Locomotive reassignment during low use periods.

I can't speak to how common it was, but in the mid 1950's the PRR leased several ATSF Texas class 2-10-4s for use on Lines West territory.  The crews that operated these were pleased with the foreign oil-fired units over the PRR's J1s.

I know that during WW2, the Missabe leased their big Yellowstones to western railroads (I think Rio Grande was one, maybe WP also?) during the winter when mining / shipping operations were frozen. After the war, the Missabe leased F-units on a long-term basis from Great Northern and B&LE. (DMIR and B&LE were both owned by United States Steel so moving engines between them wasn't uncommon.)

The LIRR towards the end of steam leased K-4 and L-1 from the PRR. They were heavier than anything they had at the time. There's a story of a call from the dispatcher concerned if a bridge out east was strong enough for them, the reply was "too late, it just went over".

Thanks guys, good to know. I could see it going both ways. 1) the business was competitive (not that it isn’t today) so no RR would want to help another. 2) it always boils down to money. An idle locomotive isn’t generating any revenue, so lease it.

Steve

@RideTheRails posted:

I read/head somewhere, recently, about diesel locomotives being used by other railroads other than those that bought or leased them.

It happens every day!

The railroads have whole departments devoted to nothing but tracking the "Horsepower Hours" used on their locomotives when they are used on other railroads. Use a 4,000 HP locomotive for an hour and you've racked up 4,000 horsepower hours.

The railroads trade Horsepower Hours with each other. If a railroad builds up a sizable "debt" of Horsepower Hours to another railroad, money changes hands to bring things back into balance.

This is why you might see Union Pacific locomotives on CSX in Florida, for example. Or NS power on BNSF in Oregon. Instead of stopping for a couple of hours to change power at interchange points, the power is kept on the train and the train keeps moving. It is less costly to do that and keep records of the Horsepower Hours than it is to constantly delay trains for power swaps at interchange points.

There was nowhere as much use of foreign line steam locomotives, compared to the modern age, when diesel-electrics roam the country.  Not even close.   This is an apples and oranges situation.  

And you did not see much off-line use of first generation diesels, either.

The reasons for this are to be found in the shop.  Steam locomotives were unique, order by order.  Some railroads shared certain components among multiple groups of their steam locomotives, but each railroad's roster of steam locomotives was designed and equipped to that railroad's specifications.  Railroad A and Railroad B might use the same type of air pump or feed water heater, but there were multiple types of steam locomotive appliances from multiple suppliers, and the parts supply in a railroad's roundhouses and shops was for that railroad's own locomotives.  

Steam locomotives are at the apex of precision, manually-operated machinery.  Therefore, they must be operated properly and maintained properly, in addition to being well-designed.  A lot of damage can occur from improper operation or maintenance.  No railroad would be willing to put its Home Road steam locomotives into long-term use by a foreign line railroad's Engineers and Mechanical Department if there was a future for that locomotive on its Home Road.  A good example is the case of nearly-dieselized ATSF leasing some 2-10-4's to PRR in 1956.  They might never be the same again after abuse by the foreign railroad.  And, don't kid yourself, a railroad would cut corners and spend as little as possible in caring for a foreign line steam locomotive.

In the 1950's and 1960's, there was a limited amount of off-line operation of diesels, but first generation diesels were not always multiple-unit capable with foreign line diesels.  Camas Prairie Railroad -- jointly owned by Union Pacific and Northern Pacific -- had special multiple unit jumper cables which had to be used in mixed consists of NP (1 jumper and field loop) and UP (3 jumper and field loop) GP9's.  EMD used field loop control for dynamic braking, while Alco-GE used potential line control.  Even the assignment of pin numbers in multiple unit receptacles was not standardized, requiring the use of unique 27-pin jumpers when foreign line diesels were m-ued. Those jumper cables were carefully tracked by their owner railroad, to assure that they returned home.

There was a limited amount of regular off-line use of first generation diesels, but it was tightly controlled.  An example was the Baltimore & Ohio Royal Blue which ran over the Reading and the Jersey Central with RDG and CNJ crews to Jersey City, using the B&O EMC and EMD passenger units such as EA, E6, E7 and E8.  When railroads began freight run-through operation, around 1960, they sometimes modified a group of units for compatibility, but saw that the future was going to require seamless interoperability.  So, through the AAR, they developed standards which allow today's locomotives to roam with foreign line units in any multiple unit consist.  Labor agreements had to be taken into account because they specified certain requirements for cab appliances (seats, water coolers, etc.) which are necessary in order to allow a foreign line unit to be the controlling unit of a consist.  This has resulted in a general upgrading of all locomotive cab interiors and all now are equipped with radios that will function on all the railroad channels..  

See Rich Melvin's previous post for a concise explanation of the financial considerations..

So, as far as long-term off-line use of steam locomotives, it was rare.  It was a bit less rare with first generation diesels.  Only after run-through freight trains became common, did the off-line use of diesels become common.

@RideTheRails posted:

Thanks guys, good to know. I could see it going both ways. 1) the business was competitive (not that it isn’t today) so no RR would want to help another. 2) it always boils down to money. An idle locomotive isn’t generating any revenue, so lease it.

Steve

I agree with number 2.

I think number 1 is debatable.  You are also competing against trucks and pipelines, so working with another railroad may be in your mutual best interest.

I found some more info about sharing locomotives:

https://web.archive.org/web/20...aspx?c=a&id=4172

The practice makes for some interesting railfanning - like this heritage unit showing up on a local on the San Francisco Peninsula.

CSX Dalton, GA (19nov11); note the two trailing motors:

Also Dalton, GA (20nov10); NS and CSX are parallel and cross at Dalton, not to far from location of the "great locomotive chase":

The location of my Dalton shots is called "HAIR" (upper right on the display):

@RideTheRails posted:

I read/head somewhere, recently, about diesel locomotives being used by other railroads other than those that bought or leased them. These usually happened when one railroad had excessive power (low periods of utilization) and other railroads were short on power (maybe during harvest season). Did this happen during the steam era as well?

Steve

When I was with the PennCentral we used to move power around all the time. We sent SD 45’s out west. It was all about not letting anything not being in revenue service for too long

When you see a freight train with 17 locomotives up front, all with road grime with similar and different road names, and not that old, with only the first 2 putting out exhaust, are the other 15 going to balance power some where, a repair facility, or the scrap yard?

@CALNNC posted:

. . . are the other 15 going to balance power some where, a repair facility, or the scrap yard?

Maybe.  But maybe not.

Typically, railroads will only allow enough locomotive units to be "on line" to provide the rated horsepower per ton for that train.  Drag freights run at lower horsepower per ton, perhaps 1.5 HPT, while expedited intermodal trains will be rated at 4.5 to 5 HPT to keep speed up.  Control of fuel usage is the reason.

This could be a little of everything:

• Some units could be moving isolated in the consist in a power balancing movement or to be set put en route for use by another train.
• Some could have missed the deadline for Federal Inspection and are moving dead in the consist to a shop for inspection.
• Some could have had a failure that requires repair in the shop, moving dead in the consist.
• Some could have been sold to a locomotive dealer or to a scrapper, and are en route to their new or final home.
• And the UPRR unit is not in service because the accident damage has caused Federal defects.  It's heading to a repair shop that UPRR specified, which could be UP's own, a contract shop, or the shop of the railroad which wrecked it.