Track Rights on a shortline?

[Justinmiller171]

It might be owned jointly by the BNSF & the UP, but that would be like a minor league baseball team being owned jointly by the Yankees and the Red Sox. I don't think there are two railroads in the country that dislike each other more than the U.P. and the Santa Fe in the old days, and I think that dislike extended to the BNSF when they merged.

I know of a few railroads such as the Portland Terminal Railroad are owned by both UP and BNSF, They also seem to share alot of track rights, They have also been building some joint lines together:http://www.bnsf.com/media/news-releases/...5-08a.html

[dave_long]

Gary,
I'm a very long way from being knowledgeable on US procedures. However if your looking reasons to use more stock, you could do what I'm doing/planning at the moment. I'm building a layout based in industrial Chicago around the CIRY (central illinois railroad) who only had a few SW9s, however they went out of business at the start of this year, but the track rights were BNSFs and BNSF has now begun to switch the area, using a great mix of spare locos, from a tatty GP50 to a sparkling exGP30 GP39-2R in Heritage III paint and a EMDX GP38-2.

So you could say your shortline railroad has gone out of business and use your UP locos to switch the tracks.

Dave

[Brakie]

So you could say your shortline railroad has gone out of business and use your UP locos to switch the tracks.

Dave.
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If the industries couldn't sustain a shortline I doubt if the big road would want it since they more then likely sold the trackage to a port authority.

Another approach is the short line could be a "paper" railroad own by 2 large railroads that supplies the engines that is rotated (say 1 month UP and next month SP or SF) and both roads would supply the needed empties.

[dave_long]

Yes Larry, but the businesses that the CIRY served were able to sustain a railroad and continue to have daily trip works worked by BNSF crews. There are more reasons than that for a railroad to go out of business.

Dave.

[Brakie]

Yes Larry, but the businesses that the CIRY served were able to sustain a railroad and continue to have daily trip works worked by BNSF crews. There are more reasons than that for a railroad to go out of business.

Dave.

True dat but,usually the Port Authority would lease the track to another shortline operator or buy or lease a engine and hire the crew from the defunct shortline.

I'm surprise a big boy went for single car shipments.OTH BNSF seems to be a aggressive railroad.

[Russ Bellinis]

Gary, did you see the link that Shortliner Jack posted on the Helms Leasing layout in the HO forum? Using leased power is a great way to have any railroad livery you want regardless of the prototype. It would just be used units rather than the latest offering from EMD or GE.

[Gary S]

Russ, I just looked at it... very nice layout.

What I am going to do is have UP locos bring cars all the way to my "middle" yard similar to what happens at the LAJ. From there, my shortline will make the switching moves.

[iandrewmartin]

My layout and railroad is similar to... give track rights to the UP so they could deliver the incoming cars all the way to the customer instead of leaving them at the interchange for us to pick up and deliver?

Gary;

I am late to the party but there would no real worlkd value to your shortline from alllowing them to deliver on-line. You lose a bucket of money from the revenue for switching and you no longer control your shortline.

So if all you want is a real-world [excuse] reason to run UP, or other locomotives onto your property - just lease them while your regular unit(s) are in the shop for their FRA mandated inspections.

This is a lot simpler and you get to run whatever you want, except maybe the latest, greatest power. Of course it also gives you a reason to model lots of lease (power by hour) units too.

Hope this helps.