“3,000 tons overweight”

“I don’t know if we’re gonna make it,” said the engineer of a heavy westbound freight-train climbing Allegheny Mountain west of Altoona, PA.
“Even with them helpers, we’re 3,000 tons overweight. I’m down to a crawl, and bells are ringin’. I coulda used a second helper-set.”
Yrs Trly monitors railroad-radio down near Altoona on this laptop. I get it over the Internet. I even get video streamed from Cresson (“kress-in”) west of summit.
I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2.
“Oh, you’ll make it,” the dispatcher in Pittsburgh chirped. “You’d be surprised what makes that Hill.
“The Hill” is Allegheny Mountain from Altoona to the summit. The railroad climbs 1,016 feet (according to Trains Magazine), around 12 miles. There’s a tunnel at the summit.
RE: “bells are ringin’......” —The locomotive has alarm-bells to indicate its traction-motors are being overworked — they overheat.
Allegheny Mountain has always been a challenge. In the early 1800s it was the barrier to trade from Philadelphia to the midwest — there’s no notch through it.
The reason NY built its Erie Canal was because Allegheny Mountain could be avoided. Allegheny Mountain didn’t cross the state.
Philadelphia capitalists, worried the Erie Canal might plunge their city into economic morass, got PA to build a competing canal system, the so-called “Public Works.”
But it had to be partially railroad; Allegheny Mountain couldn’t be canaled.
That portage railroad was also an impediment. Grading at that time was so rudimentary the railroad had inclined planes: sections so steep a stationary steam-engine winched cars up the planes.
There were 10 planes.
Public Works was so slow and cumbersome, Philadelphia capitalists came together to build a cross-state railroad. Railroad technology was just beginning. Baltimore capitalists earlier built a Baltimore & Ohio railroad, including across Allegheny Mountain to the south.
The biggest challenge to a cross-state Pennsylvania Railroad was Allegheny Mountain. The founders brought in John Edgar Thomson from Georgia to lay out the railroad.
Regarding the mountain, he did that somewhat suddenly. Some planners suggested putting the railroad up on hillsides to ease the grade.
But Thomson knew traffic was down in valleys, so located in valleys until Allegheny Mountain.
Thomson’s grade over the mountain wasn’t impossible. It averaged 1.75-1.8% (which is 1.75-1.8 feet feet up for every 100 feet forward) — 4% woulda been difficult. It could be done, but only if you break up a train into sections.
All that were needed were helper locomotives. A train would stop in Altoona to add helpers, but it wasn’t being split into sections.
A complete train could conquer the mountain with helpers.
That railroad became a cash-cow. The Midwest was suddenly open for trade. No longer did it have to depend on horse-and-wagon, or Public Works, to cross Allegheny Mountain.
The Erie Canal became a cash-cow too, but railroading skonked it. Railroad was built parallel to the Erie; it became New York Central.
Railroads, unlike canals, didn’t freeze in Winter.
Pennsy, and New York Central, became primary conduits of trade with our nation’s interior.
But Pennsy still had Allegheny Mountain to cross. Helpers were still required.
And so it remains. The railroad is no longer Pennsy; now it’s Norfolk Southern.
But Thomson’s alignment is still used, so helpers are needed.
Diesel-locomotive technology seems better than steam.
With side-rod steam-locomotives, pulling is in thrusts. Diesels use electric traction-motors, so torque is continuous.
With thrusting a steam-locomotive can break traction.
Diesel-electrics can also convert their traction-motors into generators, and thereby provide dynamic braking.
Helpers now go downhill as well as up. Years ago steam helpers uncoupled at the summit for return to Altoona. With dynamic-braking those helpers continue downhill past the summit to help hold back the train.
Downhill used to be as much a challenge as up. Before descending a train had to stop to set up brakes.
With Dynamic-Braking that no longer happens. Dynamic-Braking provides the extra braking.
Years ago, Labor Day 1970, my wife and I were at Horseshoe Curve, Thomson’s trick that made conquering Allegheny Mountain possible.
A long freight was slowly climbing the grade. Its diesels were slipping.
As it rounded the Curve, it stalled.


“Too many cars.” (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“Too many cars,” the engineman said. Two GP-35s, and two Alco C630s pushing; 125 cars. It was Penn-Central at that time.
“3,000 tons overweight,” is what I heard. A possible replay of that stall years ago.
Didn’t happen. If it had, the Pittsburgh dispatcher woulda called an additional helper-set.

• My wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely. Best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I sure needed one. She actually liked me.