Nostalgia & History > pooling power in the good 'ol days

Was looking in some older material that I filed as "pools". Some were really pools and some
just temp leases, such as in the northeast when BAR leased out some of their power in the
slow times of the year. I wondered how far back pools began. My oldest slide is 1966, with
an RF&P E on an ACL train in Lakeland, FL. I'm sure pooling went back further, but as far
as the '50's? SP and RI E's were pooled on the Golden State at least in the early 60's, but
when did they start. I know the UP and CNW had E"s that went through quite awhile ago.
Before all those flags fell there was so much more pooling possible. Often this practice
led up to mergers between the participants.

Here are some older shots from my collection.
RF&P-ACL Lakeland,FL 10-1-67

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C&EI - L&N 4-14-66

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RI-SP 3-27-67 K.C.

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RI-SP-EL 6-68 Twin Cities area.

Keith A

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Fantastic Photos.

Thanks for sharing.

Ax

Absolutely Keith...great shots...thanks for sharing a part of history most of us have never seen.

Mike
Henderson, NV

Utterly Fantastic photos. Thanks for sharing.

I think the beginnings of "pool power" started right with the dieselized City of Sab Francisco back in the late 30's/early 40s. However, some may say that shared ownership of common power for a single train doesn't count. I'm sure that others may cite better/other examples.


Best Regards,
Harry

I agree....GREAT CLEAR pics! Sure beats hell out of the butt ugly BNSF Trash-9s! PLEASE post more when you can!

Interesting shot of the Golden State.

John Sita

Beautiful. Those pics were shot on Kodachrome II, I'll bet.

Man, I remember when it was SO rare to see foreign power in the late sixties and early seventies. I used to go to Port Jervis, NY just to shoot the BN SD45's on EL NE74, which usually picked up a set of Penn Central U25C's at Port for the trip to Cedar Hill (New Haven, CT). Ironically, years later, the Susquehanna routinely ran its ex-BN SD45's over the same route.

Other "exotic" stuff back then was run-through N&W power into Newark on the LV Apollo, and the very occasional B&M GP9 showing up at Weehawken, NJ on the West Shore, having gone astray from its usual Mechanicville-Rotterdam Jct (and thence where, Syracuse?) route. A Cotton Belt GP40 would often show up on PC trains from Selkirk, originating in St. Louis, I think.

I grew up in Weehawken, and pool power was common there on the coal trains that came off the CNJ, which would have B&O "sunburst" GP30's pretty often. Once one of those trains had a C&O and a Reading GP35 in consist, quite a big deal to me back then. Coal trains also came off the LV, but they always had Valley power, either A-B-B-B-A F units, four GP9/18/RS11's, three C420's or two C628's. The trains would be dropped either in the Weehawken yard or they might go through the tunnel to North Bergen, where the foreign power came off and went back caboose light. NYC power then moved the coal to the Public Service power plant in Ridgefield, NJ or to cement plants up along the Hudson.

These days it's not too surprising to see any power on any railroad at any time, on the big roads, at least. But once upon a time, it was a big deal!

Walt

The Champion, I presume.

John Sita

Yep, Kodachrome II, and I do believe it was the Champion. My shots were lots better after
I got a Nikon in 68 or 69. The Konica lens was only fair.

Keith A