Steepest Railroad Grade in North America - The Madison Incline 

Hiked this yesterday. It is completely overgrown, the rails have been heaved and undermined by water over time. Many rocks have fallen along the path, some as large as a loveseat. Actually had one fall the day we were hiking, another hiker was 50 ' from it when it let go. The rock behind it was still moist from the ground moisture. We enjoyed the hike, and would recommend it for anyone who enjoys hiking, history, trains or any combination. I actually took some video and may add a clip as an updated view of the track run.

Now that this line is no longer in operation, the Japanese Gulch line which goes from the BNSF mainline up to the Boeing factory inEverett WA is a strong contender for "Steepest rail grade in America. Cant recall exact incline, but it is over 5%

I've walked that line. It is hard to comprehend how steep those tracks are until you've been there. I've seen the Ruben Wells locomotive as well. Good video.

A fascinating story, and wonderfully told - I love the style of narration while standing along an active train line, with things happening here and there, and real-world train sounds in the background. It's just perfect!

I don't know how I got to this video but I'm glad I did. This is a great little bit of History, very well done

Great info! I've never heard of this railroad, nor the incline so this was fascinating to learn something like this was accomplished!

This line was the only reason the Pennsylvania Railroad bought two SD-7 locomotive's geared for 55 mph instead of the usual 65 mph top speed. Having operated on a small siding to a quarry where we hauled trap rock ( ballast ) out of the quarry on a 11 percent grade for a distance of just under a mile. We were limited to a maximum of 12 cars up or down and the only piece of railroad where we used the retaining valves on the HP ( high pressure ) setting and handbrakes with the crew riding the cars down and you didn't roll down the grade you pulled the train down the grade not exceeding 1 mph. It was a real pain to run on. Three months after I qualified on the trap rock branch as it was known another engineer lost it and put one ALCO RS-3 and 7 100 ton loaded cars off the end of the runoff track which was angled up at 12 percent. That was the last time anyone ran a train up to the quarry. The track was removed and the two sidings were removed so the hillside could be widened to all a cat 988 to load the cars next to the railroad. Once they finished rock trucks with a capacity of 100 tons drive down the grade not hauling more than 50 tons after the quarry almost lost a haul truck the first day they started loading trains at the bottom due to overheated brakes. Now they use modern rock trucks with electric drive trains and come down the hill like a freight train in dynamic braking hauling 100 tons at a top speed of 3 mph then dump the loads on the ground for the 988 to load into the train hoppers. 100 cars at a time. Each siding holds 50 cars and is still supplying trap rock to Norfolk Southern today which operates the old Boston and Albany. The quarry is in Westfield, Massachusetts. I once got called for a trap rock extra west out of there and no road power being available used 6 ALCO RS-3 road switchers which had been used in yard and local service. I had to notify the west end dispatcher to call the local fire departments as my engines were for the first 20 miles or so we're throwing massive quantities of chunks of carbon on fire out the stacks as the turbochargers were clearing their throats so to speak. By the time I reached Chester the beginning of the mountain climb all 6 engines were running clear stacks in the 8th notch of power. I loved it. I visited the Madison grade once in early 1971 and got to see one of the only two SD-7's the PRR ever had running on the grade but missed it climbing from the bottom. When I showed the engineer some pictures of trap rock in Westfield he said he was happy where he was and wouldn't want to run on trap rock. It took me 5 trips down the grade to figure out how much train air to use without stalling the train coming down. After those 5 trips it wasn't easier but still a real pain to run down with 1400 tons of stone your pulling down and continued to do this for 12 to 14 hours every time you got called for trap rock. Going up with 12 empty hoppers first thing in the morning due to the morning dew it would take 5 to 7 tries to reach the top with sand and full power. Normal power was an ALCO RS-3. We used a GP-9 one day and burned out a traction motor. After that it was ALCO's only because of the GE 752 traction motors which were and are much better than the equivalent EMD traction motors on a GP-9. One last item unlike the Madison hill railroad the trap rock was on a right hand curve of 13 degrees all the way to the top which made it harder to keep the locomotive wheels from slipping from the time you crossed the switch at the bottom. After the rail dried off then the ALCO would dig and climb the grade in full throttle at a top speed of 8 mph going up. I miss the old days.

Well spoken. Well photographed. Great drone piloting. Much appreciated!

