What does this mean?

[NDORFN]

On the climb out of Lenoir on my route, there is a 2.7% grade and with 30 car log train with 2 GP38-2's hauling requires notch 8 for about 2 minutes to get up to speed, which puts the load gauge into the red. I thought this was a big no no but I noticed some markings...

Load gauge.jpg

Where it says "MINUTES-Something?/accumulative" would that be minutes that it's safe to run in the indicated marks?

[GaryG]

Yes, that's exactly what that means. Sixty minutes maximum time allowable at that particular load and then power must be decreased to below the red line, probably for a specified length of time to allow cooling of the traction motors.

GaryG

[NDORFN]

Thanks Gary

[Machinist]

Once upon a time, on the year 2006 or 2007, there was a demo trainsim called "Spur Simulator" in which the very well designed Diesel (the graphics were the best I've seen ever, at that time, but still awesome now a days) had a functional overload safety feature, i.e., if you was running on red line, say over 10 secs or more, the engine power was cutted (emergency brakes aplied also), so engineer was obligued to come to a full stop before he could restart engine and proceed.