Heavies

My November 2006 issue of Trains Magazine is doing a special feature on CSX railway’s application of heavier diesels to its horrific “West End.”
The “West end,” B&O’s original line toward the Ohio River (they couldn’t get a charter to Pittsburgh at first — thank ya, Pennsy) is the most horrible mainline railroad to operate on the east coast.
It has four horrific grades: Seventeen-Mile, Newburg, Cheat, and worst-of-all Cranberry.
All exceed 2.4%; Cranberry gets 2.8%. Both Newburg and Cranberry face eastbound tonnage.
There also is a shorter eastbound intermediate grade, Deer Park, high in the Alleghenies, before descending Seventeen-Mile, but it is shorter and only 1.04%.
The “West End” is no longer through, but can channel a lot of coal from the Bridgeport and Fairmont subs west of Grafton. Fairmont was the original line to the Ohio.
The subs fork at Grafton.
I reconnoitered the West End a few years ago in the so-called soccer-mom minivan.
It was dramatic — even though I saw no trains.

The Keed

The top of Cranberry grade.

Cranberry drops off like a roller-coaster. The top of the hill is called “the hole.” It rounds a bend, goes under a girder highway-bridge level with the top, and climbs out of a wooded glade.
But the summit of the Alleghenies is atop Seventeen-Mile; Altamont, 2,628 feet.
Cranberry is climbing the Alleghenies too, but summits at Terra Alta, 2,500+ feet.
Whatever; compared to Pennsy the West End was horrible.
When B&O finally accessed Pittsburgh, it became the main.
But the West End could still move a lot of coal, and still does.
You just need a lot of tractive-force to surmount the grades.
The “heavies” are a trick to enhance low-speed output. A heavier locomotive could exert more tractive-force, and be less likely to stall on grades like Cranberry.
The software that controls wheel-slip was also reconfigured. Not surprisingly CSX found that the lead wheelset of a locomotive was conditioning the rail in adverse conditions.
And the following wheelsets could exert evermore amounts of tractive-force before slipping. The last wheelset could break couplers if unlimited; and had to be so limited.
Previously (I think) anti-slip software was engineered to limit all the wheels on a locomotive together.
The advance is to limit each wheelset individually.
Horsepower determines the ability of locomotives to hold a constant high speed (or accelerate) on straight level track.
But the West End is hardly level; and has curves. It needs tractive-force. Horsepower is kind of irrelevant.