Number 90 posted:I have never heard of any trackage rights agreement that restricted certain kinds of equipment, e.g. steam locomotives. The bill to the tennant is normally based on wheel count, or gross tonnage, and the owner railroad does not micromanage the tennant's trains. The tennant road's trains get the same treatment as the owner road's in regard to complying with bridge and clearance requirements.
Now, in the case of steam, the owner railroad has to provide extra services -- security, defect detector management, extra dispatching measures, etc. and those are going to be on the bill that month, probably somewhat generous to the owner road.
A steam locomotive traveling over the railroad requires a number of Signal Maintainers to be away from their normal work, in order to manage the defect detectors, which are typically affected by the firebox heat. Then there will be catch-up, which is limited because of Signal Maintainer hours of service laws.
Thank you. I knew I'd get an answer on this forum.
