As I was driving home from Greenville, Tx this morning, I saw a locomotive on the Blackland RR from the Arizona & California doing switching. My question how do short lines get locomotives transferred to them? Do they pay freight charges or does the locomotive work its way as part of the locomotive consist? I’m sure neither BNSF or UP gave it a free ride.
Roger
Post Oak & Otter Lake GRR
Caddo MIlls, TX
They pay. I’ve seen them in tow as dead weight. I’ve also seen locos on flats.
Ralph
that depends on how the shortlineloco can work.
It needs a very fine shortlinedispatcher to find work on the mainline for bringing a loco …say…to a service-station.
But sometimes it works.
When the loco can run by itself, it will be tried to find a time in the timetable to go by its own. Then u have to pay just for the track and service.
When its defected, it will be handled like a goods-car.
That often is the most expensive alternative. But it depends: getting a track and service for hundreds of miles, needing a driver and “burning-stuff” can be more expensive than “hang on” to a train.
Frank
Here in the UK, where there is not a great volume of freight trains anymore, the Heritage lines which have visiting locos frequently have they brought in by ROAD as it is often far too expensive to get the RAILWAY system to move then.
They get them to locations on those heavy strips of steel called “rails”. 
Although I have seen one on a heavy flat car and one on a semi low-boy.
Depending on the type of loco, some will be loaded to flats but most are put in trains dead in tow and transported to the buying short line. They are liable for all fees related to the loco while in transit. Later RJD
Basically the engines are handled in an interchange move just like a regular frt car other than the engine must be set for tow The shortline would hand their eng off to whatever other railroad they have direct interchange with and that rr would either deliver it to the shop/location it was billed to or hand it off via interchange to a third rr depending on the final destination of the loco. It would return the same way. Most shortlines do have the necessary shops to do certain work needed on the eng so they “ship it out” for the work to be done by another party.
In Germany they will be towed like a freight car but some very few times they´re allowed to run on the tracks on their own power ! It´s when the timetable allows that and the preservation railway has to pay alot of money to get the permission to run under their own power to our preservation Railway track ! Steam at the “Küstenbahn Ostfriesland”, translated East friesian Coastline, is a rare sight. Last time it was a german Class 78 towing the train at the from Norden Central station to Dornum and I was on the train too and enjoyed the ten mile trip .