While out for the work weekend the fellows I stay with decided we should take an early morning trip out to Coles to answer a nagging question. The question in debate was weather or not the EBT used a taller rail on the out side of Mule Shoe Curve to super elevate it. This was the legend anyway. Since Coles tank is just at the beginning of the curve this would also be a highlight of the trip. It was hard for me to get sleep that Saturday night due to the excitement and anticipation that filled me knowing what was coming in the morning.
I took this shot to illustrate the poor condition of the batten strips.
This shot shows the frog of the switch at the end of Coles siding. The Thank House can just be made out in the distance. The neat thing in this photo is the frog. Notice there is no flange way to the right. That’s because it’s a sprung frog. the EBT used a lot of these on their sidings. Very cool.
By now I know some of you are sitting on your couches yelling “yeah, but what about the rail size on the curve?! " OK, OK, we found a point well into the curve and dug down in the leaves to find the foot of the rail on each side. There was about an 1/8” of difference in the two, and this was just due to rail wear. Myth debunked, any super elevation was achieved by grading not different rail size.
