Western Railroad Discussion > Outlying On Duty Points

Going off the State Corner Cut thread...

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3261441

If you went by outlying crew on duty locations I give you BNSF and UP in Paducah, Kentucky, and SP in Fort Madison, IA, and maybe the modern day NS island in Des Moines.

Anybody else have some interesting OD points where a railroad's crew takes charge of their own train on foreign rails miles and miles away from their own trackage, especially in a state or on a railroad that you might not imagine?

Pump

CP in Duluth or Superior, about 150 miles from any mainline trackage owned by them.

CP in Elkhart is also well away from any CP trackage; akin to SP in Fort Madison, it's strictly a trackage-rights crew base.

Some crew change points are in the middle of NO where. You have to have wondered why the railroad picked the location. For example, Crestline, Ohio was a crew change for PRR trains, but there is nothing in Crestline. Why not at Mansfield about 12 miles east?

All this allowed you the "freindly" confines of the RR YMCA at Crestline........

MEKoch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Some crew change points are in the middle of NO
> where. You have to have wondered why the railroad
> picked the location. For example, Crestline, Ohio
> was a crew change for PRR trains, but there is
> nothing in Crestline. Why not at Mansfield about
> 12 miles east?
>
> All this allowed you the "freindly" confines of
> the RR YMCA at Crestline........

Cheaper land perhaps, also more land available?

Not quite your offline crew change, but just after the MoPac was torn up between Osawatomie and Herington, KS, the crews that ran Herington west still went on duty at Council Grove, some 25 miles east of Herington and the closest railroad tracks. This arrangement didn't last very long.

>
> If you went by outlying crew on duty locations I
> give you BNSF and UP in Paducah, Kentucky, and SP
> in Fort Madison, IA, and maybe the modern day NS
> island in Des Moines.
>
> Anybody else have some interesting OD points where
> a railroad's crew takes charge of their own train
> on foreign rails miles and miles away from their
> own trackage,


Paducah, KY, is NOT an off-line location for BNSF. Paducah is at the end of a BNSF line from Galesburg, IL, south through Beardstown, IL, to Metropolis, IL. BNSF then enters Paducah via the Paducah & Illinois Railroad bridge over the Ohio River at Metropolis, and then P&I's line into Paducah. The P&I is owned one-third by BNSF, CN, and the Paducah & Louisville Railway.

Cliff Downey