Great video. I get so tired of videos on RU-vid with otherwise good content being let down by poor sound or a myriad of other issues I stumbled across this video by accident and wasn't particularly interested in it, but by the end I thought to myself, "Self - What a great/informative/well made little vid." Well done guys.

My fiancé and I just hiked this a month ago. It was incredible and almost post-apocalyptic. We spend a lot of weekends in Madison!

Great video, I really love the commentary, an excellent description of the history.

Thanks for putting that out. Very interesting.

I used to live in Madison and I remember hiking on this abandoned railroad countless times.

Excellent video and lesson on an area most of us would otherwise never know about. Thanks!

Thanks for sharing part of this on your Instagram. I had never seen it before! Very interesting watch.

I visited the Madison Hill when I was really young, must have been around 2003. I'm glad to see it discussed.

Great video!!! Thorough, informative, and presented wonderfully. Thank you for making this.

Thank you! This is like honey to a bear. I just love old train stories, especially if true. It must have been a heck of a job to build.

When I was a kid in the 1960's I was walking up the incline, when a train came by in the middle cut. I scrambled up under a rock ledge and got out of the way. The rocks have really fallen away from the sides since then.

I would love to get that opened back up. Great story, thanks.

Although I’d heard of the Reuben Wells and the former rack railway, I had no idea this line was still in existence! Thanks for sharing!

Got called for a trap rock extra work train to dump rock on the mainline out of west Springfield yard. Power was a GP38-2 and a GE U28B one of only two we had. When GE built the U28 locomotive they greatly reduced the rate of acceleration to reduce black smoke. After we tied onto 50 cars of rock to double over to another 20 cars and the buggy I released the independent brakes and advanced the throttle to the third notch and it has a 1/2 percent grade east to west all the way to CP 100 and after three minutes of no movement asked the conductor to check the amp meter on the U28B. It was only loading 75 amps and was still accelerating so blasted slow. It literally took 6 minutes before the train started to move west it loaded so slowly after the train was put together and the brake test complete I got the highball and like the first move it took over 7 minutes to finally get the train on the move. When I arrived at the work site I isolated the lead unit and went to the 8th notch to see how long the he took and was shocked when it took over 12 minutes! Once it hit full rpm it loaded fine and worked fine but man talk about a slow loading locomotive. I never saw a GE on a trap rock train again if they were dumping stone. I suggested when the mow foreman accused me of faking locomotive problems so I had him ride in the cab of the U28B to see how slow it was loading. He asked what I wanted for power the next day and I said give me 4 ALCO RS-3 engines and was surprised when I got called for a stone extra the next morning with 4 ALCO's. I loved it and this day the train moved when he and I wanted it to move. Penn Central had two U28B units and they got rid of them on the used market. Where they went to a shortline and after a little modification to the governor they worked fine but accelerated fine after resetting the governor and not worrying about smoke.

Thank you for this video. It was very informative, well explained and just a real pleasure to watch.

Wonderful video. Nothing like a well presented piece of railroad history and it included the Pennsylvania Railroad 😀

Idk why this was recommended but glad it was

Fascinating stuff. Cheers.

Superb looking layout and a wonderful video.

Now this is what i call a real 10 min documentary!!! PUT IT IN THE TITLE!!!!!

Excellent video ... very educational ... thanks for producing and sharing.

I have the entire day off work and this is what im doing with it

Outstanding presentation. Thank you for sharing your knowledge of this historical rr.

Really interesting. Had never heard of this.

so weird that I see this. I've walked those rails many times. I can actually see them from where I'm sitting.

That is a cool line! Thanks for sharing!

Here we have some roads with questionable rocks at the hillside. They simply install large steel nets over them, so nothing large can fall down.

Ty especially for all the detailed info including those in comments

Very interestingly piece of American rail history. Thank you for sharing.

After the PRR/NYC merger, the Madison SD-7's went to Beech Grove for inspection. Since the Grove was an NYC shop, they had no experience with the special Incline SD-7's and removed or deactivated most of the equipment the Central deemed "extra" and sent the locomotives back to the Hill. After the first trip south, the engineers wanted to murder the shop crews at Beech Grove.

Excellent story. Thank you.

We have the Arkansas & Missouri line from Van Buren , Ar to Monet, Mo that does light freight, rock, sand and a weekend scenic passenger run. The line goes throught the Boston Mt range of the Ozarks. The highest elevation is almost 1800 feet. It is a steep climb from thr Arkansas River to Fayetteville, Ar. The rail was put in arount 1887. One tunnel at Winslow. Lots of high tressles. I 49 was completec in 1998 after 20 yrs of tall bridges and one tunnel. The Ozarks arent very high compared to other places, but is dissected plateaus with steep canyons.

