Modeling the SALUDA GRADE - Realistic Operations in HO 

I love the inclusion of the music found in the Saluda grade training video, great presentation!

Love that 80s safety music. Me listening and watching the train be like: 👁👄👁

Interesting video! I’ve driven up and down Saluda mtn. on I-26 many times in my 25 years as a truck driver.

Best modeler on RU-vid

Likes: 234 Dislikes: 0 *Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.*

YESSSS. You used the safety training video song!

I could watch your train operations all day long, very well presentation, great explanation of what is happening, love the realistic sounds of the trains and your layout is just plain Bad Ass... 👍👍👍

16 people are jealous of the amazing realism here. Incredible sound overlay, modeling details, and narration

Fantastic replication of the Saluda-Melrose grade and its operations! Thanks for putting this up.

The line itself is just so full of history. Love hearing all the stories about it. Though the Saluda side of the W-Line has been laid to rest, the eastern (Columbia) side is still lively with traffic. 7-8 trains on a daily basis, and will see more in the future as port of Charleston intermodal traffic is on the rise.

The grade can reach 7%. My layout: hold my beer

Great video Josh. I’m in the testing phase of designing my first real layout. Your videos are very helpful.

How about them Top Hats? Fantastic video, Josh!

0:10 the Saluda training video music, nice touch!

This is fascinating. I lived within walking distance of the track in Tryon, NC.

It is interesting that the track is still there, hopefully a tourist line can do something with it. I would hate to see such a historic part of Southeastern Railroading became just another bike trail.

Very fascinating operations. I could only imagine what Saluda would be like if mid and rear DPUs were a thing back then

I been to the grade once...it was heartbreaking to see it bring overtake by nature again

Love it. If I may, at 11:27, a real crew would stop and stretch, then the conductor would hook up the air hoses. I always like to do that, it slows things down a little.

Great video as always! I love these realistic operations videos with the narration.

Thanks Josh for another great video.

Fascinating stuff.Well explained & presented.

Love it. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to seeing the trip down.

I love this channel and this video but my favorite of all time is the Woodchips and Paper Mills in HO

nice opening 80s safety video music... love it

props for a nod to the southern reproramming the dash 9 horn to a p5!

Fascinating! So what industries are up the hill that require the different types of rolling stock? I recall a photo in TRAINS mag’s 100 Greatest Railroad Photos that shows three NS 6-axle units struggling to pull a cut of wood chip hoppers uphill. Your consist has wood chip cars, boxcars, tank cars, coal and grain hoppers. Videography and scenery really stir the imagination. Great video!

Love the inclusion of the grade training video. Thought for a minute a empty Belmont was going up the mountain.

I walked along this railroad in 2017 and 2021, photos and videos don't do it justice how steep this was especially for trains. Growing up always thought the steepest would be in the western state. Nope.

Great video !! Adds a lot of operation ideas !!

Would love to also see the Downgrade Trip modeled!

Very well done and enjoyed the video.

Very interesting information. Thanks for sharing.

Killer video as always, love the realism and the detailed explanation of the Saluda Grade operations, well done!

Nobody at Saluda: Me: *Flashbacks of Delay in Block Productions*

This is fantastic! What a great production and reenactment . Long live Saluda in HO!

This was fun to watch and brought back some fond memories. I was fortunate enough to have railfanned Saluda Grade in the spring of 1994 when we chased two relatively new SD70s (Nos. 2502 and 2523, if I remember correctly) up and down the hill. In the morning, they ran from Asheville to Spartanburg. That afternoon, they returned from Spartanburg and tripled the hill, doing exactly what this video shows. We also witnessed a Belmont coal train coming down the hill in the morning with mid-train helpers. Now that was something to see in Melrose, watching this huge train try to keep control, as it cleared the timing section and made it successfully down the mountain.

You ought to see some of the grades we've had on this side of the pond. At the Foxfield Railway, a preserved quarry in England, there is a 1 in 6 grade out of the engine shed itself, and a 1 in 19 that full trains were dragged up out of the pits on. Now that was a display of power

Some great model video work! A colleague at the office couldn't believe he was seeing a model railroad and not the real thing. I was wondering, during the Southern days, pre-merger, what operating division included Saluda? Did employee timetables include instructions for descending the grade? Again, really nice video.

VERY cool. I grew up on the lower San Francisco/Santa Clara Peninsula in the late 60s/ early 70s - when every industry was served by rail (and there WAS industry). I remember, at night, hearing not only the local trains running cars to the industries (cement, stone, steel-products, and early computers)... but the Naval Aircraft operating out of NAS Moffett Field.

Excellent video. I love how you slid the window open on the rear loco after the cut. Nice work Josh.😉👍🏿

Really cool layout!

That music tho! 😆😆

Great info! Well modeled, too.

Last time I checked it was mothballed, not abandoned. NS still owns the line, which means it can be reactivated... but its not likely to happen.

the Saluda Grade is making its way back into service!

Absolutely awesome, and extremely well filmed! I can't wait for the descent back down!

That was an epic video! I love how much detail you put into that because it adds a very in depth touch to it!

Love the music you got from the original Southern Saluda training video. Pretty cool addition! Nice scale modeling too.

The music got a laugh out of me. Wish the real deal were still open

I really admire your modeling skills.

According to @Delay In Block Productions Saluda is still a NS Route just awaiting to be reopened in the future.

Hello, super interesting and informative. All wrapped around your wonderful layout. Thanks.

Fantastic work! The layout, video and information are all superbly done.

What type of horn is at @13:10

Excellent video. Superb modelling, sure, but many layouts feature this. The other half of a great video is the VIDEO, which far too many neglect. The realism of excellent modelling is all too often utterly spoiled by shaky camera work, zippy pans/tilts/zooms, etc. They forget that every millimeter camera move is magnified by the scale of the models. Eye level & locked-down camera create a much more realistic presentation!

