DIESEL-ELECTRIC locomotives have demonstrated their worth so well in freight and passenger service on the Southern that it is hardly news any longer to discuss the extension of their use into additional operating territories. But when the Southern began, on May 25, 1949, to operate freight traIns over Saluda Mountain with four.unit Diesels on the head end our railroad made Dews.

Here was no mere extension of Diesel usage--this was tackling one of the hardest tests in railroading. With the roar of Diesel engines working at full capacity as trains wound their way around the curves going up grade, and with the whine of traction motors with their electrical fields reversed to convert them into generators operating as dynamic brakes on the downgrade, these locomotives proved that the toughest job on the Southern-one of the toughest on any railroad-was well within their capacity. And, railroading on Saluda Mountain was safer.

Southern railroaders on the Asheville division respect Saluda Mountain and there isn't an engineer, fireman, conductor or brakeman on the division foolhardy enough to take chances on this 4.7 per cent grade that is the steepest piece of main line railroad in the country.

This section of the Asheville-Spartanburg line of the Southern has a long history of tough railroading behind it-it was difficult to build and it has always furnished problems to operating men interested in getting maxi- mum tonnage trains up and down the mountain. As the years have passed since it was first opened to traffic this line has seen the progressive increase in safety that has followed the adoption of improved mechanical equipment, brake systems and signal systems. It has also seen the growth of American railroading practices from the time when the first train - an engine and a single passenger car ( with three small freight cars if the weather was good)-opened service on the line until today when almost any single passenger car or loaded freight car weighs more than the entire original train.

These pioneer railroaders in the mountains of Western North Carolina started to operate this train in 1879 over what was then the Spartanburg and Asheville Railroad which had been built to assure South Carolina of direct railroad connections with the whole region west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. North Carolina had" already built its own railroad into Asheville--the Western North Carolina, now a part of the Southern-but cooperated with this South Carolina venture in order to help the Asheville area obtain another outlet toward the eastern seaboard. The Western North Carolina was completed into Asheville in 1879, the Spartanburg and Asheville reached Hendersonville in that year and was completed to a connection with the Western North Carolina at Biltmore, near Asheville, in 1885.

Just about halfway between Spartanburg and Biltmore was the natural obstacle which Captain Charles W. Pearson, once of the Confederate Army, conquered with the laying of rails between Melrose and Saluda. Here the eastern face of the Blue Ridge offered no easy passage, the railroad had to go "straight up." Melrose has an elevation of 1494.0 feet above sea level; Saluda is 2099.0 feet above sea level-this vertical rise of 605 feet is made over. three line-miles of railroad. Reverse the figures and you have a drop of 605 feet in elevation between Saluda and Melrose--either way, you haven't easy railroading.

Today, a four-unit freight Diesel can take 1500 tons up Saluda without help; using a Santa Fe type steam locomotive as a helper, Diesel trains handle 2000 tons over the mountain. A helper engine is kept at Melrose to assist passenger trains all of which are still using steam power on this section of the railroad; naturally, it is used to move that extra tonnage of the South's commerce in the interests of the speed and efficiency which our customers expect-and get-from the Southern. These freight trains go over Saluda at an average speed of 10.5 miles per hour; two Santa Fe's used to huff and puff to get half the tonnage up the grade at six: or seven miles per hour.

The tonnage downgrade is limited to about 4500 tons and strict operating rules have always been enforced on the handling of trains down this steep grade. There have been occasions when trains got out of control but none in recent years, even before the advent of Diesels. But Diesels have added still more to help in the safe handling of trains on the mountain. Actually, the dynamic brakes with which they are equipped serve to convert a runaway force -the free rolling of this tremendous piece of motive power-into braking force that controls the speed of "movement of the locomotive and its train. Of course, retainers are still set up at Saluda to hold air in the brake pipes and keep brake shoes in place against the tread of car wheels and the automatic brake is used in addition to maintain a constant speed of 10 miles per hour on the downgrade--the Diesel's dynamic brake is just one more "plus factor" adding to efficiency and safety. Getting tonnage over the road is a Diesel's job-Diesels do that job as they travel down Saluda with 4500 tons behind them.

Riding in an engine 'cab on a train going down Saluda -with 4500 tons behind the locomotive and a steep grade dropping away in front of you- you wonder what the pioneer railroaders would have thought of the visionary who dared predict such a thing as possible and safe.

Today's railroader on the Southern could tell the old- timers that it has happened because the Southern is still operating in the old tradition that led to building the Asheville and Spartanburg line--that to keep open the ways of commerce and furnish cheap transportation is to promote American progress. Diesels on Saluda provide additional evidence that the Southern is maintaining its leadership in progress.