Re: Tender slope toward the front, worth it by design?

I recall a time when a 3-engine passenger train stalled just upgrade from Coxo Crossing. The locomotives were up grade, the 31 car train was still fouling the crossing. The middle engine, 487 was out of water. the engineer told me he had a foot of water in the tender and didn't understand why the injector would not prime.

I had to explain to him the physics of the front of the tender being a foot higher than the back and if he had a foot of water in the back on the tender where he was looking down through the hatch, that there was exactly ZERO water in the front where the water connection was. They managed to get started and run to Coxo where the brakes were tied down on all 31 cars. The other two locomotives then hauled 487 dead up to Cumbres where they filled all the tenders. All backed down seperately. Back at Coxo, all the hand brakes were released, and air test performed and off they went, 2 hours and 30 minutes late. All because one engineer thought he could make it all the way on one tank of water. BTW he told me he had 1/3 of a tank at Cresco. He figured if it took 2/3 of tank to make it halfway up the hill, he could make the last half on the remaining 1/3 (he could never explain his math to me).