3.6% SISKYOU GRADE BATTLE: PART 1

in 1994 the famous cscq pass line was sold by the SP to the central Oregon and Pacific Railroad known as Corp and the challenging Mountain line was operated with heavy trains until around 2008 before being cut back meet the people that ran trains over the pass and ride with them on the steepest parts of the operation in a two-part series we filmed back when the cisu pass line was booming with business recall how the shops prepared the equipment and how the crews were trained to run over over that storied and extremely challenging line the central Oregon and Pacific was formed in December 1994 as a member of railex Incorporated railex owns numerous short lines across the US with additional lines in Mexico Canada and Brazil in business since 1977 railex operations in North America account for 4,000 Mi of total Track by 1997 and nearly 400,000 car loads per year and growing the central Oregon in Pacific runs south from Eugene Oregon to blackb California the southern half which is the subject of this feature runs from bellw near Ashland Oregon to blackb [Music] California this is the most rugged part of this former Southern Pacific Line that places demands on both operating staff and the equipment the twisting turning line challenges both with grades up to 3.7% [Music] the grades are difficult enough but the extra drag of pulling a train around the mini curves makes this attractive effort show that could only be rivaled by the old days of sp's operations where five unit helper sets were needed to lift heavy Lumber trains even today it's quite a sight to see up to eight locomotives on the point of a train on this Scenic line this line is actually Southern Pacific's old cscq line that had been of reduced importance since the opening of st's shast line through clamo Falls Oregon to reach Eugene before the reopening of this line in 1995 the SP had deactivated it since 1991 choosing to use the Shasta route from Eugene Oregon down to Roseville California when railex reopened the Southern cscu Line it made a reduction of several days and reduced shipping time for many customers on the northern half of the corpse [Music] system before the reopening wood products and cement from these customers needed to travel North to Eugene Oregon to the Southern Pacific to head south again on the busy SP shaft line [Music] the better service afforded to customers is has caused many of them to increase their shipments by Rail and in a number of cases material hauled by truck has been converted to rail Transit Corp interchanges with the Union Pacific formerly Southern Pacific at blackb California black but is named for a local cinder cone from the Region's past volcanic activity [Applause] Corp has a small facility here for Light maintenance and repair and local office work this train is the weed hauler this Gloomy spring morning starts starts with a string of empty wood chip cars that are backed into the huge Roseberg facility we'll drop these cars off and switch the log plant this is a lot of power for switching and things happen quickly here better service afforded to customers has caused many of them to increase their shipments by Rail and in a number of cases material hauled by truck has been converted to rail Transit one example is the Roseberg Forest Products log yard in Weed California who transports its logs to The Sawmill in Dillard Oregon over a 2114m rail trip through the rugged cscq mountains and past Medford by an additional 120 MI this has taken 240 loaded log trucks off the highway each week Corp own many of the new logging cars that it leases to customers the prompt service helps the cars turn Revenue loads four and five times a month with this fast recycle time the car inventory can be lower with improved service for the customers this has generated controlled and steady growth in traffic consisting of wood products including Lumber paper and plywood cement and grain products are are also hauled along with General Freight 98 Mi to the north is Medford Oregon where crews are changed for trains heading all the way up to [Music] Eugene the facility here has a small yard where trains pick up additional cars from the Medford Area [Music] businesses when we were at corpse offices we looked at the final posted results for the month of June 19 1998 that compares to June of three previous years the chart shows steady and significant growth in car loadings currently this translates to over 41,000 car loadings per year [Music] [Music] this extra business means longer heavier trains and it takes more than just acquiring more customer customers to make it all work there are many safety issues concerning this explained by Bruce fager the operations manager at Medford one of the major transitions that I immediately realized uh after coming off of a uh class one railroad uh to a short line was the uh amount of inexperience that uh was obvious uh however much to my surprise uh these people have been trained and and uh are qualified our safety record has been just outstanding in fact safety is one of our major focuses uh we have a very steep grade here 3.6% grade our Engineers uh who are trained as Engineers here on this property uh are qualified on 36 grade and are doing a tremendous job the camaraderie uh between the cruise uh is uh probably the best I've ever seen uh Bar Bar n it's great to have well-maintained locomotives to muscle loads up the grades in the cscu but the biggest concern is getting trains safely back down the other side The Descent downgrade for southbounds begins near the Oregon California border the beautiful rolling Countryside there can be deceiving and treacherous trains can build up speeds beyond the point of no return if proper procedures aren't followed uh one of the over overlooked uh grades that we have is uh is Bailey Hill in California that grade too has 36 uh 3.6% grade and uh its Summit uh when approached from the north going south is a dramatic drop I mean the the track just disappears in front of you and the engineer he has his hands full he has to be on top of it uh in order to uh uh allow enough tonnage to balance theg grade and still get his air set and dynamic brakes adjusted so that he can have a a safe descent to uh to the bottom uh that is regarding and and also one of the factors is the the curves Bailey Hill has uh about uh a third of the curves uh that cisu does and of course with a train of any length the curves will assist the engineer in uh binding the train up and helping them control the control the train whereas opposed to Bailey Hill it's uh gradual sleep uh sweeping curves and uh a great deal of momentum can be uh picked up uh if the if the bait is the grade is not balanced [Applause] properly the safe train handling here is on the mind of every engineer on this run and it makes the Run both interesting and challenging with Bailey Hill being a high highlight of the Run [Music] okay got cars the journey from Ashland South to weed and nearby black but shows why six or more locomotives are used for 40 car trains the grade rapidly builds up to 3.3% with tightening curves to add more load to the locomotives already burdened with heavy Lumber loads [Music] the heavy maintenance is performed at Eugene but since nearly 2third of the fleet's 32 locomotives are assigned to the South 's heavy grade service routine maintenance and emergency repairs are made here at Medford look for the second half of the corpse Story by using the link below in the description [Music]

Channel: Charles Smiley Presents Videos

Views: 3,565

Keywords: siskiyou railroad, sp siskiyou railroad, siskiyou railroad oregon, central oregon and pacific railroad, central oregon and pacific railroad oregon, short line railroads, short line railroads oregon, oregon railroads, railroads in northern california, railroad movies, railroad dvds, weed lumber mill, medford trains, southern pacific freight trains, southern pacific helpers on trains

Id: tLH6_rIWXus

Length: 13min 37sec (817 seconds)

Published: Wed May 01 2024