Eastern Railroad Discussion > Horse Power Hours - How they are calculated

I hear talk all of the time about railroads owing horsepower hours to other railroads. How is this calculated? Do Amtrak owe HP hours to roads that help an Amtrak train over the road? Do smaller railroads owe hours to other smaler systems and class 1\'s? If so, how do they pay back the hours owed? What is the current hours owe between the class one roads?

NateF40Amtrak
http://www.trainweb.org/clevelandtrains

This is a fairly easy one..If a railroad uses another ones SD40-2 that is rated at 3000 HP and they use it for 10 hours that is 30,000 HP hours that one road owes the other. As you see this number can and does add up in a hurry. That is why you will often see a unit or units from on road on another road for a long period of time. They are balancing out the horsepower hours..

Regards,

Denis F. Blake
NS Conductor
Columbus, OH
TTHOTS

This is a fairly easy one..If a railroad uses another ones SD40-2 that is rated at 3000 HP and they use it for 10 hours that is 30,000 HP hours that one road owes the other. As you see this number can and does add up in a hurry. That is why you will often see a unit or units from on road on another road for a long period of time. They are balancing out the horsepower hours..

Regards,

Denis F. Blake
NS Conductor
Columbus, OH
TTHOTS

I think the originator of this thread was asking what is an \'hour\' for the purpose of this calculation. Does all time count when the locomotive is running or only when it is doing something useful like pulling a train rather than sitting in the yard at idle while a brake test is performed.

The horsepower part of the equation could be examined in a similar manner. Yes the loco may have 3000 available HP, but it certainly is not using that all the time.

Any horsepower hour deal I have ever been involved with was as simple and straight forward as Denis spelled out - unit was on property for 10 hours, rated at 3000 horses, equals 30,000 horsepower hours. Have seen (and been involved with) smaller roads paying the lease on a rent-a-wreck to repay hours owed a class 1. Back in the early 90\'s, the shortline I was with did this quite often with NS in order to use NS power on grain trains. About once a year, we would sign a short term (3 or 4 month) lease with Helm or EMD or whomever and have them give that unit(s) to NS to repay the years worth of horsepower hours owed.

I have a couple of friends who either do or have done this job. It\'s not real complicated, but does require constant monitoring. All the major railroad motive power managers have each others phone numbers and they routinely make deals between themselves. Sometimes a unit could run through from RR "A" to RR "B" and then for whatever reason get sent to RR "C". As far as "A" is concerned, the unit is still on the railroad they sent it o ("B"). "C" may give it back directly to "A", so a few calls are made to transfer the HPH credits on the unit and it\'s all over. It is a big job itself, never mind that these guys are making sure everything is in the right place when needed so trains aren\'t held for power in one place while another location has excess, hence light engine moves (especially west to east on UP for example where you can see 20 units or more flying across Nebraska).

HPH is simple broken down, as long as very very large numbers don\'t bother you. I would think the more complicated issue would be keeping track of supplies on board the units. Fuel/oil/radios etc.

There\'s also the issue of standardized power for exchange hours. For a long while, the standard for exchange was an SD40-2, now it\'s an SD60. Easy to service, the other guy will know where the fuel cap is, etc. Other power is negotiated, deal by deal.

If you have a pair of Baldwins and an Alco 636, don\'t expect Union Pacific will accept them in exchange for your use of their SD60. Guilford tried that back in the 1990s, trying to send SD26 and GP35m units to Conrail in exchange for very modern power. Didn\'t work...