A morning coal load climbs Crawford Hill across old Saw Mill (Stage Coach) Road. In the distance are the Buttes that rise above Fort Robinson. The famous frontier army post has a incredible histo... (more)

CRAZY Steep Non Compensated Grade! Blasting up a desert mountain at walking speed with 5 Geeps and 22 loads of sulphur and acid! I have done some research to figure out just how steep this... (more)

A Freeport McMoran Hill Turn slides down the steep grade between Corral Cut and Clifton. The grade here varies between 3.5-4.2%, when compensated for curvature the grade is a equivalent to almost ... (more)

A duo of B40-8s lift a cut of cars from the Freeport McMoran interchange at Clifton Arizona up the 2+% grade towards Stock Pen Tank. The unusual concrete bridge takes the Black Hills Byway acros... (more)

10,000 Horsepower 3100 Tons! The 2nd run up the 4%+ Shannon Hill is down to its knees as it approaches the big cut near the Morenci Corrals. The lead GP38-2 was built in 3/76 and is wea... (more)

The first of two Hill jobs on this October morning drops down the 4.5%+ slide above the site of the former Shannon Smelter. Earlier in the morning the job switched the Acid tracks at the massive ... (more)

SCREAMER! Shannon Hill is a steep 3-5% grade in Arizona's Copper Country. Each Geep is good for approximately 550-580 tons on what is undoubtably the steepest climb in North America. Heav... (more)

The third Freeport Mcmoran Hill Turn drops down the 3-5% grade above Clifton. This is the largest copper leach facility in the world. The massive white mountain in the background is tailings from... (more)

Dakota Junction This ex-CNW branchline junction in western Nebraska looks much the way it did when the CNW left. It was once on the Chicago & NorthWestern's frontier on its quest to build t... (more)

The Cowboy Line Nebraska NorthWestern moves a cut of grain into a yard track at Whitley Nebraska under a threatening sky. The small yard is used for interchange traffic coming from the Rap... (more)

Fort Igloo The bridge with the flaking bright orange paint from which I took this photo was the main entrance to Fort Igloo. In the early 1940s prior to Pearl Harbor it was almost inevitab... (more)

The big cut at Belmont, Nebraska bypassed a summit tunnel thru the top the the Pine Ridge Escarpment. This was the only railroad tunnel in Nebraska. In the late 1970's Crawford Hill was completel... (more)

Nebraska's Mountain Crawford Hill Part II The CB&Q used the horseshoe shaped canyon carved out by Chalk Creek to gain elevation up the Pine Ridge Escarpment. The grade before it was rebuil... (more)

Nebraska's Mountain Crawford Hill With a ruling grade of 1.72%, when compensated, Crawford Hill is the steepest eastbound grade any coal train will encounter leaving the Powder River coal f... (more)

Story of a Tunnel District Stall This westbound sand train is on its second attempt to make the climb thru the Tunnel District. The first attempt the train stalled at Tunnel 8 and ha... (more)