Some of the steepest mainline grades in the west: Cajon leaving LA was 3% but now is 2.2% on most tracks Siskiyou CA/OR border reaches 3.67% and SP replaced that as fast as they could with a 2.2% line but the steep line still exists.

Just looked at the aerial imagery of the actual Saluda Grade. The track is in rough shape....washed out in many locations, hundreds of trees on the tracks and at least one landslide over the tracks.

Very cool. Delay In Block did an excellent documentary on this stretch of railroad. Interested folks should check out that YT channel.

The steepest part of Saluda was 4.9%, with one section rumored to be at 5.2%. It was nowhere close to the “7-8%” grade mentioned in this video.

Up here in Canada the cp had a grade in bc that was 4.5 percent and the railway abandoned the steep hill in 1909 and built a new railway line with 2 tunnels that make the long trains loop over themselves and the railway grade is today 2.4 percent instead of 4.5 and sometimes 40 trains a day roll through the tunnels

When I was a kid I can remember watching trains cross suluda mountain. They didn't always break the train up. They some times had slave units mid train and pushers at the end of the train.

what brand of flex track do you use?Im debateing between atlas or peco for my next layout

Great vid! But why does the leader have a P5 when it looks like a K5LA?

this is great, my layout is the Blue Ridge Southern line that now operates those tracks and the line between Asheville and Canton

I was the 1k like

Excellent video! Such a great idea to include the music of the prototype training video! 👍

Tim Taylor would just use MORE POWER of extra locomotives to bring all the cars up at once.

I love it tour Saluda grade oh yeah I have a model railroading niche perfect for my layout thank you very very much God bless.

Saluda grade is absolutely not abandoned. It's moth balled an could come back in service at anytime on any day..they will never ever abandoned this line I don't see it ever being used again but who noes but it's not abandoned

I wish I was able to see the Saluda Grade in action... :(

I need to learn how to model like that

Awesome! Looking forward to seeing the downhill return.

man that NYCE must have nowere to go. its bin sitting there the hole video :) joking this is cool stuff

Awesome layout! I wish I had visited the saluda grade I only live about an hour away in SC

Does an NS local turn always operate out of a yard or can it leave a yard light and go to a small interchange track to pick up and deliver cars in that area?

"Norfolk Southern abandoned the line in 2001 ..." No, they did not. They took it out of service but have done minimal maintenance on it since (herbicide spraying, tree clearing, etc), except for remediation of the washouts.

I love how people think it’s real life it’s so cool. I am trying to make a layout but plywood is so expensive. The only real life I have is the hornby Peckett

Love it

Hi wonder they abandoned saluda grade the amount of work to just get one train through there sheesh

The cheesey mid 90s self help home video music Really makes this awesome. All that's missing is the old VHS flicker you had to deal with 😁 Love these videos sir, being English our operations work quite differently to yours so it's nice to see how it's done on the other side of the pond ;)

Is the bottom of the hill realistic with a runaway track also?

Great video! Nice touch with addition of the music from the actual NS training video on the Saluda Grade.

I thought they just put it in Out of Service and didn't fully abandon the line?

I remember coal trains coming into Hendersonville

MELVIN WARREN WOULD BE PROUD!!!🛤️

Very nice. Your camera angles create a truly realistic view. Really impressive and one can appreciate your commentary throughout this video. Thanks for sharing. 🚂

Another great video Josh! Been to the prototype & all I wanted to do was put my speeder on the tracks! What kind of set up do you use for recording & editing your videos? Thought I’d ask one of the best....

You have the most realistic HO scale modeling on RU-vid! Sometimes just for laughs, I cue up the video on my laptop, with no intro, and the sound turned off. Then I invite a non-railfan friend to watch it telling them it's about a steep section of railway. When the video starts, the friend thinks he's watching an actual full size railroad event. At some point I will hear the words, "What the ***k" and he will look at me with complete surprise and amazement! LoL ... It gets them every time!

There was once a whole lot of trains ran thru Asheville. Southern had a pretty big operation at the yard back then. The round house was torn down a long time ago. I think most of the operations there shutdown when it became NS. Champion Paper was wide open back then and pulp wood poured in from the east and south. Coal out of TN came thru going in every direction. Granite gravel from the quarry between Asheville and Canton headed down to the flat lands. Big operation for such a small town like Asheville. Population in the county back then well under 100k. To this day I go up now and then to visit friends. Love to sit up on the mountain and hear the train horns coming up from the valley reliving fond old memories.......

Those cars are perfectly weathered.

dislikes = ("ppl_who_hate_themselves") NW/NS never has been afraid of putting trains up and down grades

Hello, I've seen many of your videos and your dad is awesome at making kits. I'm starting a layout of the Missouri River from St. Louis to Kansas City. Your layout is so good Jordan S

Excellent video, Josh

Nice video I love your amazing layout josh. Do you know when scaletrains is announcing there ns AC44C6M?

This pails to the 18% grade on one of the redwood logging railways in northern California.

You keep the memory of this alive, for sure. You can see why it's not in operation now.

Great video! The music reminded me of infomercials from the 1990s.

YES YOU ARE THE BEST MODLER ON RU-vid. GREAT VIDEO AWESOME VIDEO AND VERY INTERESTING AND INFORMATIVE THANK YOU FOR YOUR VIDEO AND YOUR TIME HAVE A GREAT DAY JIM KAMMERER OF PHILADELPHIA PA. 👍👌

Excellent work. Based on the material I’ve seen in books this looks a whole lot like Saluda. Thanks.