Horse shoe curve.

[Anonymous]

I need to know from eather from a railroader or a railfan...........
Between the BN's Crawford hill & the Conrail's Horseshoe curves.
I need to know which is the steepest? % wise.
Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Horseshoe Curve is 1.8% and I believe Crawford Hill is near or over 1.7%.

[Anonymous]

Crawford Hill is 2.2%

[Mookie]

Someone tell me, one more time, what the equation is for a grade. How many feet for how long. I will try to remember it this time.

Mookie

[Overmod]

Mookie:

Think of it this way: For every 100 feet you travel, how many feet does the rail running surface go up or down? That number will be the starting point for your grade percentage.

(I'm not going to start in with "rise over run" or other formulas that might confuse you. If you know the elevations of two points, and the track distance between them, you can do some arithmetic to convert to the above rather than 'doing it in one equation')

"Ruling grade" is the most severe resistance you'd be expected to encounter when taking a train over a particular stretch. It doesn't mean that the whole stretch, or even most of it, is actually that steep...

You can tinker with the grade information to compensate for curve resistance, superelevation, etc., which gives a more 'meaningful' number for people who run trains. I believe each railroad has its own way of doing that compensation, and therefore it might not be accurate to compare fine differences between 'ruling grade' numbers given by railroads using different methods in order to determine which route is 'steeper'.