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CP trackage rights over CSX Michigan and Ohio

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2020 12:39 pm
by chapmaja
On one of the Facebook groups I am on there is a photo of a CP train running from Detroit to Chicago via the PM south of Detroit and the B&O across Ohio and Indiana. I was not aware they hard rights to run trains this way as well. When did the rights across Ohio start and when did those rights end (was it the same time they started running via the Wabash line to Butler, In then west?)

Re: CP trackage rights over CSX Michigan and Ohio

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2020 1:00 pm
by SD80MAC
Briefly in the early 90s, the SOO/CP trains went via Ohio and Indiana instead of via Grand Rapids on the PM. It didn't last very long (also took 3 crews vs. 2, IIRC) and they were moved back to the PM.

Re: CP trackage rights over CSX Michigan and Ohio

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 1:53 am
by barnstormer
There weren't any trackage rights, but haulage rights existed on the PM, via Grand Rapids. This is evident, due to the fact that CSX crews being used to move the trains between Detroit and Chicago, not CP's crews. When CP approached CSX about running their trains on the PM (due to a bridge being out on their Upper Peninsula route), it was discovered how much run-time and crews were saved on this new route. CP struck up a conversation with CSX about setting up a haulage agreement that would eventually save them millions per year.

Trackage rights are usually awarded as a balancing tool for carriers when routes change hands, or mergers/acquisitions occur, and there's a need to allow another carrier to utilize that route that's been affected by those transactions. This is done so that competition is maintained, and relatively equal for shippers.

As for the B&O side, I don't know how the trains ended up there, but maybe we'll see more....one way or the other! :)

-barny

Re: CP trackage rights over CSX Michigan and Ohio

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:27 am
by DaveO
Semantics probably, but the Soo Line had overhead trackage rights over CSX from Rougemere to Chicago.
Per STB Decision Notice of Exemption AB_57_59_X dated 6/30/2010 granting CP/Soo regarding discontinuance of those overhead trackage rights.
This being different from haulage rights.

Re: CP trackage rights over CSX Michigan and Ohio

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 1:17 pm
by MRC_Andrew
About the timing of the B&O routing...

I can remember seeing, and with some frequency, trains with Soo and/or CP power and cabooses operating south of Plymouth at least as early as 1986. I was often stopped (on multiple occasions) by northbound trains of such description while driving to high school around 7:30 in the morning, in fact. Yet everything I've read seems to indicate this arrangement began in the early '90s. So what was I seeing? Test runs? Some kind of detour? Furthermore, I would occasionally see similar trains south of Plymouth well into the late 90s, well after Soo/CP trains became common on the east-west line thru Plymouth. So it seems, at least from my observation, that at least some trains remained on the Ohio-Indiana routing via the B&O. I know I can't be the only one who saw these!

Re: CP trackage rights over CSX Michigan and Ohio

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 4:41 pm
by DLM
Late 80's and/or early 90's. Frequency was 2 to 3 trains per day in each direction. They had a wide variety of SOO or CP locomotives. Most has a CP caboose. Seems to me it lasted for several years.

Re: CP trackage rights over CSX Michigan and Ohio

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 9:14 pm
by JoJames
May 1 1986 was the first of the Ohio routing. Michigan routing began a few years prior. Around 1990 was the end of the Ohio routing other than August 1994 when a Indian blockade saw several CP trains use the Ohio routing. Trackwork in the nineties would also see them operate via Ohio instead of Michigan. Trains would operate via Deshler most of the time.