On Mon, 26 Mar 2007 04:28:01 GMT, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
<
[email protected]> wrote:
>> Matt O'Toole certainly looks righter (or at least much steeper) than I
>> thought.
>>
>> Here are two sites that mention a "nearly 7% grade" near the end of
>> the Virginia Creeper railroad line:
>>
>> "At the trail's lowest point, where it crosses South Holston Lake on a
>> huge curving trestle, it is 2,000 feet above sea level, but by the
>> time it reaches Whitetop Community it has ascended 1,600 feet, some of
>> it at nearly 7 percent grade."
>> http://www.vacreepertrail.org/
>>
>> "For most of the uphill, the grade is about 3%, although the final
>> section to whitetop is nearly 7% grade."
>> http://home.comcast.net/~cmorhiker/VaCreeperBike.html
>
>As a train nut, this certainly has my curiousity aroused. 7% grades on
>standard-width track simply do not (and did not) exist. The 5.89% grade on
>the Pennsylvania Railroad in Madison, Indiana is the current record-holder
>in the US, but that's steam-only. The steepest kinda sorta normal grade is
>the 4.7% at Saluda Hill in North Carolina.
>
>Given that the trail is called the "creeper", there's an implication that it
>was very slow, which was likely due to tight curves and/or steep grades. So
>perhaps this might have been narrow guage to begin with. But no, it wasn't
>abandoned until 1977, so it was most definitely standard guage. I found the
>park service reference to the "almost 7%" grade, and one other, but nothing
>anyplace that specifically talked about the various grades found on the
>route in a way that instilled confidence.
>
>In a blog http://vacreepertrail.blogspot.com/, you find this reference-
>
>"We started off riding with other members of our van group but slowly people
>found their own pace and the group spread out to where John and I were by
>ourselves. The intial descent from Whitetop is some of the steepest grade on
>the entire trail and we had fun blasting down the mountain at about 20 mph."
>
>Must have been a pretty strong headwind on that 7% grade!
>
>--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
>www.ChainReactionBicycles.com
Dear Mike,
I'm no railroad nut, but I do love finding how different figures
accumulate around things that should have only one measurement.
Here's a "7%" description (no "nearly") in an article about a fellow
who did about 85,000 miles on that trail:
"The trail's low point is at 2,000 foot elevation at South Holston
Lake and rises 1,600 feet to the Whitetop Community at the border --
in places on a 7% grade."
http://www.bikingbis.com/blog/ActiveSeniorCycling/_archives/2005/8/8/1116986.html
Here's a more detailed description that limits itself to 6%:
"The Virginia Creeper Trail varies in elevation from 2,040 ft at the
trailhead in Abingdon, VA, down to a low point of 1,750 ft at South
Holston Lake (mile 8), back up to 1,930 ft at Damascus, VA (mile 16),
and then on up to a maximum of 3,576 ft at Whitetop Station on
Whitetop Mountain (mile 32 -- two miles from the trail end at the
North Carolina state line). From Abingdon to Damascus the average
grade is only 1.3%. From Damascus to Whitetop Station the grade
averages 2.5%, but varies from 0% to 6%."
http://www.crescentcitycyclists.org/vacreeper/vacreeper.html
This dour description downgrades (sorry, couldn't resist it) things
even more:
"Because the railroad grade was never more than 5 percent, even going
uphill is not difficult. Nevertheless, the trail is heavily used by
mountain bikers who take a shuttle to the top, then ride downhill to
Abingdon. Walkers do well to stay alert for careening bicyclists to
come whizzing by."
http://www.sherpaguides.com/virginia/mountains/long_trails_valleys/virginia_creeper_trail.html
In the end, the Virigina Creeper at 5%, 6%, or 7% resembles the Fargo
Street hill climb in Los Angeles, which has been described as 30%,
32%, and 33%:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/msg/5b0aba5e054b02fa
Whatever the actual grade is, Fargo is damned steep for a paved city
street, and the Virginia Creeper is damned steep for a railroad. In
both cases, people are probably just repeating numbers in good faith
that they've heard from other people, possibly mis-remembering them
and perhaps forgetting the "nearly" and the "almost".
Just for fun, I googled for "Viriginia Creeper" and "8% grade". Sure
enough, someone has raised the bidding that high:
"The best way to do the Creeper is to start in Damascus (middle point
of VA Creeper) and bike up the 17 mile 8% grade incline to White Top
Mountain."
http://www.ninernation.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-13292.html
Given enough time, it may turn into a cog railroad.
P.G. Wodehouse did not share my belief in innocent error:
"Why not have those stories of mine told by a fisherman whose veracity
would be automatically suspect?"
And thus was born the first (and most aptly titled) of the many tales
of Mr. Mulliner:
Two men were sitting in the bar-parlour of the Anglers' Rest as I
entered it; and one of them, I gathered from his low, excited voice
and wide gestures, was telling the other a story. I could hear nothing
but an occasional "Biggest I ever saw in my life!" and "Fully as large
as that!" but in such a place it was not difficult to imagine the
rest; and when the second man, catching my eye, winked at me with a
sort of humorous misery, I smiled sympathetically back at him.
The action had the effect of establishing a bond between us; and when
the storyteller finished his tale and left, he came over to my table
as if answering a formal invitation.
"Dreadful liars some men are," he said genially.
"Fishermen," I suggested, "are traditionally careless of the truth."
"He wasn't a fisherman," said my companion. "That was our local
doctor. He was telling me about his latest case of dropsy.
Besides"--he tapped me earnestly on the knee--"you must not fall into
the popular error about fishermen. Tradition has maligned them. I am a
fisherman myself, and I have never told a lie in my life."
--The Truth About George
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
