I managed to find the Madison (Indiana) Hill yesterday. As Mudchicken said, it is no longer active–what a pity.
For a flat lander such as myself, I have never seen anything like this. It was incredible. You could stand at the base of the hill, where the track is perfectly level, and stare straight ahead, and the track reaches eye level so incredibly quickly. This hill would make a 10 year-old with a sled and a good snow drool.
To give you an idea how steap the hill is, there is a road that more or less is the same grade beside it, and I was considering using low gear for my car as I was going up it. Aside from the enormity of the hill itself, what really accentuated the hill is the fact that everything is so flat on the top and bottom of the hill.
What I would give to see a coal drag (there is a large power plant at the foot of the hill) try to tackle that hill. The power plant gets its coal from the river. I wonder if they ever consider rail when the river is not navigable because of flood or drought?
NS has a switch in Fremont Ohio that connects to the Industrial area that goes from river level uphill easily 25-30’ in about a quater mile, you would have to see it to beleive it.
When it was operating, one GP9 and 2 50 ton cars. 5%. No one in their right mind would run any kind of train longer than about 10 cars and 50 units in full dynamic- and if they did, they would only do it once.
Two of the steepest operating grade changes operate on what used to be SP’s Oregon Division. At Siskiyou it’s 3.3% on each side for a total of 6.6% (just outside the (geographic) north end of Tunnel 13 and at Cochrane, it’s 2.86% on the west side and 3.3% on the east for a total of 6.16%. Both of those are real experiences with a tonnage train. Boy Howdy!
I’ve had to make a couple of runs at that hill on that transfer in Fremont myself. It’s been a while back now but I’ve been there. Long live the Lake Erie and Western, or what’s left of it, anyway!