Great info - what a unique line.

The Mountain Goat Railroad was a Nashville, Chattanooga & St Louis RR branch (NC&StL) from Cowan Tennessee up the mountain to Sewanee, TN. It went up 1200 feet in 7 miles. It ran from 1853 to 1985. It was also the only branch the went over a main line just before the famous tunnel started in 1849 and opened in 1852. It was the longest tunnel in the world at the time and is still in use. That grade still uses helper locomotives to get over that little part of the southern Cumberlands. www.chattanoogan.com/2015/7/13/303282/Chattanooga-Railroad-Series-Cowan-And.aspx

Very cool and informative video.

Excellent information!

Very interesting. Great drone work.

Very interesting story.

If you told me Southwestern Indiana was home to the steepest half mile grade in North America.. I would have looked at you and said but yeah.. Christianberg Mountain in Virginia was the steepest continuous grade on the east coast at over five percent. Great stuff!

Very interesting video. I was there about the same time making a video of it.

Would be very cool if it were still in use today. Great video!

Huh, thinking of all the times I gung-ho ran lines over 6% to 8% grades up to mountainside mines in Railroad Tycoon. I'll be thinking of this next time I dig the old DOS PC out and have a bit of a nostalgic sim-binge :D

That was pretty interesting :)

Fantastic, cool information!

Thats what i like about Amrica. It is my choice if i want to put myself in danger to see this railroad. But dont ban me from taking a hike there.

Just found this and the History is fascinating! I actually discovered this line in the late 90's and being a retired UP engineer I was like What the F***! Good stuff... Daylight Dave.. 🤪🤗

Very nice documentary. Just a few points: H class 2-8-0 locomotives did the work for the PRR. C class 0-8-0 locomotives were normally used for hump yard and transfer service. The locomotives always faced north on the grade. This was to ensure that water stayed over the crown sheet of the firebox while the smokebox pointed up hill. Of course, the locomotives always stayed on the south end of their trains, backing down the hill and pushing the trains up, to avoid run-a-ways due to broken couplers.

Very interesting info, I would like to visit that line and hike it!

The Argentine Central Railway in Colorado had a 6% grade. They could only run Shays and 3 cars at a time, also due to the limited length of the switchbacks. You can still se some of the grades from I-70 behind the Georgetown loop station at Silverthorne CO. If you drive up behind Georgetown you can drive to old grade to Waldorf. The railroad was built by hand in under 170 days. The rock retaining walls are still intact laid without mortar. It is narrow gauge and a pretty interesting feat of engineering.

Nice bit of trivia.

I grew up in Southern Indiana, and his pronunciation of "wash out" as "warsh out" is so familiar. I corrected myself on that in my teenage years, but my grandmother and mother always pronounced it like that.

Thank you very educational

There's a steeper incline in Fallout 4. It makes me really anxious because of how immersion-breaking it is.

there was some talk about using trains on grades as grid energy storage (run the trains up the hill with overhead electric to store power, run them downhill with regen to get the power back out, add cars full of sand or whatever to add capacity. This line seems like a good example of what that line would look like if there was one near you. Big straight line running up a hill, and a train inching up and down it all day and night :P neat video, cool to see the nasa loco there too- i didnt even think of where they went after they werent needed.

Madison incline: 6% grade Cass to bald knob: 11% grade me: laughing in geared locomotive

Great thanks .

I'll bet some mischievous young boys greased those rails more than once.

Hi Rodger! Hope all is well over there.

Years ago it was touted as the steepest grade E. of the Mississippi River!

Thank you very much for this very interesting and informative video presentation which is very much appreciated by the people. We are very grateful to have been able to be informed about the history of this railway and the struggles in building, maintaining and operating the system. It is great that much of the railroad is in use.

Rodger gave me my first railroad job on the CERA in the Mechanical Dept. I worked in transportation in the WSRY and CIND. Later he helped me get a job in the Louisville & Indiana Railroad where i have retired after 23 years. I owe my whole Railroad career to him, THANK GOD he didn't FIRE me when he had the chance..... ! Thanks Rodger

The Cog railroad in New Hampshire has a grade of 37.5, and it still running today on Steam

fine presentation

If it's about trains I'm there. Every since I was little I have found train very interesting. I have road on a few but my dream is to drive them, a steam locomotive was what caught my attention to get into trains, just amazing what they done back then and some till this day are still used. Not as much in America though that I know of.

