Norfolk Southern and CSX

You mean on someone's layout?

Yes. It will occasionally happen when other railroads like CN have borrowed diesel-electric locomotives from both roads and are moving trains over the GTW mainline from Chicago to the East Side of Michigan.

 

Andrew

Good question! Sorry about that. I mean real trains. I have some NS and CSX power and dummies and am running them together. Was wondering if that is at all prototypical.

Ed

Almost anything happens sooner or later

I see this quite regularly when I watch several live cams. Although, it may seem rare, it is not uncommon to see CSX pulling a NS train. Or Vice versa. Why just the other night, I observed a NS pulling a UP with a CN in the mix. Really quite cool. If one railroad is transporting on another's, then the host railroad will likely have the lead locomotive until the train reaches its final destination within that lines area of responsibility. At least, that is how it was explained to me by an engineer in the business.

 

 

Pete

Ed:

Rest easy; it happens in real life.  I shot some video of an NS autorack train in PA last summer.  The lead loco was NS while the trailing unit was CSX.

Curt

Absolutely Prototypical. Here in Buffalo we see any combination you can imagine. I've seen BNSF, Santa Fe, NS, KCS, UP, CP, CN, SP, B&P, I&M, SB, CSX, IC, ICE, Heritage Units, leased units, & 20 others all in different combinations - you name it. But that begs the question, it's 3 rail track man, how prototypical do you have to be? Run whatever you want to... 

Thanks guys! I know it's 3 rail and you can and should run whatever you want on your railraoad. Prototypical I'm not. I've got ducking giraffe cars  and horses sticking their heads out of cattle cars all for the kids enjoyment. But, my friends like protoypical trains so I try to make up something nice for them when they come over..

 

Ed

Here is an example...

 

The most common combinations on the CN/GTW mainline are BNSF & NS, CSX & CN, UP & CN, CP & BNSF, BNSF & CSX, NS & UP. Eventually there will be a NS & CSX.

 

Andrew

I haven't seen NS & CSX together specifically, but I live near BNSF tracks and have seen BNSF with all the other Class 1 rail roads engines in the consist. I would imagine you would see NS & CSX together in either one of their own territories though.

Here is CSX, NS, and CP in downtown Roanoke, VA, deep in the heart of NS country.

  

Several years ago.  Missoula Montana Rail yard.   

 

Seen many a combinations.....any road on any road.......CSX mainline in St Albans WV......

Yes on my layout lol!

Its hard to take pics when your flying by the seat of your pants.  Yesterday in Lincoln Ne.  On BNSF I saw CSX CP and NS on one coal drag. I was rubber necking but caused no accident!!!!

I'm not in Montana, but NS is the one I see the most on the BNSF tracks around here. BNSF and NS pass East & West intermodal trains to one another here, probably in Edgerton, KS. At least that is where BNSF's newly built and opened intermodal yard is anyway.

A lot of stuff happens in the world of railroads. I have seen a couple of things.

Norfolk Southern train with four GP-60's on FEC tracks to Miami FL.

Amtrak train being led by an FEC GP-40 on FEC tracks to Miami FL one time.

 

Lee Fritz

NS, BNSF, and CSX units all lashed together outside the Roy Rogers in Cumberland.

Union Pacific units pulling a coke train on CSX tracks in downtown Pittsburgh.

BNSF units pulling a mixed freight on CSX, same location.