Western Railroad Discussion > UP Austin hill grade check

A long, long time age I heard a MOW employee tell me that the hill just south of the Colorado Railroad bridge on the UP Austin Subdivision is the second steepest and second longest hill in Texas.  Is that true?  I often wonder, what IS the steepest railroad track in Texas? I suspect it pales to some of the others in North America. 

I live in South Austin and the grade elevation at Lady Bird Lake is approximately 433 feet and the elevation at Bergstrom siding south of the lake is approximately 705 feet.
So that is an increase of elevation of approxumatrely 200+ feet in about 6.5 miles.
I have seen numerous loaded south bound trains break apart, coal and grain.
Pat
South Austin,TX

I have attached the track charts for the Austin Sub both ways from the Austin Depot.

---

---

Leafing quickly thru some old charts, I see
a 181 ft climb in 1.7 miles at Blewett. Westward
on T&P, a 558 ft climb in 8.5 miles Van Horn to
Crusher, average 1.24% uncompensated.
Eastward on T&NO from MP 767, the climb
is 1029 ft in 21.0 miles, average 0.93%.

The Baird Sub on the UP (x-T&P) can give  the grades some company  Strawn Tx to Ranger (Ranger Hill) 13 miles long and Baird Hill about 12 miles long on both sides of Baird Tx.  Even the yard that was there was about 1.2% and that was enough to have a run away track on the east end of the yard called the "baileyville track".

I thank all who have helped me answer this curious question I have long harbored.  I am not skilled at calculating the compensated grade on this section of track but it seems like 1.2% is about what it averages out to over a three mile stretch. I remember when the Mop ran both ways on the track around milepost 181.  At night you could hear the GPs & SDs rev up to run 8 and hold that crawl for 20 minutes or more.   I wonder what that the old SP Sunset route had as max grade?.  I heard the big one was around Paisano Pass east of Marfa, Texas.

Most likely T&NO didn't exceed 1.0% El Paso to Houston until SP increased the grade slightly, when it shortened the eastward climb to Etholen circa 1960.

If the climb is 191 ft in 3 miles, then the actual grade averages 1.2% and the compensated is 0.03% more. (You figure the latter by adding up the total curvature in the three miles.)

Hou74-76 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ... I wonder what that the old
> SP Sunset route had as max grade?.  I heard the
> big one was around Paisano Pass east of Marfa,
> Texas.

SP has many sections of 1.0% grade on the Sunset Route in Texas, including both sides of Paisano Pass.  The exception was 1.1% eastbound up to Sierra Blanca.

mapboy

In the chart above I see almost half a mile of 1.44% grade, that will provide some challenge.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Wouldn't you have loved to see the action in Austin back when steam was king?  

There are some stories about that hill.  During steam days it was a regular occurence for the yard switcher to help push trains south up the hill.  The road engine would be a run of the mill 2-8-2.  The road engine could not get quickly up to speed and the 0-6-0 shoving on the rear would always cut off on the fly at a certain spot.  That all changed when more powerful 2-8-4's showed up.  During the first run of them up hill the train was going much faster and the 0-6-0 could not uncouple on the fly. It was several miles before the brakeman could open the coupler, especially with the switch engine bouncing all over the place.  Don't you know that was one heck of a ride!