Crawford Hill is well known as the toughest railroad grade in the state
of Nebraska. Located on the Butte Subdivision, the route over Crawford
Hill was once a quiet backwater of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy
system. Today, it is a heavy duty piece of railroad. Beginning in the
early 70s, the line became one of the primary routes for coal trains
from newly opened mines in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. By the late
1980s, the line had been thoroughly rebuilt to handle the flood of unit
coal trains traversing the line.
Part One of this two disc set looks at the line as it was between 1987
and 1989. We start at the division point of Alliance, Nebraska, and
head north, stopping in Crawford before heading up the grade toward
Belmont.
This disc features mainline power now gone from heavy duty service,
including C30-7s, U30Cs and SD40-2s heading up most trains. Leased
power-by-the-hour Oakway SD60s in their EMD demonstrator paint are also
seen, as are the similarly leased LMX B39-8s as Burlington Northern
experimented with using sets of four in helper service up the hill
instead of three SD40-2s. Plenty of the Dash-2s are also seen in helper
service, and both models were mated with tank cars converted to fuel
tenders for Crawford Helper duty. In addition to BN power, locomotives
from several other roads are seen including Kansas City Southern, M-K-T,
Missouri Pacific, Santa Fe and Union Pacific. A set of BN’s business
cars even makes a surprise appearance on the rear of an intermodal
train.
Part Two visits Crawford Hill in 2012, giving us a look at the railroad a
quarter-century after the footage in Part One. General Electric
ES44ACs see much of the work on the hill, with plenty of EMD SD70ACEs
and SD70MACs. Even with today’s Distributed Power Units, manned helpers
are still stationed in Crawford. ES44s see most of the helper duty and
only one SD70ACE was working as a helper during our visit. We caught a
couple of notable items during our visit, including the “airplane
train” hauling Boeing 737 fuselages to the Pacific Northwest and the
very first BNSF unit, SD70MAC 9647 (a.k.a. the “Vomit Bonnet”) as the
D.P.U. on a coal train climbing the grade.
Both parts visit the better known locations on the hill, including the
overpass on Crawford’s south side, Saw Log Road, Horseshoe Curve and
Breezy Point, and Part Two also travels along Horseshoe Road for
additional scenes and visit’s the Ponderosa Ranch, where guest cabins
cater to the railfan.
