Can BNSF and UP run and haul together on the same rails? I have seen some posts with a mix of BNSF and UP engines hauling freight. That would increase my engine supply by a lot. In western Iowa north of Omaha, NE it is UP, but there is a few towns just northeast of Omaha that I have seen BNSF on. I chose BNSF a year or 2 ago because of the wide color variations in locos. Jeff
Answer to that is something called "trackage rights". That is an agreement giving two or more roads the right to run thier trains over other roads' tracks to reach sometimes isolated portions of thier trackage. Also economy issues where both roads having side by side tracks, agree to share cost of a single track, saving both money and time. The old SP&S Oregon Trunk/GN Inside gateway is an example of that. In the early premerger days GN/SP&S and WP exchanged train and power through to Washington. A portion of the track, owned by SP&S on the line, was combined with UP adjacent trackage, and shared a single line to the south bank of the Columbia River. Thus you had GN, SP&S, UP, and WP all operating on the same section of track. Camas Prairrie was shared UP/NP track and power, and Milwaukee shared track with NP at some locations. NP steam running over Milwaukee electrified rail. Further east Milwaukee and UP shared trackage. In some cases there was joint ownership and maintenance and on others it was single ownership with trackage rights to the other road. In the case of single ownership, that road's dispatcher controlled traffic, and you can be sure that the home road traffic had priority. The exception would be on joint run passenger or express. Hope I've explained the operation fairly well enough because it can be complex at times.
I am modeling somewhere in Utah, It's UP and BNSF has "trackage rights". The UP roster in the late 1990's still has SP,DRG&W, and CNW power. Maybe SSW, not sure??? The BNSF roster in the late 1990's would probably have some BN and ATSF??? The more modern the more this happens. I think, but I am pretty new to the hobby. On a line near my office I have seen... UP,CP,SOO,CSX,CEFX, and More. Remember, It's UP to you. Loco1999
The "Joint Line" south of Denver Coloarado would be a good example to research. It used to be jointly operated by BN, D&RGW, and ATSF. Now just BNSF and UP. The "Orin Line" in Wyoming is another example. The possibilities with an operation such as this (Joint Line) can be endless! Three roads with run through power from different roads.........
It happens all the time here (near Roseville/Sacramento, CA) in the exact scenario you described [ 16. January 2005, 17:59: Message edited by: nscale_lover ]
The Milwaukee Road and Great Northern also traded some trackage rights back and forth. Then there was the well known "Joint Line" between Black River and Tacoma Junction in Washington state. UP and Milwaukee trains mixed it up every day. Milw had trackage rights over BN in places. Rock Island on Milwaukee, and vice versa. And more. Long way of saying go ahead, and do it. It happened in many, many places, amongst many, many railroads! Not at all unusual! Boxcab E50
Urban trackage in Houston, Texas. Used to be Houston Belt and Terminal jointly owned by ATSF, BN, MP and CRIP, Houston to Galveston line GH&H jointly owned by MKT and MP, and SP which had all its own lines. Now there is one joint terminal operations control through the city with any train being routed over any suitable track regardless of ownership. So UP and BNSF trains running over same tracks. As far as locos in same consist on same train, I don't know....
thank you John, now I can buy some WP power for my 'Oregon Trunk'. I was never quite 100% sure how far north WP power came. Although I know I have seen lots of pictures while researching SP&S with WP locomotives in the background etc.
When a railroad is short of motive power there are times that they may rent power from another road and that is another good reason to have one or two foriegn units on the layout.
The Cajon pass has three tracks: one SP (now of course UP) and two Santa Fe/BNSF. One Santa Fe track is just for up and the other just for down. SP has to carry both up and down. It often happens that you'll find a SP/UP train on one of the SF/BNSF tracks. I even saw UP locos mixed in with a BNSF consist - not too often, but more than once. Speaking of often, I often saw black NS power on SoCal trains. For example:
Here's a cab shot of the pesky UP trains that share the trans con line between Chicago and Kansas City. The number of UP trains seem to be increasing too, I think they took our vehicle business. Here BNSF spends millions on the Logistics Park yard vehicle distribution center and we (BNSF) run only one vehicle train a day between Chicago and KC. UP runs about three or more over our rails...pretty sad.
There's a BNSF yard by the highway I take on my way to work in St. Louis. You never know what you will see there, BN, SF, BNSF, NS among others. While BNSF and UP for the most part use different but often parallel tracks in this area I did see a consist in the BNSF yard that included UP and BNSF engines not too long ago.
