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I've have a few questions on Conrail.

1. Why don't they own any of their own engines? Wouldn't be easier to have your own than to borrow from CSX and NS? Or do they own some in New Jersey? just not in Detroit?

2. Are they forbidden to expand by the agreement they have with CSX and NS? I guess what I'm looking at here is why NS or CSX couldn't shed their unused/excess trackage to them? Such as NS leasing selling the line that went to the now JAIL instead to Conrail?

Just wondering/interested... Sorry if this has been gone over before..

Part of the reason why is that NS/CSX still own the Conrail Shared Assetts operations, they just operate under Conrail's name on paper is all. Shared Assets gets its power from CSX and NS, and payroll comes from NS/CSX as well IIRC. They just couldn't untangle the lines in Detroit without making a giant mess, thus why they retained the Conrail name on paper for the lines in the Detroit area(same goes for the Shared Assets out east as well). Conrail basically exists as a terminal switching subsidiary of NS/CSX and does not really have any autonomy anymore. Hope this helps.

That about sums it up didn't know it was that much of a shell as a company.

There are several "Shared Assets" areas, I believe there's another one in NYC/NJ. It's more than paper... they actually revived the old railroad names "New York Central" and "Pennsylvania" for use in those areas. I believe NYC denotes CSX, and PRR denotes NS.

In several places, CSX has a real, honest-to-golly original New York Central transfer caboose, in peeling blue Conrail paint, and the reporting mark is NYC. If you ask me, it's begging for a proper paint job (Jade Green)... it'd be like 1961.

Robert MacDowell wrote:they actually revived the old railroad names "New York Central" and "Pennsylvania" for use in those areas. I believe NYC denotes CSX, and PRR denotes NS.

It was for the whole deal, not just out east. In the whole un-merger, when the equipment was split up. NYC went to CSX for freight cars, that used to belong to CR. In locos they just patched them CSXT. For NS freight cars stayed what ever CR or ex-CR reporting marks were used on the cars, (NS has rights to all the old CR reporting marks). For locomotives they receved a PRR stencal below the cab number.

It also worked out that CSX recieved most of the ex NYC lines while NS got the PRR, excluding some of the ex NYC Chicago Line and most of the Michigan NYC/MC lines. While the NYC reporting marks are still seen on a lot of CSX ex CR freight cars, NS equipment with PRR reporting marks is virtually non existant anymore. I think almost all of NS's ex CR locomotives carry NS reporting marks now.