Saluda was an extremely interesting RR location for me. As I mentioned before, we tried to visit and wait for train activity as we were passing near by on the interstate back and forth to Florida…but never did see any train movements there thru town.
Standing there, and trying to realize how much effort must be applied to bring any amount of weight up that grade is difficult to understand how it is even possilble.
An observation: By now, I wonder how much of the R of W the plant Kudzu has obliterated…?
WW: the closure of the Hendersonville - Brevard branch brings up a question. I often saw ballast being brought out of that branch from a rock mine. Is NS not buying that rock and if so has the high quality ballast played out???
For the information of all who have never heard of kudzu, it is a vine native to Japan that was imported to the South many years ago with the thought that it would stop erosion and would be good as cow feed. It does a wonderful job of covering eroded areas so you do not see the erosion effect. It can cover other areas, climbing poles and guy wires, and becoming a general nuisance. When I lived in the South, a common saying was, “The Baptists and kudzu are taking over.”
Well, the traffic was going up. But NS, like every other RR, has been hit hard as of late. Lots of furloughs, trains combined, yards down to one shift, etc. so I doubt we’ll be seeing any push for rebuilding Saluda (unless a real profitable company opens up there)
From what I was told, Saluda came with EIGHT pages of special operational restrictions in the timetable. Special qulifications, RFEs, retainers, handbrakes, the whole nine yards. Could ECP eliminate some of those restrictions?
While the guys that ran on it were quite capable, it seems, the railroad as a whole considered the trackage a pain in the rear. And if there’s a comparable, easier and safer route…
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I don’t want to stoke the fires of ignorance and speculation here, but nevertheless I will observe that the following have occurred since Saluda was taken out of service:
NS has gotten more comfortable with AC traction motors, for really slow speed drag operation;
DPUs are now pretty well understood and accepted, and even NS seems to be joining the western roads with operating them;
ECP brakes are now in road trials, and NS is participating in them;
Traffic volumes and capacity constraints hit previously unimagined levels, along with revenues and profits, anad capital expenditures back into the business;
NS has adopted system-wide operations planning and train scheduling.
All of which is to say that the objective conditions affecting operations over Saluda have changed quite a bit for the better since then. If the NS system becomes clogged with trains and reopening the route over Saluda is one way to relieve that - say, by running unit coal train loads down the grade or empties upgrade, or even the higher HP/ton intermodals up that grade - I wouldn’t rule it out. Just an observation (no inside information).
Saluda was {is}, an extreme piece of RR…One of the features that prevailed many years ago were the two runaway tracks…That in itself, shows it’s potential that it contained two of them.
Engineers in steam days didn’t have the advantage of dynamic brakes either.
Johnny…No, originally from Pennsylvania and then a move to Indiana 47 years ago…Our visiting Saluda several times came from our times of spending Winters in Florida for 8 years. So as we’d pass close by on I-26 in that traveling would produce a stop in Saluda. We waited back in Saluda as much as 4 hrs. for activity, but to no avail. But enjoyed our visits back in there…a quaint old place. And of course just to see the physical layout of the RR was a high point for me.
I used to post on here many years ago as BlueRidgeFront (I think that was my screenname). It has been so long that my account has been removed and I had to create a new account. I was the one that had posted those pictures of the washout (which can be found here). Here is a Google Maps link to that location, but the resolution isn’t very good. I believe that image was acquired in 2006.
I was on YouTube watching some Saluda action when I saw a comment that read “According to Ken Daniels, Spokesperson for NS Railway, The Saluda Grade will re-open in Late June of 2009. Repairs are being done and more effective track stabilizers are to put into place by the end of May. Rail servie will run once a day and return through Hendersonville.” Reading that brought me back to the Trains forum to find this thread.
I am not currently at home in Tryon, but will be over Easter. I will try and do some scouting if I have time to see if any work is being done.
I have my doubts, but it’s not impossible that it’ll reopen. From what I have heard, the loops over at Old Fort are quite congested.
