Joint railway

A joint railway is a railway operating under the control of more than one railway company: those companies very often supplying the traction over the railway.

United Kingdom

There are many examples of joint railway working in the United Kingdom: the more important ones included:
* Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway (M&GN): joint working by Midland Railway and Great Northern Railway (MR/GNR), and latterly London and North Eastern Railway and London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LNER/LMS). This was the UK's biggest joint railway system at 183 miles (295km) and operated with its own locomotives and rolling stock. The system stretched mainly East-West, from Yarmouth via South Lynn to Bourne and Peterborough and thence, via the parent companies' systems, to Leicester and the Midlands or to London King's Cross. A North-South route ran from Norwich (City terminus) to Cromer. The two routes crossed at Melton Constable, the joint railway's main engineering centre.
* Norfolk and Suffolk Joint Railway (N&S): in the strange position of having as one of its two parents another joint railway, the Midland and Great Northern (the other was the Great Eastern Railway). There were two stretches of line: the most important ran along the East Anglian coast from Lowestoft to Yarmouth, while a much shorter stretch ran from Cromer to Mundesley on the North Norfolk coast.
* Isle of Axholme Joint Railway : joint working by North Eastern and Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways (NER/LYR) 27.5 miles (44km)
* Cheshire Lines Committee: Great Northern, Great Central and Midland Railways (GNR/GCR/MidR) 140 miles (224km) operated with its own rolling stock.
* Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Railway, from Huntingdon and Spalding to Doncaster, with a branch to Ramsey: operated jointly by the Great Northern and Great Eastern Railways (GNR/GER) 123 miles (197km)
* East London Railway: run by a committee of the Great Eastern, London, Brighton and South Coast, South Eastern and Chatham, Metropolitan and District Railways (GER/LBSCR/SE&CR/MetR/District) 7 miles (11km)
* Metropolitan and Great Central Joint Committee: operated by the Metropolitan and Great Central Railways (MetR/GCR)
* Manchester South Junction and Altrincham Railway: LNWR/GCR 9 miles (14km) electrified in 1931
* Portpatrick and Wigtownshire Joint Railway: owned by the Caledonian, Glasgow and South Western, London and North Western and Midland Railways (CR/G&SWR/LNWR/MR) 82 miles (131km) [http://www.leverton.org/tunnels/ppwig]
* Preston and Wyre Joint Railway: L&YR/LNWR before amalgamation in 1922 45 miles (72km)
* Great Western and Great Central Railways Joint Committee: operated by the Great Western and Great Central Railways (GWR/GCR) 41 miles (66km)
* Severn and Wye Joint Railway: Great Western Railway (GWR)/MidR 39 miles (62km)
* Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway: operated by the Great Western and London and North Western Railways (GWR/LNWR) 56 miles (90km)
*Shrewsbury and Wellington Railway: operated by the Great Western and London and North Western Railways (GWR/LNWR) 10.5 miles (17 km)
* Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway: London and South Western Railway (LSWR) and Midland Railway 101 miles (162km) operated with its own locomotives and rolling stock.
* South Yorkshire Joint Railway: GCR/GNR/L&YR/MidR/NER 20 miles (32km)
* Furness and Midland Joint Railway: 9½ miles (15km) [http://home.clara.net/gw0hqd/fandm/fandm.htm]
* Metropolitan and Metropolitan District Joint Committee, Mansion House to Aldgate on the Circle Line: MetR/District 1 mile (1.5km)
* Forth Bridge Railway; owned by the North British, Great Northern, North Eastern and Midland Railways (GNR/MR/NBR/NER) 2765yds (2528m)
* County Donegal Railways Joint Committee: owned by the Northern Counties Committee and Great Northern Railway (Ireland) (MidR(NCC)/GNR(I)) and operating over 111 miles (178 km) of RailGauge|36 narrow gauge track in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland with its own locomotives and rolling stock.

United States

:"Main article: Terminal railroad"

"Joint railways" are called terminal railroads in the United States. Most true example of joint railways are in terminal areas, including union stations. Terminal railways are often co-owned by the railroads that connect with them. Among the more prominent joint operations:

*Belt Railway of Chicago (BRC), the largest terminal switching railroad in the U.S. and co-owned by all of the "Big Six" of American Class I railroads: Union Pacific Railroad, CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern Railway, BNSF Railway, Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway.
*Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis (TRRA), which extensive operations in East St. Louis, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri, and co-owned by all of the Big Six except for Canadian Pacific.
*Conrail Shared Assets Operations (CSAO), the last corporate remnant of Conrail, which itself was formed from the remains of several bankrupt railroads in 1976; that company was split between CSX and Norfolk Southern, which then formed CSAO in northern New Jersey, greater Philadephia, Pennsylvania and greater Detroit, Michigan. Unlike the BRC and TRRA, CSAO uses crews and locomotives from its two parent companies, and does not maintain roling stock under its own name, though the former Conrail paint scheme is still seen on numerous locomotives and freight cars that CSX and NS inherited in the split.
*The Powder River basin joint line, co-owned by BNSF and Union Pacific to serve the area's numerous coal mines.

The concept of trackage rights is more common in the Unites States than joint railways. In this arrangement, one railroad owns the track and operates its own trains over that line, but also permits trains from another railroad to use the line. The owner railroad normally charges a fee, but sometimes there is no charge because the arrangement results from a merger or sale of a line. For instance, when the Louisville and Nashville Railroad acquired the Monon Railroad, a condition of the sale imposed by government regulators was a trackage rights arrangement over the southern part of the Monon for the Milwaukee Road, an agreement that was handed down to successive owners of the Milwaukee Road and finally the Indiana Rail Road.

Variations on trackage rights include "direction running" agreements between two railroads with parallel lines through an area, usually done to facilitate greater traffic volume. For instance, CSX and NS have a directional-running agreement involving their lines between downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and nearby Hamilton, where northbound trains generally use NS trackage and southbound trains (with the exception of Amtrak's "Cardinal") use CSX tracks. North of Hamilton, NS trains use CSX tracks on a traditional trackage-rights agreement for a two mile (3 km) section.

Bibliography

* ISBN 0-7110-0024-7

ee also

*List of early British railway companies
*List of railway companies involved in the 1923 grouping
*Joint station (UK), Union station (USA)