Industrial track siding that I drove past several times. This has to be at least an 8% grade. I can’t imagine them pulling more then 1 or 2 at a time.
It doesn’t look that bad when you look at the enbankment, but when you measure it out on google earth (second link) it’s quite steep given the short distance.
Nothing unusual or spectacular - I am sorry!
The Rhaetian Railway in Switzerland has regular grades of 7 % on its Bernina line and a minumum radius of 45 m, which equates to a little over 20" in HO scale! That makes it an ideal prototype for the space starved model railroader.
The line also sports such unrealistic features like a spiral viaduct and a turntable in a shed!
Back in the '60s when I commuted on the Reading there were a lot of very steep sidings going to the various industrial and warehouse buildings in center city Philadelphia. I never saw a local working the sidings because I traveled during the rush but I expect that the locomotives could only work a very few cars on each siding at a time.
I didn’t check elevations or read any descriptions, so maybe I missed some good information. However, the image, to me, doesn’t show a grade more than perhaps 2%.
Severe would be anything steeper than about 2.5%. Of course, there are many steeper than that, but I don’t see (readily) evidence that this one is very steep.
The Flam Railway in Norway has a 5.5% grade, making it the steepest standard grade traction RR in the world and one of the Great Railroad Journeys.
https://www.visitflam.com/en/se-og-gjore/se/flamsbana-the-flam-railway/
I could be wrong, but I measure about a ~16 foot drop over 300 feet. That’s about 5.3% (Based on the height of the trailer)
Assuming the parking lot is completely level. Hey, it’s not far, hop over and check it out in person [:D]
On an old N scale layout of mine, which is getting the sawzall this weekend, I had a siding up to a mine halfway up the mountain. Had to be about a 10% grade. It was more like a branch line than a siding. The transitions were too sudden for anything but my 3 axle plymouth switcher, and it could push no more than 1 car up the hill. Which is good, because my lack of track planning skills 12 year old self that built this thing did not have any sort of runaround at the mine or even a second track to allow for loads and empties.
–Randy
Digital, your bottom line is only level across the face of the sensor in the camera. If it represented level for the ground, it would have to rise somewhat at the right. Hence, the real grade, as viewed, is somewhere in excess of about 2%…just.
In order to appreciate my point, look at the angle, relative to your bottom line, of the vertical corners of the light-coloure building in the distance. If what you say is so, that building is listing badly toward the grade, and can’t be plumb at that corner.
Current Union Pacific specification for max grade on industrisal track is 2%.
IIRCm Pennsy’s Madison Incline was 5.9%.
The Saluda Grade hits a maximum 4.9%, averages 4.24%.
Japan’s Usui Pass line was originally an Abt system rack but was rebuilt for normal adheson operation - without reducing the 6.8% grade! A four-car EMU train was given two massive Co-Co motors as ‘brake helpers’ downgrade. Without them, the light passenger cars would have become steel bobsleds. (The route has since been abandoned, bypassed by a Shinkansen line.)
I was told that the switchback built to bypass a burned trestle on the Roaring Camp and Big Trees tourist railway (Felton, CA.) has a maximum 13% (!!) grade.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - 2.5% mainline, 4% shortline)
I don’t know what percent it is, but the track up to the East Broad Top’s coaling dock is steep.
I believe the leads to some of the coal tipples were even steeper.
Actually 9.25% (Source: Roaring Camp Railroads by Beniam Kifle and Nathan Goodman; Images of Rail; 2013)
I don’t know what the grade is, but the lead to Phillips 66’s calcination plant looks steep.
this drawing indicates a 4% grade on a DL&W coal trestle.
Would it be unusual for the spur to an industry to have a similar grade or greater if the car is lighter than a filled hopper?
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Cass RR 11%
Grades of 4% or more are no big deal and exist all over the place on the New York City Subway. The steepest grade is 5.5% is on the Williamsburg Bridge. There is a 5.4% grade on the Manhattan Bridge, and a 4.5% grade through the Steinway Tunnels.
These grades at the 9th Avenue / 38th Street station are quite spectacular.
Of course modern subway cars (the only kind levt in service) have four traction motors on each car, and are somewhat impervious to these grades.
Layout of LION has heavy grades too.
ROAR
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=560973&nseq=1
This was my first thought too.
Take the street view from the grade crossing and it does not rise much at all. Looks like 1% or even less. The view from the side throws the prespective way off.
If the spur is uphill, mostly empties are going uphill and filled cars are going downhill, what is a practical limit on the grade?
Many railroad planes in Pennsylvania were gravity driven, empties were pulled uphill by filled cars going downhill. A lone exception is the Mahanoy Plane.
Most likely the plant receives petroleum coke from the local Phillips 66 refinery by truck, processes it, then ships it out by rail. The cars are probably loaded going up the grade.