Trains with Locomotives from Different Lines

This is probably a silly question, but I'll ask anyway. I'm new, so maybe I get one silly question!

How is it that trains can have locomotives (and rolling stock, for that matter) from other rail lines? Is there some kind of "sharing" system? In fact, can trains use track owned by another rail line?

Thanks for not laughing!

John

John,

No, your question is not silly.

First, freight cars are loaded with materials at one point, with the materials to be delivered to a destination at some other location.
The freight car's route may only involve only one railroad, or it may need to travel along several or more railroads to get to its intended destination. There is no reason to have to unload and reload the car's contents just because it is on a different railroad. Many years ago, when different railroads had different rail track widths (gauges), such was done, but no more.
A railroad will use whatever suitable cars are available to meet a customer's needs, regardless of ownership (although some railroads may prefer to use their own cars as a first choice).

The same locomotives may be retained on long-distance run-thru freight trains, rather than exchanging locomotives each time the train is on a different railroad company's tracks.

Other times, at terminals, a railroad may be short of available locomotives, and will "borrow" an available locomotive that belongs to a different railroad in order to provide the locomotive power needed to move a train.

When a railroad uses another railroad's locomotives, a record of the amount of time/distance the locomotive is used on the railroad is maintained. Later, one of their locomotives will be assigned to the other railroad for "compensatory" time usage. Example: CSX loaned 4 of their new SD70ACe locomotives for test purposes to the Montana Rail Like RR. Montana Rail Link subsequently assigned some of their other locomotives to CSX to work off the same amount of miles as the CSX locos used on the MRL.

Don't forget that there are locomotive leasing companies, such as Helm Financial (reporting marks of HLCX, HATX, and several others), that lease their locomotives to railroad companies for use when the railroad companies are short-handed for available locomotives. These leasing companies lease their locomotives for short term or long term periods (power by the hour). They are the Hertz, Avis and Enterprise companies of the railroad world.

ACLfan

Thanks. That answered my question precisely.

John

John, as stated above not a silly question, we are all here to learn. And the whole question of rail cars moving about the country is something that people in the industry, and railfans, take for granted but the general public sometimes has no idea on. If it helps anyone, here is an analogy I use to explain this to people.

Tell them to think of a relay race, where the baton is handed off from one runner to another. A rail car may be loaded on a short line in Oregon, handed off to a Class I and taken to Chicago. There another Class I railroad gets it, and takes it to Virginia, where a shortline places it for unloading. The cargo never leaves the freight car, but 4 different railroads handle it to its destination. (the weak point in the analogy is that runners in a relay are moving at top speed to rush the baton to the end, the baton does not sit for days at some freight yard along the way, or get misrouted to some other destination in error, LOL)

A further comment on the locomotive exchange. In some cases the settlement is made on basis of horsepower-hours, rather than miles.