Eastern Railroad Discussion > Clarks Gap & Big NS Coal Grades...

Clarks gap seems to be one of if not the biggest challange to coal trains on the Norfolk Southern. What other big grades create a challange for coal out NS's mountains. And when I say big I mean over 1.5%. The April 2004 edition of Trains magazine gives a great map with ruling grades, of these which ones currently see loads heading up grade? Honaker Hill? Raitt Mountain? What about Jewell Ridge it shows a hefty 2% plus on each side?

And how about Virginian's famous Clarks Gap. With sporadic traffic at best what is the future of this mountain. I read sometime ago they may abandan or lease out this line... Anyone heard anything lately?

JC76

I wouldn't call traffic over Clarks Gap sporadic... there's at least 8 scheduled trains that use it, plus a fair amount of KV diverts (trains that would normally load out of Williamson/Auville going get loaded out of Elmore)... Belews Creek and Hyco/Mayo get a good amount of coal out of Alloy now... look for DPU on 754/Q54 in a few months.

Any idea what kind of configuration they use?

jc76 Wrote:
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> Any idea what kind of configuration they use?

Generally for the 100 car power plant trains two up front, two on the rear...

Besides Clarks's Gap, you also of course have Elkhorn Grade on the Pokey main. If use of helpers is a criteria, don't forget the ex Conrail main via Cresson sees a pretty heavy concentration of coal traffic, even though it's mixed in with helpers. I'd wager as much or more coal goes over the mountain at Cresson than you would see on an average day from Elmore via Clark's Gap. Bob E could fill you in better, but there's a grade on the line south from Iager WV for coal heading south that also requires the use of helpers.

Elkhorn is 1.4& compensated

That grade out of Ieager on the Dry Fork is 1.5% compensated...
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Steepest part of the grade on Clarks Gap is 1.92% uncompensated.


The Big Creek branch out of Richlands(it was a branch... the Wyatt Cutoff made it a through route to Weller)... 2.18% compensated Richlands to Weller, 2% Weller to Richlands...

The Clinch Valley line is 2.1% compensated Bluefield to Norton, 2% Norton to Bluefield.

For we neophytes, can you explain compensated and uncompensated? Thanks.

Sure... compensated takes into account the curvature of the track (curves add resistance, which you can equate to making the actual grade a bit steeper), whereas uncompensated is strictly the grade.

Some grades are built compensated, with a grade reduction on each curve that's intended to match the curve resistance. Other grades weren't built that way, but we can still calculate the compensated grade between any two points if we know the total curvature.

Curve resistance is assumed equivalent to around 0.04% of grade per degree of curve sharpness. So a ten-degree curve on a 2.2% compensated grade will have an actual grade of 1.8%.

So it appears the top 4 grades against coal onn the NS appear to be...

Clarks Gap 2.01% compensated (actual 1.93) 13.2 miles
Homaker 2.0% 5 miles
Raitt Mountain 1.8% 7 miles
Gooseneck 1.7%

Honaker Hill oops typo