Western Railroad Discussion > Medbury Hill

A super long MPDNP (Manifest Portland, OR to North Platte, NE) running 6x2x0 descends Medbury Hill down into the Snake River Canyon. This is actually the second of two back-to-back downhill grades that take trains from the plateaus around Mountain Home down to the Snake River. The first is Reverse Hill that takes the train down to Chalk Flats, then they pass through the Chalk Cut and drop down Medbury Hill to the the mile long fill over Bennett Creek into Hammett, ID. Medbury Hill was part of a major reconstruction project 1923-1924 that required a work railroad to be built beside it to move massive amounts of earth from the cuts to the fills.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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NS 212628 2796cuft gondola built by Greenbrier 11-2024. Odd high-riding cars with a pronounced fishbelly center sill. I had not seen them before, but appear to be part of a large series of cars 212000-2126xx built in 2023 and 2024.
There was a string of these brand new NS gons at the end of the UP MPDNP eastbound through Glenns Ferry, ID on June 9th, 2025.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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Nice! Yes refered as Medbury Hill and/or Reverse Hill or both.
Spent lots of time here videotaping in the 90's., Freight and UP Steam, yes that is quite a grade/fill going Westbound out of Hammet, (Hammett?) ID.
Great place to see Westbounds at full throttle attacking the grade and you can physically see them slowing down as gravity takes over the whole train. Nothing to obstruct the view.
Great place to go fanning.

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA

We used to get solid strings of those NS gondolas on what we refered to as the slab trains. They were loaded with import steel slabs in Camden NJ but now at a new port at Glouster, City NJ.The slab trains were discontinued and now the slabs are usually on the headend of the PSR monster 39G (Camden Pavonia Yard to Pittsburgh, PA Conway Yard). The slabs are headed for rollong mills in Ohio. It is not unusual to see 40-60 car cut, sometimes none at all. Such is the crazy mixed up PSR freights.Seems funny  to see one far from "home".
These gondolas replaced a huge fleet of rag-tag, beat up, sagging old mill gondolas that were probably aging out.
Back east we are lucky to see 10 cars of a train at a time with all the tree tunnels. That grade there sure is some wide open spaces!
Gonut

Beautiful photo at a great spot and I was totally amazed to see that classic old signal bridge still standing.

Bob

bobdavis Wrote:
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...I was totally amazed to see that classic old signal bridge still standing.

There are at least two others remaining in the area; one at Reverse and one at Glenns Ferry.

mike woodruff
anacortes wa

swaool Wrote:
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> There are at least two others remaining in the
> area; one at Reverse and one at Glenns Ferry.

Sadly, the searchlights at Reverse and Glenns Ferry (and the searchlights on signal bridges at the east end of Reverse and west end of Glenns Ferry) came down in the fall of 2021.  If I am not mistaken, these were the last searchlights on the UP left in Idaho.  From September 21, 2021 at the east end of Reverse...

Cody

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