In all of the advertisements for the 2009 Cass Railfan Weekend, they said that diesels would be operated on Cass Hill for the first time. I assume this was the Western Maryland painted diesels from the DGV operating from Spruce down to Whittaker. Did this happen? I can't find any pictures on the web. Just curious.

Matt

Due to concerns by some people who really didnt know all the facts it was determined that it needed to be canceled. The diesels did team up with WM Shay 6 and several hopper cars for runbys at Spruce.

My very first railfan weekend down there was like 1977 - and they ran a triple-header up to Spruce with Shays. The three locos were communicating primarily with whistle signals, and of course Cass works handbrakes in preference to air.

At Whittaker, we did an offload and stop, reboarded after about 30 minutes with all three locos on the downhill side on the steep part of the grade. LONG train, fully loaded The crews were apparently unnaccustomed to triple-headers, because when the first two locos whistled off the brakes (they were ready) they all released the handbrakes. We started downhill. But there were three, not two, locomotives.

Loco #3 (not sure which one) was NOT ready, and franticly started whistling brakes back on. The other two whistled in agreement, and the handbrake crew leaned back into it. It was a wet-railed May morning, and you could hear the grinding of sliding wheels. It wouldn't stop. We were very slowly sliding downhill from Whittaker with wheels locked. They started to apply sand, that finally did it, but we probably slid about 3 carlengths before things got completely stopped again. Unlike the 'general public' this group knew exactly what happened, and the 'whooooaaaaa' could be heard throughout the train.

You have to really respect that hill. I can think of 30 good reasons not to do that, this may just be one.

My family operates a 2 foot gage private railway. Our loop is pretty steep 3% most places and a section of 4.75% (I guess that's level when compared to Cass). Anyway, we've learned the hard way, that once you start sliding there ain't no stopping. You HAVE to let off the brakes and let the wheels start rolling again, then begin braking again. That is very hard to train yourself to do. In an emergency, most people instinctively want to put more brakes on.

Randy,

If you could quantify the total combined "pucker factor" on your 1977 trainload of passengers as the train started sliding downgrade, I'm sure it would be a staggering number!

Rob Gardner

Did anybody jump?

No, it happened very slowly. It wasn't picking up speed, it just wouldn't stop, either!

And with all those open cars, you could see everything, the crews, the sand, and the looks on the faces of everyone.

I've always been fascinated by what I call the "Cass Hang", the brakeperson on every two cars, leaning WAY out over the side, watching the wheels turn, carefully winding up the handbrakes and setting them just right so that they brake maximum pressure without sliding the wheels..and a paint spot on every wheel so you know they are turning, not sliding. I've never seen anything like it anyplace else. Anytime I'm doing a feasibility study with a steep grade you ask the group..."have you ever seen Cass?" just to make sure they fully appreciate what it takes to handle a steep hill safely. Handbrakes and a whole lot of people to trim them seems to work very well.

Here's a link to the photo: http://gustafson.home.westpa.net/Cass%20Hang.jpg

Four brakemen in that shot, intently watching the wheels on the downhill trip to make sure they don't slide them.

It would not be historically correct, but has Cass ever considered the Orinocco brakes, as used on Erie Mining and DMIR? It would provide a straight air system over the normal automatic.

Considering the scenarios described, hand braking is the only way to extract the last bit of braking effort.

While not the steep grade at Cass, I have been engineer on a 3.5% grade operating an ALCO S-2 with cars similar to the Cass cars and caboose. I have, on a rainy day, gone about a mile with all wheels sliding at 15mph before being able to get things "turning" again. It's not a happy feeling.

I don't know the situation about the diesels, and won't comment.

Mark

There's another operation I visited, that shall remain nameless. A small steamer pulling no more than 2-3 Lackawanna-MU types up a relatively steep 3-percent or so grade. This is many years ago.

She could get them up. Barely. But the real problem was coming down. There wasn't really enough braking force on that few cars to hold the locomotive as well going downhill. So they ended up putting Cobra brake shoes on the drivers (instead of cast iron) and relying heavily on the independent brake to descend (and reportedly leaning on the tender handbrake). They'd chewed up the drivers, just had them turned, and had just put on a second set of Cobra shoes when I got there.

The drivers weren't even work hardened yet, and at the end of the first trip they had sharp edgings and turnings coming off the tread. I went check the profile and ended up cutting my hand - Duh! Lesson #26 in Grades are Not Your Friend. They ended up closing at the end of the season after they chewed the drivers up twice in one year. To be fair that was just ONE of the problems.

The historic operating practices on grades like Saluda - where they deliberately added more cars to increase braking force - reflect this physics. Dynamic is great if you have it, or if you're moving fast enough without severe curves that it works properly.