SMOKIN on Fancy Gap

I have said the same thing elsewhere in this forum. There are many that are worse than Fancy. That being said, it's still a grade that deserves the utmost of respect. Not to take things off topic too much, but just in the area around my home, I see drivers smoking brakes. One particular grade is the Blue Mountain on PA309 heading toward Allentown. It's not real bad, but I've seen many a truck smoke 'em coming down that one.

 

Good advice here...They are ALL deserving of the utmost respect...My reasoning for that is while they may or may not be too hard to come down with just a little jake and foot valve, its what you have left to stop with when you DO get to the bottom of the grade. If you heat your brakes up and run into an emergency situation at the bottom (read accident, school bus stopped loading or un-loading, turning vehicle on a 2-lane etc ) then you have serious problems...Like always USE COMMON sense and take nothing for granted...expect the UNEXPECTED.....BE prepared!

 

I remember those days....It was a slow crawl down 52 in a cabover with no jakes.

I about ate a Smith Transport the other week coming down the gap.He was doing about 20 mph and scared to death.
I had a truck in the hammer lane next to me and almost could not get slowed up before hitting Smith in the rear when i came around the curve.The truck behind me almost wrecked!

I come down it all the time grossing near 80k....no need to go that slow...
Drop one gear and let the jake do its thing.
At the 2 yard stick you can let it roll...

 

Too many new drivers out here actually soloing today, have never been on a hill or mountain pass with a trainer and have not been shown how a hill can be descended. So, they hit their first hill and all they know is the horror stories they heard in CDL school, so they play it "a bit too safe". Not sure what's worse, being too scared and too "safe" or being fearless and not giving the hill and equipment any respect?

But to make it worse for new drivers ... every grade is different. Also, for any driver, experienced or not, not having driven the grade before [heavy], this may cause him/her to be a bit over-cautious and piss off the drivers who run that grade every week/day.

 

Throw in the heavy fog that sometimes hits really thick around the 7 yard stick and it is a newbies nightmare!

I have run that mountain since the 80's and it can be clear at the top then a sudden white out with snow,fog and freezing mist.
It can have a high pucker factor no matter how many times you drive it....lol!

 

So, what about these small towns in PA with steep grades and 'no engine brake' restrictions?

 

There's some hilariously steep downgrades in PA. Like 10%+. I ran all the big hills out west but never had the crap scared out of me till I met PA-54!

 

Like always USE COMMON sense and take nothing for granted...expect the UNEXPECTED.....BE prepared!....................................... windsmith, if you aren't too familiar with the area you're in and you start off of a grade and there is a restriction just use Common sense and slow down...steady even pressure on the foot valve ( no fanning ). If you had a hard steep climb to the top of the grade , then a good rule of thumb is to start down the other side in the same gear.....like I said take it slow and careful..refer back to my statement at the beginning.