Hi,

It is claimed in Wikipedia that the only railroad grade where it is faster going up than down is Saluda Grade.

Apparently when Southern Railway placed automatic signals on Saluda, the two runaway tracks were changed to one. The signals and the runaway track was set up so that any train coming down the grade traveling under 8 MPH would trigger the powered switch for the runaway track to reset for the mainline down grade.

1) anyone know of any other runaway train tracks?

2) anyone know of any other places where uphill travel is faster than downhill?

Thanks.

Doug vV

I think this is true in a lot of places, if you are willing to tack enough power on the head of the train.

How about the hill in Duluth/Proctor?

On the old Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway at Cowan, Tennessee, there was a runaway track at the top of the descending grade at the south end of the Cumberland Mountain Tunnel. Per timetable instructions, all southbound trains were required to come to a complete stop short of the runaway track and remain stopped for a period of one minute. There are several accounts of trains ending up in the runaway track and at least one recorded incident of a J3 Dixie class locomotive going off the end of the track.

As was common, passenger trains and some freight trains had the helper coupled on the head end. Most freights had the pusher on the rear. From about 1905 to 1945, the NC used 2-8-8-2s. After the 2-8-8-2s were retired, the NC used doubleheaded 2-8-2s in pusher service (usually coupled at the tenders).

It should also be noted that this section of the main line was the first on the NC to be equipped with ABS signalling on account of the numerous sharp curves and cuts.

With enough horsepower/ton you can get up Smithfield Hill faster than you can go down. Downhill you have to be going slow enough to hit the Spoon River bridge at 10 mph or less (less is better). Going uphill, once your train clears the bridge, it is 20mph to just past the top of the hill. With enough power on the head end, it isn't hard to get up to 20 before you start bogging down in the 1.29% grade and curvature that kills your speed.

Talk about a great place to stand and listen as 16-567Cs and 16-567D2s (with 645 power assemblies and roots blowers in place of the turbos) roar in the high notches.

Edit: this is on the former Toledo, Peoria, & Western "west end" in Western Illinois. Smithfield Hill starts just east of the bridge over the Spoon River. It is a 1.29 percent (per the old track charts) climb from there to the top, which is just west of the town of Smithfield, Illinois.

The grade on Cumberland Mountain is 2.0 ascending for two miles between Cowan, Tennessee and Cumberland Mountain Tunnel and 2.5 degrees for four miles ascending between Sherwood and Cumberland Mountain Tunnel with 5 and 6 degree curves. The summit of the grades is located in the middle of the tunnel.

All trains require pushers to assist on the grade. Southbound trains pick up the pushers at Cowan and northbound trains pick up the pusher at Sherwood or Tantallon. The trains then stop when balanced at the summit and uncouple in either direction. In the old days, for southbound freight trains the pusher would cut off on the fly and then stop at the next signal to follow the train on to Rockledge (south end of the tunnel). On passenger trains and some freight trains, the train would stop and the pusher would head into the runaway track if it were not working through to Sherwood.

Even with the ABS system in place, tragic accidents did occur. In December of 1915, a foreign energy source resulted in a false clear indication at Rockledge. The result-a head on collision between a northbound passenger train and southbound freight, killed fifteen persons. The railraod and ICC confirmed that the accident was the result of a malfunction of the signal equipment through testing and it was concluded that because of the terrain, there was no possibility that the engine crews could have avoided the collision (wreck occurred on a 5 degree curve in a deep cut).

I'll have to look it up, but the Baltimore & Ohio had at least one on its rugged West End Division (Cumberland, Md.-Grafton, W.Va.). This line had four major grades, including the famous 17-mile grade, and a helper station at Rowlesburg with the helpers working in both directions.

There have been published photos of at least one train that wound up on a runaway track, which was at an interlocking with crossovers. The main line ran past one side of an interlocking tower, and the runaway track ran past the other side! It had to be rather thrilling at that tower to have trains with multiple steam locomotives struggling uphill--and even more thrilling when a runaway went up the track on the other side of the tower!

Supposedly the famous Cincinatian ran up the runaway track; there weren't any injuries, but the grade back out of the runaway track reportedly required the passenger cars be let down carefully off it, one at a time.

EVERYWHERE is faster uphill than down. Here's why.

Get in an airplane and climb to 12,000 feet. It takes a lot more power than simply cruising level for that amount of time. Where does that energy go? It is stored in the airplane as "potential energy" by virtue of its altitude. OK now idle the engines. Air resistance is going to slow the airplane down until it stalls. To prevent that, you need to speed up, but you have no engines. So you descend. Speed picks up. That is the potential energy (altitude) being turned into kinetic energy (speed). The faster your sink rate, the more speed you gain. You control the rate of this conversion by controlling the rate at which you descend. So now you practice "kinetic energy management" to make sure you hit the ground at low speed, low sink rate and at those touchdown bars on a runway.

So back to the train. Same, but you can't pull back on the stick and change your sink rate. Your sink rate is decided by train speed and track grade. That makes kinetic energy management harder. You must get rid of kinetic energy faster than you gain it, using the brakes. If you exceed your brakes, you'll run away. So you need lots of safety margin on those brakes.

Railroads want you to confine yourself to dynamic brakes, which are the exact same motors used to climb the hill. So going downhill, you must run significantly derated to have a safety margin, whereas going uphill, no need. Nobody's ever run away going uphill.

So you have strong restrictions on downhill speed to prevent runaways, not so with uphill.

I agree that with enough horsepower, a train can pull at almost any speed uphill.

I erred in explaining. I was thinking of posted speed limits.

Thanks.

Doug vV

The Milwaukee Road's grade out of the old Tacoma passenger depot (not Tacoma Rail, the depot torn down decades ago) heading up 'the gulch' under I-5 and a network of highway interchanges is between 3.5-4%. http://wx4.org/to/foam/big_rr/milw/tacoma/tideflats_gulch.html
There's a really tight curve right at the base of it, with the Brown & Haley candy factory (where Almond Rocha comes from if you've ever had any) on the outside of the curve. Trains used to runaway and shwack that building often. In the 70s, they used to have a lashup of F units to bring freights up and down that hill.
The hill is most recently famous for the ill-fated lunch train using reading 2100, then the Spirit of Washington dinner train was routed through there. Neither lasted long at all as the route is less than scenic before you get well clear of Tacoma.