Western Railroad Discussion > UP pool power through Iowa

I know railroads often pay back HP hours and such but what is up with the UP? seems like every major RR has there loco's trailing on UP trains. for the past few weeks on the E/W main here in iowa i have seen, BNSF,NS,CSX,IC/CN, and some old WC SD45's. I saw 2 of them on a wb freight today.

anybody know whats going on?

I live on the Roseville sub route (Old SP overland route) and I've got Canadian Pacific, Canadian National, CSX, Grand Trunk, Norfolk Southern, Kansas City Southern, Illinois Central, and Conrail on my roster list of engines I've seen go by.

Then the bought up roads like SP, CNW, DRGW, etc, and of course BNSF and amtrak have trackage rights so I don't count them as foreign power.

Also I don't count the EMD and HLCX leases.

UP is common power in Indiana and Ohio. I've also observed quite a bit of it in Tennessee (Scherer coal trains) and Mississippi. The eastern roads have to pay back the hours.

BobE

CR, CSX, NS, IC, GTW, CN, SP, CNW, DRGW, BN, and WC units! Sounds like the good old days of the 90's are back.

MAN!

I must have BAD luck. I live on the Geneva Sub in IL and apparently I miss all the good trains. Seems all I catch are coal and hopper trains. Are the "foreign" units on manifest/drag freights?

L.G.

The UP has actually purchased all of these other roads. They have managed to keep it quiet so the railfans do not steal the logos and place them on model RR equipment. Pass it on!!!

Perhaps. Practically every time I visit the Geneva Sub, even if just briefly, I see something. Almost always NS or CSX though, and more heavily NS. Saw a new Horsehead SD70M heading EB on a manifest in Sterling this past Friday.

I've seen them on manifests, intermodal, auto, and even some NS units on an empty coal train once.

They are out there, and I guess for some reason I've just been getting lucky.

Tom



rrnut_99 wrote:

> MAN!
>
> I must have BAD luck. I live on the Geneva Sub in IL and
> apparently I miss all the good trains. Seems all I catch are
> coal and hopper trains. Are the "foreign" units on
> manifest/drag freights?
>
> L.G.
>
> [%sig%]

We have been seeing a lot of CSX, NS and WC units on the manifests from St. Paul and Itasca, and from Des Moines and KC. Some like the WC's are payback hours from CN.

They tend to migrate all over the system. Some units like those on the St. Paul - KC auto trains ( AHAKS ) are only to be used on the auto train and returned via reverse route. If UP takes them off of the subdivision they are intended for, they get penalized by CP.

Ken