Engineers view

Looking down, way down, some 60 feet of boiler on a Baltimore and Ohio EM1. The hogger keeps an eye on the mainline as two other trains fight against gravity to control their speed. The engineer is giving all the steam engine can take as they takle the grueling 17 mile grade.

17 mile grade is one of the worse mainline mountain railroads in the USA with grades topping 2.3%...or otherwise, damn steep to be running coal trains. It is located on the West End between Grafton, WV and Cumberland, MD.

Motorcyclists brag about feeling the power in the seat of your pants but the feel from a steam engine would make a motorcyle be nothing but a small vibration. I find it interesting that the fact that steam engineers could tell what their engine was doing by the feel in their seat.