Southern railroad SD24

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Southern railroad used to run sets of four SD24 on the Rathole line. What was the number of cars and or the tonnage of these trains. Gary

2

Looks like the ruling grade northbound is worse than southbound and is 1.25%. An SD24 has min continuous TE of 73,200# at 9.3 mph.

So, four of them would be good for about 11,000 tons.

3

Trains had a couple of articles about the Rathole - 1 in the early 1960s, and another in the late 1970s or early 1980s, if I recall correctly. The latter might have had a map with the basic details about each train, such as no. of units, tonnage, number of loads/ empties, etc. I think it was called something like “The Beagle chasing the Rabbit”, or vice-versa. Unfortunately, the Magazine Index function here doesn’t seem to be working now (and hasn’t for several months), so I can’t provide specific dates/ issues from that. Instead, I suggest looking through the Annual Indexes - which start from 1980 forward - and which can be found here:

http://trn.trains.com/magazine/annual-index/2012/12/trains-magazine-annual-index

  • PDN.

Edit: From https://www.american-rails.com/rathole-division.html

(Thanks to “Into The Clear” piece by David P. Morgan from the January, 1964 issue of Trains and “As The Rabbit Chases The Beagle Up The Rathole” by Mike Iczkowski from the April, 1976 issue of Trains*&*

4

Yes, Paul “The Beagle Chasing the Rabbit” sounds right. However, I am unable to help you find it; my collection of the magazine before the middle of 2015 is at my daughter’s house–and I do not want to ask her to find it.

Back then, Kalmbach published an index annually–and from time to time I would loook through such indices for a particular article.