Running Consists With Foreign Power


Greg@mnrr

Greg@mnrr

Section Hand
As I roamed the internet today looking for cab rides, I thought of a question that I was meaning to ask the Forum members. Do you ever run consists that have foreign power on your layout. I plan to run leased locomotives mixed with locomotives that consider my layout as home. As an example, I plan on running a Southern Pacific, a patched Union Pacific loco lead by a home road Milwaukee Road SDL39 locomotive.

I like diesel locomotives and many of the paint schemes that I like the best are from roads far from my layout set in Wisconsin.

Do you run mixed road consists that have seemed to have become very common in today's 1:1 railroading?

Thanks.

Greg
 
Today it is probably more common than one could imagine, especially with all the mergers and the time it sometimes takes to either patch out or repaint the units. The roads you mention are all owned by the UP.
I model the Burlington Route (C.B.&Q.) in the 1940's and '50's. Didn't happen then? Probably less common than today, but consider this: If you took either the Northern Pacific's North Coast Limited or the Great Northern's Empire Builder passenger trains from Chicago to the West Coast, between Chicago and St. Paul, MN, the front end power would be "Q" E-units. How could that be? Well, in spite of the fiction perpetrated by the ICC, the "Q" was jointly owned by the other two roads...at least until 1969, when they were allowed to keep one set of books and paint their road switchers with that IMHO hideous green, black and white paint scheme. But a lot of the units didn't get completely repainted...just had BN slapped on them. When the Colorado & Southern bought out the Santa Fe/D&RGW, the whole shebang became the BNSF. But for quite awhile it wasn't uncommon to see "green weenies" and Santa Fe units pulling 100 car coal trains between Montana and Pueblo, CO. Although I try to use 1959 as the cutoff date for my layout, and they are Burlington locos, I couldn't resist obtaining a pair of GP-30's, which are Chinese red and gray, instead of my favorite black, gray with red and yellow stripes! But the -30's didn't come out until 1962! :eek:
Keep in mind, however, the most important point... IT'S YOUR MODEL RAILROAD! ;)
 
I model at the latest 1965 and the CGW did not have foreign power. the only other road I saw was the EJ&E and its centercabs which are too expensive for my budget.
 
I used to see a few different roads every once in awhile in Oakland CA back in the mid 1980s, but it was very rare. MP, Rio Grande would show up occasionally. Once saw NS SD40-2 high hood which I modeled at the time but don't recall seeing anything else. Probably to far west and the east & midwest locomotives would travel a long distance in UP, SP & ATSF territory.

The club I belonged to we had modelers of diverse railroads although the majority was UP, and we would run mixed consists.
 
I rail fan on the CN main in southern Wisconsin and I see a mixture of roads represented by the aray of motive power.. It is so interesting to see once in awhile a SOO or even a rare Wisconsin Central locomotive in the consist.

Sad, but watching the Union Pacific operate the former C&NW Butler, Wisconsin, seldom do I see a C&NW locomotive. But, the Union pacific uses an old C&NW caboose as a shoving platform on local switching runs.

-Greg
 
Well Greg....I run whatever I want because yup it's my RR. Although I am primarily a UP modeler and UP guy it leaves me the luxury of 2 main things. One the diverse motive power (EMDs to Alcos to Baldwins to FMs and so on) through the life of UP history and present. Two UP's rich history of mergers and acquisitions. So I will mention though the time I lived in Benton, Arkansas and worked in Little Rock...well was actually quite awesome for me when I was chasing and foaming etc all the lines in AR. I was there from 1992 until 2001. I was in the center of a lot of history that was going on. 1995 CNW 1996 SP along with SSW Cotton Belt, Union Pacific absorbed MP on December 22, 1982, and absorbed operations but didn’t formally merge MP out of existence until 1997. Then of course the rich history of each of those RRs are just unbelievable. Everything from MKT to RI to Spokane to Great Western to Western Pacific it's astounding to me. So anyways the amount of motive power I saw between Pinebluff AR to North Little Rock Jenk's shop was crazy. Not to mention heading east to Memphis TN which was less than 2 hours. Anyhow I even have pistures of Amtrak being used for power assist especially the dash 7s and 8s. I have seen a lot of crazy and different roads come through there. Some were being used for power others transferred to Jenk's shops for repairs or other. One of my top 10 favorites that showed up at Jenks shop was the complete demonstrator set of EMD BL20-2s #120 thru 122 and a few extras that were modified in that set 3 other locos. A total of 6. Crazy and I got 35 mm pic of them. Not the best pics as the camera I had at the time was point and shoot. Nonetheless it was awesome! Anyways back to the topic.... yupper run whatever power you wish. The power could be power moves or used in the consists or even transport for repairs or sale.....it's all good. 2 cents of what not....

Here's a few pics to enjoy our beautiful family trees!

a127c3f86e92c4e1df5b443efd8ac79e.jpg

SOO tree.jpg


BNSF tree.jpg
CN tree.jpg
CSX tree.jpg
KCS tree.jpg
NS & CSX tree.jpg
 
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In this thread and others I see a lot of "it's your railroad, your rules". Of course there is nothing wrong with that but I suggest that one can run whatever one wants without invoking the collective experience from members of an online forum. If I'm wrong I hope Greg will tell me but I suspect he is something like me, he wants to learn about the prototype and know if what he plans to do is realistic.

Oh, yes I run NS on my CSX layout as leased and foreign power :)
 
(I don't have enough space and model the 1950's) Just wonder how "distributed power" would work on a model train? Even with consisting, would the light weight of the freight cars be a problem?
 
I do not model foreign power in my consists. In my area Santa Fe rarely used foreign power between Ft Worth and Oklahoma City, so I wouldn't know which railroads to use. That's the general locale that I model although I am not protypical. To this day I don't see a lot of foreign power on that BNSF line except when they are hauling engines to or from the Wabtec (formerly GE Transportation) plant in North Ft Worth. I don't think that they are powered as additional power is not needed. It is interesting to see six shiny rebuilds in CN livery going up the line, but I never seem to have the camera with me. On another line that I railfan, I regularly see NS power with KCS on the KCS line interchanging with BNSF at the nearby wye.
 
Many years ago, Trains magazine published an article about foreign power titled "When Diesels Leave Home". If you can find it, it should answer your questions, at least in context of the time it was written.
 
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