Just curious but I don’t want to start another thread under prototypical operations.
Are inclines and declines in tunnels prototypical in Railroad trackage? I know they are used in mining, but are they used on mainlines or branch lines?
northeast_train_guy_1965Are inclinedps in tunnels prototypical in Railroad trackage?
Assuming that you mean "inclines" (or grades), yes, there are grades in tunnels in real life.
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Except possibly for yards, the heavy majority of trackage is not level. It may be only at 0.15% grade, it might be many times that, but the rails always have to rise and to descend in order to get the cars riding on them to a market or destination, particularly in hilly terrain. It's worse in mountainous terrain.
Accordingly, almost all bridges are on a grade, and so is the trackage inside of most tunnels across a continent. Essentially, if the destination is on the other side of a range of hills or mountains, even if the tracks parallel an apparently level river, like the Hudson route in NY, the route necessarily is on a grade. Railroads don't level the right of way simply because they need to cross a river with a bridge, and they don't necessarily want to level the tracks inside of a tunnel either...and for the same reason: they want their trains on a fairly steady climb to a pass of sorts and then to descend in the same steady/orderly fashion safely.
Two of the most notable "tunnels on a grade" would be the Spiral Tunnels in Canada!
Steve
If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough!
Tunnels are almost always on a grade, even when track alignment doesn't really require it. The reason is for water drainage.
Mark P.
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