My layout requires 8 bumpers in various sections of the layout. I have a couple of Tomar bumping pads. I was wondering what everyone else uses where they need a bumper installed. Do you purchase them, make your own, or just leave the track end… If you make your own what do you use at the end of the track. I have seen, ties stacked up, junk piled at the end of the track and even just a pile of dirt. Looking for some ideas instead of the standard bumper.
I have a fairly large number of the Tomar Industries bumping posts on my layout, and I really like them for their realistic look. They are metal and very prototypical. But, they are relatively expensive at $5 a post.
Recently, when I needed 10 more bumping posts for the stub ended tracks in my passenger train station, I bought a package of 12 plastic bumping posts from Walthers. They cost less than $1 a post.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3511
I painted them brown to match the ties on my Code 83 track ties. I painted the “metal” parts (actually plastic) gold to look like the rails. They look great. They fit inside the rails so, unlike the Tomar metal bumping posts that need to be insulated on both rails to prevent shorts, you simply need to glue the Walthers bumping posts on the ends of the tracks.
Rich
I also use the Walthers posts. I paint mine flat black or rust, and then add weathering to them with powders.
I’ll be adding a scrapyard at some point, and that will probably have a pile of railroad ties, or maybe just a pile of dirt at the end. Since the yard will be adjacent to a swamp, I may even run the track down into the water a bit, indicating that the beavers have been more industrious than the scrapyard owner.
I used scrap stripwood in scale left over from a trestle construction project. I gathered the grit from the eves-troughs of my house, the roof of which is covered with asphalt shingles. I filled the void behind the various ‘timbers’ with the grit after I stained all the timbers to look like they had been creosoted,
It was a fun project,
Crandell
The Walthers bumping posts are a very good product for the price.
In the real world, I have seen piles of dirt, upright pieces of old rail in an X pattern, or piles of old crossties used at the end of sidings.
Articles on EOT bumpers in RMC, MRR, MT, and a few others hae shown mayn different types of bumpers besides the Hayes. There’s the Budda wheel stops, that look like sheet metal stops, there have been pictures of bumpers that look like the classic Atlas Snap bumper. I’ve seen bumpers that consisted of a pair of ties with an end imbeded under one rail and crossing over the adjacent rail. Ive seen a single tie laid acrossthe rail end and bolted to a tie underneath it. And then there are tie cribs, sometimes with a metal plate at the level of a car mounted coupler to protect the ties, and sometimes the tie crib might be backfilled with gravel ballast.
Probably the less used the siding, the cheaper and less solid the bumper.
With the Walthers I already have, will use: sand pile, very large boulder, tie pile, vertical rock face at spur end and large poured concrete bumper. Also getting some Peco HO track bumpers, as they look different & Cool! My 2 cents…Old Tom aka papasmurf in NH
One of my favorite and fairly cheap ways is two finishing nails, painted black, and a scale 4 x 12 glued across them.
ratled
When I saw the thread I was thinking it would be about bumping a post in the forums [:-^]
For trains I use the walthers posts.
Bumping posts (or equivalent) are somewhat situation-specific.
- Those Tomar and Walthers bumping posts are normal for short, somewhat busy spurs.
- A tie chained to the rails, or ties Xed under the rails, could be found on little-used spurs.
- I have seen concrete bumping blocks as massive as loading docks at the end of stub platform tracks at a passenger terminal.
- A length of track, remnant of an abandoned mainline, got about two dump trucks worth of ballast in a heap over the ends of the rails. (Amarillo, TX)
- 10mm thick sheet metal wheel stops were welded to the rails at the end of a single-ended interchange track.
- A solid timber structure, something like a low trestle bent, was used where a track ended at the sidewalk of a busy street.
Most of the above can be `build in place’ scratchbuilding projects.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
We can’t forget the old piece of rail driven into the ground to just above coupler height with a stiff leg off the back of more old rail.
Then again I have seen just rail ends and no stops at all on stubs. I watched a crew shove a cut of cars into a stub siding and bump a car that was already there. The hand brake was not set and the car rolled slowly the thirty to forty feet to the end and dropped off the rails. Just one truck dropped and the crew were yelling at each other. I thought it best to leave the area. It was like a slow motion movie that I will never forget. I was yelling and pointing and then the ground man realized what was happening but it was too late. He never would have caught it in time.
Pete
I’ve mentioned this before, but the steel frame track bumper (like the kind the Walthers’ kit represents) seem to last long after the siding/spur is removed/paved over/buried in the mud - I’ve know of at least 6 or so off the of my head both in NY & in Philly (lots more I can’t recall), including one in Frankford (NorthEast Philly) near the Home Depot on Aramingo Ave. that sticks halfway out of a corrugated metal fence onto the sidewalk. This seems a easy way to model a long abandoned spur on a modern era layout - paint, weather and glue a track bumper to the layout, then run a line of grass/weeds (or asphalt lot, with two creases to represent the paved over track) along the ‘former’ siding’s ROW.
The two I just made were formed from scrap pink foam. One was shaped as a pile of dirt and has bushes growing on it. The other I cut the front verticle and attached ties, made from balsa or basswood, stacked high enough so the coupler hits the top tie. Again it has bushes growing around it On the bottom of both of them I carved out enough foam so that they sat down over the rails.
Have fun,
Richard
Are the Walther’s bumping posts strong enough to stop a locomotive (HO)? With the occasional DCC runaway I was wondering.
There was an old thread about making them stronger…with a styrene strip I believe. Any other unobtrusive modifications like track nails, etc. just forward of the Walther’s posts that are recommended?
I bought a set but have my doubts now that I see them. The Tomars seemed awful spendy for the number I need, but now I’m thinking the Walthers versions might not cut it for anything beyond gentle rolling stock bumps and might not keep a loco from hitting the floor?
I’ve used Custom Finishing’s Buda wheel stops (Walthers #247-171). Nice casting and looks just like the real ones. I painted ours with Model Masters International Orange (Walthers #704-2022)
You can see them in use on these military sidings on our layout below:
Just a suggestion to tide you over and allow you to operate while you decide what to use, or while you are trying to purchase enough bumpers for all your spurs. I think it was from a mid 1950s Model Trains, kind of a more tinplate-oriented sister of Model Railroader. The suggestion was, for a temporary bumper, drive a couple small nails into the foundation a bit to the outside of both sides of the spur, then stretch rubber bands between them, at a height to catch any car. When you have the type bumper available that you want, pull the nails out, install the bumper, and consider patching the small holes. Or, if the area hasn’t been sceniced yet, cover the holes with scenery.
I have some Peco ones tht I bought in the UK, where they are very inexpensive. I painted and weathered them, put a good thick coating of glue on top and added gravel, they look nice. I’ve scratchbuilt something similar using scrap stripwood around a small block of scrap wood.
Capt. G.
The Walthers would probably break if hit full steam with a loco. The bigger picture is to fix the run away problem before either a loco hits the floor or something is damaged beyond repair. Setting CV29 to disable DC usually eliminates 99% of unwanted movement. Also limiting momentum until your operators are used to the throttles solves the other 1%.
The Walthers bumpers are fairly durable for being plastic. I use them on my modules but mine are not fastened down. You could put a nail under it that will stop anything trying to roll through. Hidden with weeds and scenery.
Pete
chutton01, are you from Philly, if so, what section?
Found alternative to buying a track bumper. I like this gentlemen’s bumpstop design. With a little redesign, some square stock brass tubing. One should be able to make some really nice looking bumpstops.