As a sidenote, if anyone is going to be in the Melrose area at the base of the grade, the DOT is replacing a bridge on Pearson Falls Road over the North Pacolet River, so you’ll have to take Pearson Falls Road from Saluda to get to Melrose ins
Dubch87…Oh yes, I remember you very well…Those were excellent photos of the washout and I probably still have them somewhere on here. And the ones of the pick up truck tool…!
Welcome back. When I saw this Saluda post up again it caught my attention as I’ve had keen interest in this piece of RR. That would be great if it would become active again. I’d guess if that becomes a fact, they will have plenty of work to put the track back in shape to use again. Believe it’s been about 6 years since it was taken out of service.
Wonder how much of the ROW the Kudzu has taken over…That stuff must be something else.
So, former BRF, welcome back…You always had good info.
I’m sorry to report that nothing is going on. The crossing signals are still covered, gates removed, track cut, and rails as rusted as ever. No chance to check on the washout, though, as it was raining nearly the entire weekend and it is a fairly long walk.
As far as kudzu, I have seen it sprayed in recent summers when it began to crawl across the roadbed. I don’t think NS has any plans of completely abandoning this line.
Darn…that news kinda burst the balloon. Had thoughts of putting together a run down there possibly to finally see a {or some}, trains work the “Hill”…Please keep us informed if any {good}, news does become real.
I`m really glad I took a few days on vacation back in the early 90s with the family to observe the operations at Saluda and to explore the area.
I went back to the Saluda area several years ago and was sad to know it was over,similar to the feeling I get knowing NS pulled the plug on the steam program…
I still find myself in doubt any trains ever did climb that "hill’…Trying to be convinced it was a “real” railroad without ever seeing the action…{Lord knows we tried, to see action}. Standing beside the track and looking down the grade…Thinking of the weight of the components and adhesion involved…How was it accomplished…Just can’t see how the locating engineers approved such a location for that route so many years ago.
How the engineers of steam engines heading down…kept the crown sheet covered with water and so on…No dynamic braking back then to support the air brakes…Guess that’s why the two “run away tracks” existed.
Uh oh…I hope you are wrong…but thanks for the report. Perhaps there is just a small spark of hope yet…It’s been approaching a decade now and one might think the rails would have been lifted by now if there was absolutely no chance of future usage.
I suspect that was very limited tie removal and repaving work was just to keep the crossing surfaces from deteriorating and getting hassled by the local road dept. folks and the state public utility commission about same, and to facilitate their road maintenance. That’s still consistent with ‘rail-banking’.
Also - what exactly does ‘put asphalt around the rails’ mean ? In a crossing area, it’s a lot easier to tear out rotted ties by first removing the rails - though it can be done from the side by digging a big trench there. If the rails are still in place - such as Continuous Welded Rail - though with paving around them such as in the flangeways, or even completely paved over, then that’s a pretty good sign that NS has not given up on the possibility of restoring the line to service at some point in the future. Even if the rails were removed, that might have been just a convenience to facilitate the patch-paving and road maintenance ‘for the duration’, until the line and the crossing is restored to service at some time in the future.
If the Saluda grade and line is really going to be abandoned and scrapped, the rails on the rest of the track would likely be lifted before the crossings. It’d be really hard now to get a rail train in there, if that method would have been chosen . . . [:-^]
There’s also the little matter of the ‘formality’ - actually, a strong legal requirement - that the STB approve the abandonment before the track is lifted permanently. I’m not aware that NS has ever filed that petition - though I could have missed it.
Topography dictated the grade; there was no better way to get from Asheville to Spartanburg without adding many miles–such as through Ridgecrest and Old Fort. As I commented a few months back, it was possible to go up the hill, even with oil on the railheads.
I recall an article in Trains some time back about the wrecks that led to the laying of the two (later reduced to one) run away tracks. An engineer involved in one wreck thought of the idea while in the hospital.