Making the Grade

"Steep grades are a constant, uphill battle."
- Peppy

So I propped my foot up late today and started calculating the grades again. The ruling grade and the average grade for the layout are set at 2%. Basically that means this:

Grade % = Rise/Run

So, for every 1" of grade that I want over 100" of track will give me a 1% grade.
And, for every 1" of grade that I want over 50" of track will give me a 2% grade.

So if you know that you want a 2% grade, use this formula to figure out the run.

Rise / Grade % = Run

The design has afforded me a very long run as it winds around the mountains and makes maximum use of the loops, so keeping at 2% is easy even when one track needs to go over another. So I mapped out each 50" section of track and put in the grade markers.

I've started dressing up the header block a little bit and have added a scale and a legend. Grades are marked in inches from the zero point, which is the top of the open grid benchwork. The layout is actually a three hill layout with each blob being a hill and another hill at the bend. In between there is a canyon where exists the town of Mapimi.


So let's take a ride up the hill. We'll start at the smelter siding in East Mapimi. Heading east at zero elevation we'll go around the bottom loop to Mapimi and pass the town and the enginehouse. Once we pass the town, also at zero elevation we begin the climb. We keep an almost perfect 2% all the way to the station at Agua Caliente. This town is a high plain and grade-wise is perfectly flat. This is so we can leave trains and rolling stock here safely without them rolling to down visit the nice folks in Mapimi.

We then start another 2% climb as we round the Chihuahua Bend which now is 4" off the benchwork and has a nice view of the Chihuahua desert. We continue to climb another inch and then reach the first large bridge going over Mapimi and its valley. This bridge is on a grade.

On the grade to the big bridge it gets just a little bit steeper than 2%, but that is ok. I think I'll call it Durango Grade after the province where the mine is located. By the time we reach the suspension bridge we are eight inches off the benchwork. The suspension bridge is perfectly level at eight inches. We then end our trip at Ojeula which remains at eight inches.

In hind site, I'd like to have a little more clearance between Agua Caliente and the mine, so we may raise the mine to 8.5 inches. Agua is 3.5 inches and the mine will be 8.5 inches, which gives us five inches of clearance. A bit tight, but doable.
I like naming key features of the trackage becuase it makes operations a little easier. Instead of yelling at the dispatcher that you are on the left side of the layout, you can just tell them that you are on the Durango Grade.

I've got a few more track adjustments to make and then I'll input the grades into the CAD system and run a train over the layout. What fun!