Lets say I’m the last survivor of a worldwide plague and, being bored, I decide I want to drive a locomotive all around the US. Ignoring pesky details like getting fuel and controlling rail switches, would this even be possible?
Are most companies rail lines connected to others, i.e. like the Interstate Highways? Or would I at some point have to walk to another company’s train and rail line (dodging pesky plague mutants the whole way)?
Most major railways have interties between them. There are numerous exceptions, and several small private lines (some of which can stretch for scores of miles), and you may have to backtrack in a few places, but according to the enormous map of the US rail system on my office wall, yes, you can travel quite a ways around the US.
yes. In my old job, on one trip alone, we’d have to go from norfolk southern to CSX, to Conrail, to septa, back to conrail and then over amtrak.
Is that sort of map commercially available? That sounds awesome to have.
Are you planning a trip by handcart? 
The national RR X’ing database. Includes all sorts of information - DOT/AAR crossing numbers, mileposts, crossing lat/long, accident reports, average daily train count, speed limits, etc.
They are, there are a variety of them, in fact. Mine is from RDI, laminated, and about 3 by 4 feet, and includes all rail-access coal power plants and mines. IIRC it cost about $200, and I think that is a representative price.
They’re interconnected, but they’re different companies–or at least that’s what it says on the sides of the cars. I don’t know how they workout the scheduling priorities.
What a great site! Thanks!
My husband’s job involves the billing process for what is probably the very largest American railroad. Fees are billed and paid according to who the customer is, who is using the car, what is in it, and how many miles of whose track it travels on to get to its destination. The one thing I have picked up is that this is a very, very complicated process and calculating the charges can be a real bear.
As I understand it, each railroad ‘technically’ owns certain cars but as a practical matter (so cars don’t travel empty) they are used by multiple railroads out of a pool and transferred according to where they are needed. Engines, however, are not loaned or pooled. If you see an engine that says Union Pacific on it, that’s almost certainly a UP train on UP track, no matter what the cars say.
I’m not an expert on any of this by any means, so I do defer in advance to those with more practical knowledge.
I will disagree with this assertion. Locomotives are indeed loaned, and these loans are either paid back in cash or like-horsepower for like-hours of service.
Working for Norfolk Southern, I regularly used UP or BNSF engines. Conrail, which is now known as shared assets, uses both NS engines and CSX engines. I imagine both NS, and CSX use old Conrail engines (we did). It’s common to see three engines in a row, all with different railroads stenciled on them. I remember once riding in a mexican engine, which was quite nice. It had a really nice reclining seat and a coffee maker on board.
I have no idea who actually owned the engines we were using, (besides the NS ones). If I recall, the UP had the most powerful engines.
Thanks. That has some information that I was looking for a few weeks ago.
There are a few non-interconnected lines, but those are used mostly for specialized cargo or a tourist train.
*Heritage railways are usually railway lines which were once run as commercial railways, but were later no longer needed or were closed down, and were taken over or re-opened by volunteers or for-profit organizations. Many run on partial routes unconnected to the commercial railway network, run only seasonally, and charge high “entertainment” fares. As a result they are primarily focused on serving the tourist and leisure markets, not local transportation needs. However in the 1990s and 2000s some heritage railways have begun to provide local transportation and to extend their running seasons to cater for commercial passenger traffic.
Typically a heritage railway will use steam locomotives and original rolling stock to create a “period atmosphere”, although some are now concentrating on more recent “modern image” diesel and electric traction to re-create the post-steam railway era.*