Rudolph hill

Aerial picture of Rudolph, Wisconsin, looking North.

Somewhere here is the ? start ? of the ruling grade on the entire Valley line.
Northbound between here and Junction City.
Not steep, near 1% ?. ? . . It's the length of the grade that makes it ruling.
And it has caught some engineers without enough speed or power to get to Junction City.

I've heard a story from the days of the new AC units on coal trains.
One unit made trouble and wouldn't load, and the remaining unit wasn't enough.
So out went a call to Wisconsin Rapids (six miles away) to send for an engine for a push.
Along came a little WC gp 9, and they made it.

? this grade has caught trains with 3 fully working units?
If they don't keep moving at speed, they stall.

There's only a main line track through town.
The long gray building to the right / east / of the track was a farm feed mill
The Rudolph Grotto is in the trees between the church and tracks.
I looked on the map website
http://terraserver-usa.com/
and they have a 1984 map showing just the main line, no house track nor spurs.
I can imagine where they should be.
This was Milwaukee Road track for a long time, until WC took over.
Could use sunshine and always more time, and a train would have been nice.
A warm front just went through. 45 degrees F.
The next day it snowed and temps went into the single digits.

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wrote Feb 27; 2009