Crawford Hill
and you thought moving coal trains through Nebraska would be easy...
There aren't any tunnels in Nebraska, are there ???
OK, there are not any in use any more. At one time, though, Crawford Hill was home to
the only railroad tunnel in Nebraska. It was bypassed, though, during
line changes in the late seventies/early eighties when the grades over the hill
were eased, along with curvature decreased. Since the early years of the
Powder River Basin coal boom, Crawford Hill has been a bottleneck on the BN.
Loaded coal trains headed east over the hill to Alliance must fight the stiff
grade posed by the Pine Ridge, a tough task for trains in the 10-15,000 ton range.
Along with the loaded coal trains headed over the hill, coal empties must
come west, and several other non-coal trains visit the line, including
a couple intermodal trains and manifests. All of this action adds up to
a great railfan location for anyone who loves coal trains, SD70MAC's, and
good old SD40-2's shoving trains over the hill.