Overton (Burlington Route, 1965; see especially Chapters 8-11) has an
interesting discussion of such alliances and antagonisms, which date from
early in the company's history. Understandably, some of these relations
shifted over time, but given the geographically fixed nature of a RR's
physical plant, others were remarkably stable. CB&Q had an alliance of
sorts with the Rock Island, for instance, dating back to the 1870s, and a
bitter rivalry with the Union Pacific almost as old.
But business is business, and railroads cooperated with and accommodated
even their worst enemies when the need arose. This was especially true
during times of natural disaster; there were even special "emergency rates"
that companies had for handling each other's equipment over their own lines
when their rival's were closed by floods, snow, landslides, etc. It
behooved them to play fair and be compassionate under such circumstances,
for next year the tables might be turned.
Ed Haley relates a wonderful story (Poor: Denver South Park and Pacific, p.
371) about how a couple of Colorado & Southern engine crews, finding
themselves stranded in Gunnison after their own Alpine Tunnel line had been
shut for the winter, got permission to take their locomotives home over the
rival Rio Grande's Marshall Pass (which was itself 10,000' and also
completely snowed in at the time). The two C&S engines managed to get back
to their division point at Como AND open their rival's line for them in the
process; indeed, they passed 16 dead or stranded D&RG locomotives and a
wedge plow on the way, all of which had gotten stuck trying to open the
pass!
Jonathan Harris
From: Paul/Celine Kossart <kozys@t...>
Date: Wed Aug 8, 2001 3:16 am
Subject: Interchange Adversaries
Below is part of a thread appearing on another Yahoo! Groups list
concerning amount of home road cars vs. other road cars on a railroad. The
statement below refers to the Pennsy RR and I wondered if there was a
similar attitude on the CB&Q and, if so, towards whom - or not.
Thanks,
forwarded thread follows ............
There ARE other rules to follow, though. Most roads had "friendly
interchange partners" and "adversaries". Many roads paralleled each other.
And many types of shipments tended to be more "local" in nature...
especially in the classic era. An example of these restrictions would be
the fact that B&O and NYC cars were relatively rare on the Pennsy... they
served many of the same geographic areas, and they tended to be hostile to
one another. Even if the B&O originated a car for a customer on a Pennsy
line, you can be sure that the B&O would route it in such a way that it
spent as little time as possible on the PRR.
Paul Kossart - Peru, Illinois, USA BRHS, TP&WHS, La Salle & Bureau County
Model Railroad Club Modeling the fictional CB&Q Illiniwek River Branch in
HO in the 1960's.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Serving
Agriculture and Industry in the Illiniwek River Valley since 1904."
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