Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
[quote user="riprap"]And one small question about the Alaska RR:  In a very old edition of Trains magazine, they did a long story on the Alaska RR, and one of the things they mentioned I thought very interesting was that there is a point on the Anchorage-Fairbanks line where they have a very steep grade, and rather than using "helper" engines (why they did or do not I can't recall, perhaps they were short of motive power), apparently the conductor will make a set of trips up and down the grade, taking, say, 10-20 cars at a time, until they had carried all of the cars.  That seemed like a very inefficient way of doing it.  Does anyone know if the Alaska RR still does this, and if other RRs around the country do or have done it? Riprap [/quote] Efficiency is about delivering maximum output for minimum input.  There is *nothing* intrinsically inefficient about doubling the hill.  So long as you are not delaying other trains or calling a second crew because the doubling causes the first crew to exceed the  hours of service, doubling the hill is a very efficient practice, compared to the alternative of running twice as many trains that are half as long, or calling a helper that will get a day's pay for performing an hour's work, or cutting in a remote helper that would take terminal time at both ends (and create lots of often difficult-to-solve signal continuity and train-handling problems).   Now *that* would be inefficient.  In the case of the Alaska Railroad doubling the hill from Spencer to Grandview, there are seldom other trains seeking the track space that would be delayed or can't be juggled around the double, and the total run from Anchorage to Seward, including the double, can be completed in about 8 hours. As I recall the track chart shows 3.0% ruling grade, not 3.3%. S. Hadid
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag