# rare sighting



## amtrakwolverine (Aug 21, 2010)

Saw a rare sighting here in Michigan. 2 engines just went by on a norfolk southern line formally owned by conrail. One said KCS for Kansas City Southern the other TFM for Transportación Ferroviaria Mexicana . What are they doing in Michigan on a branch line that hauls cars and car parts to the factory's and plants?


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## Trogdor (Aug 21, 2010)

I saw the same thing in Galesburg a few days ago. The engines were heading west.


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## Guest (Aug 21, 2010)

amtrakwolverine said:


> Saw a rare sighting here in Michigan. 2 engines just went by on a norfolk southern line formally owned by conrail. One said KCS for Kansas City Southern the other TFM for Transportación Ferroviaria Mexicana . What are they doing in Michigan on a branch line that hauls cars and car parts to the factory's and plants?


Lots of cars and car parts are manufactured in Mexico and other foriegn countries, then shipped via rail from mexico to the Northern US plants to be assembled! We see lots of Mexican Rail cars and engines down here in Texas and occasion KCS engines also!UP tends to run alot of these, not sure about BNSF??


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## MrFSS (Aug 21, 2010)

Trogdor said:


> I saw the same thing in Galesburg a few days ago. The engines were heading west.


I saw a similar question on another general rail forum, why do we see so many engines from different railroads on the routes of their competitors and even two or more railroad engines lashed together pulling a train.

The simple answer was, they pool them. When a train of freight cars needs to get across the country, they simply let the host railroads where they started out take it all the way. They change engineers from railroad to railroad, but that's how they get engines all mixed up with each other.

I guess some are even coming up from Mexico. There is a lot of freight traffic between Mexico and the Kansas City Southern routes.


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## amtrakwolverine (Aug 21, 2010)

Even though the engines were by themselves a light engine move? This is a branch line not a main line. It's just local cars and parts going from one yard or plant to other maybe 10 miles apart. I have seen CSX and UP locos on this line allot. The train with a load will go by and a while later the engines from that load pass by my house by themselves to go get another load or pickup another engine.


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## chertling (Aug 21, 2010)

Not sure what they were doing in Michigan.... but KCS owns the railroad formerly known as TFM (now known as Kansas City Southern de Mexico... yes, they really were THAT un-original when picking a new name), so seeing the two engines together isn't unexpected.


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## rrdude (Aug 22, 2010)

chertling said:


> Not sure what they were doing in Michigan.... but KCS owns the railroad formerly known as TFM (now known as Kansas City Southern de Mexico... yes, they really were THAT un-original when picking a new name), so seeing the two engines together isn't unexpected.



Someone here, or maybe it was TRAINS magazine, also posted a pix of those two, in either the Carolina's or Virgina a few months back. Gee, that was "helpful"..........


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