MP15AC of SOO/CP

[faraway]

Why are some SOO MP15AC repainted and relabeled to CP engines but stay in the US and it looks like they do the same duty as before in the SOO colors?
I traced how the MILW MP15AC became SOO engines and got repainted or patched in Chicago. But some time after 2000 the very same engines are found on photos as pure CP engines doing the same job in Chicago. However, there are still (the most?) SOO MP15ACs around (SOO painted white/red or bandits).

I know MILW has been absorbed by SOO and SOO became a wholly owned subsidiary of CP. I think I understood also that under US law a RR operating in the US must be a US company. It (e.g. SOO) might be owned by a foreign company (e.g. CP).

They might be sold and leased back. Transferring the asset to Canada but keep the (leasing) cost in the SOO books. That might be a tax advantage for SOO by lowering the tax relevant earnings. However the CP books will have more assets with negative impact on some key measurements.

Are there pure financial or taxation reasons in the background or did the real operation change when former SOO switchers became CP switchers?

[railohio]

Because CP is slowly migrating all of its properties to one unified corporate image. Locomotives are used interchangeably by all of its subsidiaries, regardless of paint.

[faraway]

Because CP is slowly migrating all of its properties to one unified corporate image. Locomotives are used interchangeably by all of its subsidiaries, regardless of paint.

You say they are "repainted" but they are still US engines in the books of SOO? Shouldn't they have some where a small "SOO" owner sign beside the corporate identity "CP" lettering?

[jwb]

I'm not normally in CP parts of the country, so I can't speak to this firsthand, but I believe at minimum the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of the mid-1990s changed customs requirements that US and Canadian locos be kept separate at the border. Videos from at least the 1990s, when CP took over the D&H, show full Canadian CP SD40-2s on Conrail, D&H, and Guilford, along with Soo lettered units. As a result of NAFTA, EMD was able to do all its manufacturing in Canada, and GE could sell US-built locos to Canadian railroads. However, even in the 1960s, you could see CN FP units running through from the border on GTW trains to Chicago on video. Canadian National CLC built C-Liners also ran on the Central Vermont in the 1950s, so this is not a cut-and-dried situation.

Whether a loco is sublettered often depends on internal accounting and lease requirements, too. The Pennsylvania Railroad after 1920 lettered all its steam locos "Pennsylvania" on the tenders, but there was lettering on the cab rear, not normally visible from outside, that showed subsidiary ownership from 19th-century properties like PCC&StL or PFW&C. The CP normally didn't subletter equipment, and some CP locos did run as a matter of course in the US, especially on the line from Quebec down to Wells River, VT. I saw CP RS-2s, FAs, RS-11s, and FP7s in the US in the 1960s when I was misspending my youth in that area. Even more CP locos ran freely over the CP main line shortcut to Nova Scotia that went through northern Maine. Some of our very sharp Canadian members may be able to add clarification here.