UP trackage rights on BNSF

John Poshepny posted
Westbound SPCSL train in the mid-90's (I THINK 94) rolling thru Downers Grove. Taken by my Dad and shared with permission.
Lawrence Owen That's an interesting lash up even for the BN era on the triple track.
A Cotton Belt, Rio Grande, Conrail, and maybe a Southern Pacific.
Dennis DeBruler I assume UP has trackage rights on the Racetrack because SP had them. In what city did the SP run-throughs enter CB&Q territory?
John Poshepny KC. It was a KC-Brookfield-West Quincy-Galesburg-Aurora-Cicero.

See also SP and SSW locomotives on the Racetrack.

I was not aware of a CB&Q route through Brookfield, so I looked it up. CB&Q did have a rather direct route between Kansas City and Chicago. I'm still trying to figure out how SP got to Kansas City. I think I've read that MoPac first got the trackage rights, and SP got the rights when they bought MoPac. but I can't confirm that memory. Of note is that CB&Q has not yet built their branch to the Ohio River in 1902.

1902 via Dennis DeBruler

This was the CB&Q route that used the southern branch out of Galesburg to Quincy. Later, UP used these trackage rights on the Racetrack to haul container trains to its Canalport Yard. But they could run those trains only at night so that they would not interfere with BNSF's commuter, Amtrak, and freight traffic. Thus you will not see any railfan pictures of that action. Since UP has now bought C&NW, I doubt if they use these rights anymore.

Mark Hinsdale posted
Mark Hinsdale  I do not know about the one time SP rights over the Racetrack (Chicago SD) but UP still exercises its former SP rights over the Transcon (Chillicothe SD) [Santa Fe] from Kansas City to Chicago. I'm not aware that they operate east of Global Four at Joliet anymore, because of some strict on-off language in what SP was afforded, but they likely retain those rights. The rights were originally constructed to afford SP access via the Santa Fe into the IMX Facility west of Bridgeport, that had long been abandoned and redeveloped. BNSF is resolute about the interpretation of those rights allowing access to IMX only, making UP movements over the Chillicothe SD east of Joliet useless, for the most part.