depot elevation boards

[dehusman]

Thanks, Carl. It’s good to know that at least 1 railroad shared my warped logic on such matters . . .

The elevation thing - yep, I’d agree that it’s important, and it’s good that the ETT now has them - and the track charts as well, traditionally - but merely the elevation on the front of the non-portable station still seems to be essentially useless information in the wrong place to me, at least for the operating folks.

• Paul North.

I don’t know that there is the logic shared as much as information shared. I don’t think there is any real significance to the elevation, since there is no action required by the rules to do anything if the elevation is such and such. All of the train handling rules are tied to % of grade not elevation and the chart shows the % grade. There is no horizontal measurement between changes in grade in the ETT and the vertical measurement ranges from increments of 25 ft to hundreds of feet so the elevation can’t be used to derive grade. It looks like its just additional information that might help the engineer plan train handling, the relative change in elevation may be important, but not the absolute elevation, the fact the train is about to descend 500 ft maybe be important but not that the crest is at 2000 ft elevation.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Bragging. To show how high the road is. Most often done by Western roads to impress Lowlanders and us Easterners. Elevation does effect breathing and excercise and for the neophyte visitor it is important information.

Some roads, such as the RG, UP, and SP, also showed, in their timetables, the elevation of each station. There may have been others, but these come to my mind at the monment.

Johnny

Maybe just ‘making lemonade out of the lemons’ that life handed to those railroads - ‘‘Although we’ve got this line that goes up real high to get over the mountains and that’s a pain, let’s then at least impress the tourists with the elevation that we’ve had to achieve to accomplish that.’’

[Deggesty]

Maybe just ‘making lemonade out of the lemons’ that life handed to those railroads - ‘‘Although we’ve got this line that goes up real high to get over the mountains and that’s a pain, let’s then at least impress the tourists with the elevation that we’ve had to achieve to accomplish that.’’

But, the SP also showed, in its timetable, the elevations in Louisiana and all the rest of its territory. I’m not going to dig one out, but, as I recall, the elevation as it approached New Orleans was 4 feet. I don’t recall that the elevation of the Huey Long Bridge was noted, just the elevations at West Orleans Jct. and East Orleans Jct. Perhaps the road was givng all its stations a fair shake?[:)]

As to mileage from endpoints, I have a memory of seeing, at stations along the MC, the varying distances from Detroit and to Chicago.

Johnny

[blue_streak_1]

the boiler pressure rating of a steam locomotive is the difference between inside and outside pressure so at 6500 ft a 200 # boiler would still have a difference of 200# and at 14,000 ft still 200# difference. So the loco would still have the same tractive effort. One caveat is the lessened back pressure of the outside atmosphere might actuall make the loco more efficient. Don’t know how PSIA affects that aspect. Of course the loco will need more grate area for the slower fuel burn; so the grates may have been oversized for sea level operation but OK for its maximum altitude?

Diesels? Are some diesels limited at higher altitudes because either their turbos do not provide enough air or an oversized turbo takes more power from the prime mover? Are some of the China GEs equipped for high altitude operation?