Nostalgia & History > Sulzers on the Siskiyou at Siskiyou

Two from May 17, 1980.
First struggling up grade at Steinman OR.
Then setting out the first half of their train at Siskiyou OR. Then they ran light engines back down and picked up the balance.
Actually started chasing these guys the day before when they left Eugene. But ran out of light, so headed back down the Siskiyou line the next day, and picked them up near Steinman.
Todd Montgomery
Eugene OR

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It looks like they couldn't pull very much, based on the number of cars vs. the number of engines.

As I pointed out before, 4 SD45s were rated at 3600 tons which equals if all boxcars to about 50. I bet these guys were only rated at 3000 tons together based on their former GE days and four axles, so all box cars would be about 40 cars.

I was there that day as well, listening to the chatter on my Radio Shack 4-channel scanner. They had too heavy a train for their power, were having trouble with wheel slip and had asked a couple of times for a helper, which was refused. After one of those refusals, someone on the head end started praying for traction on the radio. Just below Steinman, the wheel slip finally got a knuckle and what you see was the that part of the train ahead of the break.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/09 12:32 by roustabout.

They gambled and lost and got a knuckle anyway and had to double the hill. Probably got a good "lap back" claim payment.