@RideTheRails posted:I read/head somewhere, recently, about diesel locomotives being used by other railroads other than those that bought or leased them.
It happens every day!
The railroads have whole departments devoted to nothing but tracking the "Horsepower Hours" used on their locomotives when they are used on other railroads. Use a 4,000 HP locomotive for an hour and you've racked up 4,000 horsepower hours.
The railroads trade Horsepower Hours with each other. If a railroad builds up a sizable "debt" of Horsepower Hours to another railroad, money changes hands to bring things back into balance.
This is why you might see Union Pacific locomotives on CSX in Florida, for example. Or NS power on BNSF in Oregon. Instead of stopping for a couple of hours to change power at interchange points, the power is kept on the train and the train keeps moving. It is less costly to do that and keep records of the Horsepower Hours than it is to constantly delay trains for power swaps at interchange points.
