The Amazing Looping Railroad You've Never Heard of Before

Interesting to watch that 105-car train go around that. Nice drone footage! Did they mention the grade on that?
 
It was fascinating watching the same train going the same way in two places at once! Even on the Copper Canyon (Mexico) you don't see that, at least not with the passenger train, and not on the Tehachapi Loop.

All that flange squeal tells us the line wasn't designed with 60-80 foot cars. They were wise to use B+B power, C+C units are known to shave steel off the rails. Wonder if they checked for shavings after that run.

Guess there's a prototype for everything!

:B~)
 
Interesting to watch that 105-car train go around that. Nice drone footage! Did they mention the grade on that?

Note that the train in the video is going downgrade.

In a rough copy using an 1/3 arc-second dem with track and terrain that hasn't yet been smoothed out, I'm seeing an average of 4.26% -- I hope that's wrong. (123.45m rise, 2894m run) This would be a good place for a 1/9 arc-second dem, but I haven't learned how to get those from The National Map client.
 
It was fascinating watching the same train going the same way in two places at once! Even on the Copper Canyon (Mexico) you don't see that, at least not with the passenger train, and not on the Tehachapi Loop.

All that flange squeal tells us the line wasn't designed with 60-80 foot cars. They were wise to use B+B power, C+C units are known to shave steel off the rails. Wonder if they checked for shavings after that run.

Guess there's a prototype for everything!

:B~)

There are curves on the line that are too sharp for six-axle locomotives, hence another reason why the L&N built the new line that bypasses the loop. The cars you see have been in storage in the yard in Copperhill for some time, normally trains are one locomotive and several passenger cars, so there isn't as much flange squeal as in this video.
 
I'm seeing an average of 4.26%

Wow. I should have known that the grade that I gave for the Hiwassee Loop was improbable. Well, I did know it was unusually steep, but I was trusting that my rise/run numbers were correct. They weren't.

After smoothing out the track around the loop the best I could, I rechecked the numbers and discovered that my "rise" was way off. My new average gradient for the loop is just below 1.5%, which is a much more sensible number.

I apologize for the nonsense I posted earlier. It was thoughtful of everyone not to call me an idiot on the spot.
 
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