

At the risk of starting a fire storm, I grew up in Floral Park, NY in the 50's-60's, and my dad was a daily "Dashing Dan". He and a neighbor and fellow commuter had commented on having seen these clean, sharp looking black, red, and white units at Jamaica station, observations stimulated by one of my shameless appeals for a Lionel NH quasi-EP-5. Does anyone have any info regarding a possible demonstration run of FL9's on the LIRR? My dad, who was not a railfan, was impressed by the fact the units were so clean and new looking. I know EMD had high hopes of selling the FL9 to the LIRR and New York Central, with a pair of pre-delivery FL9's having demonstrated on the Hudson line of NYC, but it wasn't to be. Interesting that the FL9's finally ended up serving on both roads' rails after many re-buildings and decades of service.

chnhrr wrote:For the uninitiated, how did the New Haven dispatch its rolling stock such as freight cars and passenger coaches outside the system and how did it compensate the other rail companies for the transportation?

There are some former NH employees here who know a lot more about the details than me, but here's the short answer.

-- When cars traveled off-line, railroads paid each other for the use of their freight cars via a daily "per diem" charge, applied nationally, and based on where the car was at midnight. Thus the NH paid a daily charge of a couple dollars to the owning railroad for every foreign car that was on its rails at midnight, and likewise every other company that had an NH car on its rails paid a per car/per day charge to the NH. Railroads that owned a lot of cars and managed to keep them moving off line could make money this way.

--Freight rates were set by the railroads with the approval of the Interstate Commerce Commission, which often intervened in rate disputes. There were a vast number of individual rates covering every conceivable commodity and routing. For interline moves, say a car of widgets moving from Boston to Chicago via the NH-L&HR-PRR Maybrook routing, each railroad would get a cut of the total amount paid by the shipper based on the rate agreement.

-- Specific routes could be requested by the shipper based on rates and/or service, and if the shipper didn't specify one in cases where multiple routings were possible, the railroad that originated the shipment would decide (and usually pick the option that gave them the biggest cut of the rate).

-- For interline passenger service, expenses and revenues were normally divided up between the operating railroads. Sometimes cars would stray on their own, but in most cases the railroads decided who provided what equipment for a given interline route. And remember that for most of the classic era, most sleepers were operated by the Pullman Company, which was a national system.

Multiple questions, multiple answers, maybe:

FL-9s in Jamaica, Queens, on display? It's possible. The FL-9 concept had potential users with the LIRR, NYC, LV and PRR/NY&LB. None panned out, although, as noted, they did end up on LIRR & NYC eventually.

Freight car per diem for off-line usage? Already mentioned, and there were tariffs published of a similar nature for passenger cars operating off-line (NH cars in Florida). Head-end cars, most notably "baggage" cars, could and did end up all across the country. The so-called "baggage" cars were also concurrently Railroad Express Agency cars, and when in REA service went wherever they were needed or loaded to. It was not uncommon to see the AT&SF's Fast Mail with NH (and other) "baggage" cars. Likewise, it was not uncommon to see ACL cars on the New Haven (along with the usual PRR B-60s, R-50s or X-29s) in REA service. PRR head-end cars could, and did, end up in Grand Central Terminal, just as NYC head-end cars could, and did, end up in Pennsylvania Station.

NH cabooses in express service routinely ran between Boston and Washington, or Boston and Pittsburgh, with PRR cabin cars running all the way to Boston. Payment to Railroad A for using Railroad B's rolling stock was either paid through per diem or balancing out accumulated mileage.

Speaking of which, when a dedicated freight routing was established between multiple railroads (e.g. four carloads of widgets each week from Waterbury, Connecticut to Spokane, Washington), with its agreed-upon freight rate, the railroads involved in the routing (NH, EL & MILW) would each contribute dedicated freight cars to cover the service based on each road's proportion of the total routing, mileage-wise.

Actual routing of freight cars depended on many variables - shipper-dictated, receiver-dictated, tonnage guarantees, tariff rates involved, time involved, etc. Routing ABCD could be the fastest, but most expensive, while ABED could take longer, but be cheaper. Sometimes time was the determining factor, sometimes speed was.

All of the preceding on rates and routings would take a book to discuss in detail, and even then it wouldn't be a complete discussion.

Statkowski wrote:Actual routing of freight cars depended on many variables - shipper-dictated, receiver-dictated, tonnage guarantees, tariff rates involved, time involved, etc. Routing ABCD could be the fastest, but most expensive, while ABED could take longer, but be cheaper. Sometimes time was the determining factor, sometimes speed was.

As I understand it, having worked in marketing for a Class I as stringent regulation was winding down, under Interstate Commerce Commision regulation of the railroads, one rate was established by the ICC for a particular commodity (STC) between an origin and destination. Railroads competing for this particular move could only compete on service, not price. So when a shipper, consignee, or third party decided which route and rail carrier(s) to use, the price was always the same, and service characteristics, including which carrier(s) plied them with the best booze and entertainment , were the determining factor.

Mr. Hazen, Mr. Nelligan, Mr. Statkowski, Mr. Weaver and QB thanks for the information concerning New Haven and railroad management practices for rolling stock and shipping offline. It is amazing that the management and coordination of these systems occurred without the assistance of computers and modern communication. There must have been an army of staff dedicated to ensure that these operations ran smoothly. It must have been an extremely complicated process during the war years with the high traffic levels that had to be addressed, most of which was reserved for the government usage.

"There must have been an army of staff "
Well, yes. Total employment in the railroad industry in, say, 1945 was several times what it is now: obviously things like diesel locomotives with multiple-unit connections account for some of the decrease, but there were also many more clerks and agents than there are now.