The grade to the Boeing plant in Everett, Washington is 6.2 percent.

Neat place, I found it by accident once on my way to Mitchel Indiana (by the way there's a great restaurant in the town of Madison just east of the incline Crystal & Jules I think). That area has some neat history... one line still has a ton of standing semaphore signals. and another still has a bunch of B&O Color position lights.... They haven't been changed out for those cheap shit traffic lights everybody has now.

Very Very Intresting History

Anytime you go hiking...ANYPLACE you should let someone know where you are and how long you expect to be out. There is ALWAYS a chance of something happening.

Looks like a prime candidate to make a rails to trails bike path. Once the rails are gone, maintenance would be pretty easy. It would make more people be able to enjoy the history.😀

Just about the only thing you could do is to keep that walls from the rock slide at bay potentially could do a pin system and shotcrete it in there however if you got foliage on top of that hill witch looks like you do I really don't know that a shotcrete would actually do any good it might do more harm than good but you definitely need to look at hiring some engineers and recommending getting a pin system in Place to hold most rocks at Bay or just close it to the public that whole section and maybe put it in a separate Trail as a bypass something to think about I wouldn't want people going in there and you get a rock slide somebody could get really injured and because it's owned by the city that's a huge liability issue

Would've been a good location for a rack railway, as is used in the Alps, where a driven gear in the loco engages a toothed rack between the rails. Doesn't depend on adhesion between steel wheels and steel rails. Adapt one loco to work this way; with only 7000 feet to cover in that fashion one, and maybe one for backup. would've sufficed.

About 1% steeper than Saluda Grade. Amazing!

Why was the boiler tilted at 15 degrees when the track angle is only 3-1/2 degrees?

Might want to update the copyright information in the description, still says "2017" as the year.

this section is not abandon. it is very active today. its an old gourge from 1000s of years ago

How did i get to a video explaining a gradient on a railroad?

Still remember seeing this line mentioned in Jerry Taylor's "Sampling of Penn Central", and thinking there'd be NO WAY this line would be in svc beyond PC. I was wrong.

Did they ever try a shay? Slow, but it would climb and descend that grade. Those operated on 9 percent grades fairly regularly.

He says Warsh-out instead of washout.. Lol that's a true blue southeast Indiana boy there. Cool stuff!

I think the branch line between Chico, ca. and Sterling City was 3% in some places you could see were Logs had fallen off the cars along the way It was a spooky ride and some Engineers would not take the call for the Sterling City branch. Sterling City had a lumber mill and shipped logs down to Chico and then South.

I would see when BNSF is doing a slide net replacement or upgrade. They (and UP) use these cable based nets and attach them to the sides of the cuts so if a rock does come loose, it still falls, but is directed to the bottom of the net, not on the tracks. Then the MOW people can come along and break it up and haul it away. If they make a large purchase, see if you can tag along and get a good price after they bid on it.

Net the cliffs and convert to hike/bike trail. Would be a fun ride up.

I worked this line when Penn Central owned it. I was reading about the Southern R. R. incline somewhere down south at Saluda which doesn't compare.

I went on the WP&YR in Alaska 4 years ago. They told us that anything at or above 4% required cog. Per the AAR. Their max grade is 3.9%.

nice video

I’d recommend the channel firelife for the undercut. He’d have it fixed in a day. Cleanup however, doesn’t seem to be his strong suite.

A steep hike known as The Incline is maintained for public use in the Colorado mountains. It is worthwhile to open it and maintain it for that use. Just follow Colorado's example along with some good geological help to control those hazards.

Isn't the Cass Scenic Railway steeper at around 11% (or 1 in 9 in the old money) and also standard gauge? In the UK it the trams that tend to have such steep railways worked by adhension. I think Sheffield has gradient approach 10%. IIRC the steepest railway line with a passenger service was in Scotland at 1 in 23. The steepest standard gauge line I know of had a gadient of 1 in 4, but that the rope worked incline up to thr Rosedale branch, but that closed in the early 1920s. There are steeper cliff railways.

Pikes Peak Cog Railway has an average of 12% grade with some places hitting 24% grade.

I would love to take a motorcar on it. You had a washout last year

Yeah I would like to hike or mountain bike it!

Largest grade in NA is the BNSF Boeing spur in mukilteo washington, its like 7.5%.