at the edge of the abyss, SP style

[markpierce]

Just turned my SP Calendar 2005 to June. It shows SD70s with an SW1500 near Frazier, high in the Cascades of Oregon. Betwizt about 15 and forty feet from the roadbed there is a steep drop off to the canyon below. What struck me was the guard rail about 2 feet on the cliff side (of about half the size the main size rail, spiked to extra-long ties.) Don't recall seeing this when I passengered on Amtrak last year. Does anybody know the extent and period of SP's use of such trackage?

[kenneo]

That's one place you don't want to go on the ground. Depending on where you are between Cascade Summit Tunnel and McCredie Springs, that drop off can be from (nearly) 2,000 feet to about 100 feet at the Salt Creek Trestle. Some of that line is actually built on trestle structures with rock sheds above them. I don't remember the actual drop off height where you come out of the tunnel, but it is impressive. Between McCredie Springs and Cascade Summit, for every mile of Highway 58, you have 3 miles of SP.

Most of the derailments in that area come from three sources. Source 3 has nearly been eliminated - rock falls/slides - by the rock sheds. Source 2 is train-track dynamics caused by pull-aparts (coupler knuckle and/or drawbar failure and how gravity and curvature affects the release of energy throughout the train). The results of such an event can be quite dramatic and also known to be fatal. Nearly always they are expensive.

But Source 1 is the most insidious - excessive restrictive force excerted by the motive power when operating a train downgrade. The heavier the train, the more likely this is to happen. Usually, however, it is not nearly as dramatic and costly as Source 2, because the normal response of the train is to derail one truck of a light car and drag it down the right-of-way. Unless you come to some obstruction - such as a switch - and the train speed is slow enough, it can stay this way for miles and miles. One sure way to keep it that way is the guard rail that you saw in the picture. It will force the car back toward the outside running rail. It just so happens that there is a tunnel just out of sight around the curve and it would not be a good thing to have such a car wedge itself inside that hole. The last time I saw such a situation, crewmen died.

[markpierce]

Thanks kenneo! Would this be prototypical in the early 1950s? That's the period I model.

[kenneo]

QUOTE: Originally posted by markpierce

Thanks kenneo! Would this be prototypical in the early 1950s? That's the period I model.

I don't know how far back that trick goes. It doesn't always work, but usually does. There are the remains of cars down the slope that have made that their permanent home over the years. When I hired out in 1964 they were there and they were not new.

The SP put these things in (as I was told) after they removed the gurad rails that are between the flange ways. I never was told or don't remember just why the SP removed them, but memory serves up the answer as "They put more cars in the ditch then the kept on the ties."