grade

Yes Sparks it is alot, but if the engines you have will pull the amount of cars you want them to up the grade and you like it that's really all that counts. In real life usually only logging or mining railroads would normally have grades that steep. Most model railroads try to stay at 4% or less for ease and reliablity of operation (2.5% is the preffered choice of a lot). The way to figure the grade is 1" in 100" is 1%, so a 1" in 50" rise is 2%. The scale doesn't matter as a grade is a grade. Hope this helps to shed some light on the matter! :)
 
This is a spur that is going to a mine some day It will run the little six 0-6-0 with 3 3" long d&rgw hopper cars. Which I have to find the hopper cars.
 
Sparks - You should be OK, then, if your spur is not too long. Even in the prototype, when it comes to spurs, it's pretty much "whatever it takes to get there". Moving a few cars up a 7% spur is nothing compared to hauling 40-50 cars up a 4% mainline!
 
Grade vs. angles

So a 100% grade would be straight up and down? 50% grade a 45 degree angle? 4% grade would be a 3.6 degree angle?

When I build my first railroad, it's going to have a loop in it. Just like my hot wheels set when I was a kid.
 
Hhhmmm....I wonder how you'd calculate the grade on that ????

PS - a 45-degree angle is 100% (5rise/5run) . . . . . a 90-degree angle would be undefined (5rise/0run). I'd check your 3.6-degree, but that would require me doing some geometry, which it's too hot to do today (my max temp for attempting geometry is 30Celsius).
 
Actually, 90 degrees is an infinite grade (5 / 0 = infinity). Philosophically, that is.
I think 3.6 degrees is 2.06% (sine of 3.6, right?)
 
Upper School Trigonometry

Actually we're talking Tangent here.
For reasonable grades, Tan and Sin are indistinguishable (i.e. the difference is less than my carpentry) but by 90degrees, sin is 1 but tan is undefined (a.k.a. infinity).
 
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