Eastern Railroad Discussion > Saluda: Steepest mainline grade now silent

http://www.trains.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/001/765ascoe.asp

NS bulletin swipes Saluda trains off schedule today
Steepest mainline grade now silent
by Bill Stephens

On Norfolk Southern’s Saluda Mountain grade, all is now quiet.

In a bulletin issued this afternoon, NS abolished the schedules for the general merchandise and coal trains that have operated over the route.

The “last” through train over the steepest main line grade in America apparently ran last Sunday, December 9, an NS official told Trains.com today.

Train 377, a Spartanburg, S.C.-Asheville, N.C., general merchandise freight left Spartanburg at 5 a.m. and arrived at Asheville at 1:15 p.m.

Because the former Southern Railway route will not be abandoned but railbanked for future use, the 377 may not be the last train to tackle the mountain’s 4.7 percent grade.

For now, however, rust will begin collecting on the rails.

The 5089-ton train 377 had 34 loads and 40 empties that were led over the hill by C40-9Ws 9266 and 9433. Along the way, they picked up one empty, and arrived at Asheville with 75 cars.

Shifting coal traffic prompted line closure

Coal trains on the line stopped running weeks ago. They included Williamson, W.Va.-Belmont, N.C., No. 750 and its empty counterpart, train 751. Symbols 752/753 were also used for these trains.

Other coal trains on the line included Williamson-Wateree, S.C., trains 778 and 780, and their corresponding empty movements, 779 and 781.

A shift in the source of the coal traffic is the culprit for the closure of the 33 miles of rugged railroad between Hendersonville, N.C., and Mascot, S.C.

Coal bound for Carolina power plants used to be mined in western Virginia. Now it comes from the Pocahontas coalfields of West Virginia, so an alternate routing via Roanoke and Altavista, Va., and Linwood, N.C., is now used.

The line over Saluda was in need of tie and rail replacement, as well as surfacing work. With the shift of coal traffic, NS couldn’t justify the maintenance expense, officials said. The routing also was inefficient and expensive to operate because trains had to double, triple, and sometimes even quadruple the unforgiving hill.

Traffic formerly carried by train 377 and its counterpart, 378, is now routed via Salisbury, N.C. The eastbound traffic is now handled on Asheville-Columbia, S.C., train 67E.

North America’s steepest mainline grade

The three-mile grade over Saluda Mountain averages 4.7 percent, but reaches 5.1 percent for a 100-foot stretch.

Construction of the line, originally the Spartanburg & Asheville, began in 1877, and the first train ran over the route in July 1878. Almost immediately, runaways on the steep grade began claiming lives.

Fourteen men were killed in 1880 alone, and one cut became known as Slaughter Pen Cut after a runaway derailment involving cattle cars. In 1903, the Southern built safety tracks to halt runaways.

NS has been running about four trains a day over the mountain, and has done so safely for years. At one time, NS rules required road foremen of engines – not the trains’ regular engineers – to operate trains down the hill. The current NS timetable for the Piedmont Division contains six pages of instructions dealing with Saluda.

“It is undoubtedly the most dangerous and critical stretch of mainline railroad anywhere in the country, and the unusual events that have occurred on the mountain would fill a rather large book,” NS President and COO H.H. Hall said in Frank Clodfelter’s definitive story, “Saluda: Where you either run the train or the train runs you!,” in the November 1984 issue of TRAINS Magazine.

“Fortunately, modern equipment such as pressure maintaining features of locomotives as well as more sophisticated brake equipment have reduced the danger to some extent, but as you know it is still a piece of railroad that must be watched every minute,” Hall said.

This isn’t the first time NS has planned to close the route. In November 1991, during the last recession, NS pulled all traffic off the mountain and rerouted it. But the route survived being put on the shelf, and trains ultimately returned to the line.

Remember that NS rail-banked their line from Birmingham, AL to Albany, GA. It was the route of the IC passenger trains to Miami etc. It was signaled. After some years, when traffic got heavier, and Atlanta could not handle it, they reopened the line.

SO, there is hope for Saluda. It is too strategic a piece of property for the NS to simply cast aside and pull up the rails for now. They will sit on it for some years.

NO! Man I've been wanting to go down there to see the trains lug up the grade. Ah just my luck well sounds like I'll have to find a place in Virginia or West Virginia
-Happy Fanning!

So now where is the steepest main line grade in regular use?

Must be Raton?

By the way, the Saluda grade doesn't average 4.7% for three miles-- more like 4.4 compensated.

Well, 21 years later and we are still hoping. Makes me think of Tennessee Pass in CO.

No chance.