Is there a prototype bumper that looks like this?
Seems all I’ve noticed around here are bumpers made of bent up rails.
For those of you who use these Atlas bumpers, what do you all place on the square block immediately behind the bumper? A red light?
Thanks.
Looks fine if you take out the part behind the bumper.
I think the only place you’d have found a bumper like the Atlas model is at the end of the tracks inside a passenger terminal; but even then, I’d cut off the back part because they weren’t that long.
It would also probably need to be weathered to look rusty.
I think I read here that the Atlas bumper prototype is at Union Station in Chicago.
I like these better:
They are Walthers. They come in a package of 12 for about 10 bucks. As sold, they are black plastic, but they take paint and weathering very well.
Hi jambam
I don’t know if there is an actual prototype for it ( the Atlas one ) but it is very much what I would expect at the end of the line in a major passenger terminal.
It can be improved no end by painting the base and block a concrete colour the steel work Humbrol signal red including the buffing surface at the front they don’t get hit very often
The driver has too much explaining to do if he hits it.
I would also make a red light that looks like a single crossing flash light minus back ground and hood and put that on the back block and have that constantly lit as there should be a red light on it
Bent rail and timber buffer stops even piles of dirt where to be found in yards
The expensive flash looking ones are very much a feature of the big city and major passenger terminals
My guess is the big hole at the back is meant to be where you fix it solidly to the base board but by the time it is track pinned and ballasted it will not be going any where
regards John
Seems to me that hole was intended for a (unprototypically-large) red light bulb, in a former version of the bumper.
I thought so too. I looked around and didn’t see illuminated bumpers in the Atlas catalog any more, though. Life-Like made something similar.
Re the hollow “post” at the rear, IIRC at one time you could buy a version of the bumper with a red light which was mounted on top of the “post”, it took power from the track or I think there was a way to hook it up to a separate circuit.
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saw something like that at Waterfront station (Vancouver). there was a stack of ties with alot of dirt behind it, looked strong too. i think it was because the West Coast Express is only a few tracks away. pretty effective just in case a runaway occurs.
A runaway will wipe that bumper out, the stuff behind it and whatever is ahead of the object.
Witness the GG1 that fell into the basement after a runaway in our history.
If you’ve seen this bumper with the light in it, the light in scale size would be about the size of a VW Bug. I found a kit for them, that while are kind of a pain to put together (small parts), but they look great when assembled, painted and weathered. These are from Creative Model Associates, part no. 1005, and are listed as “track stops”.
Thanks for good info all. Anyone have any pics of one of those Atlas “stops” dressed up and/or weathered as suggested above? I do like those other ones better though.
Thanks again.
Our HO scale club used to have some of the Atlas track bumpers with light bulbs in them. The bulbs were red, had a screw base, and were about the size of a flashlight bulb. Horribly oversized. A real bulb sized proportionally would be like those found in a lighthouse.
One of my early HO layouts (1966) had a couple of those Atlas bumpers. They had red lights in them that would light up when the turnout was open to the spur the bumper was on. I now use the bumpers available from Bachmann. They’re similar to the Tomar bumpers.
Also wheel stops look good and are much cheaper from Tomar or Sequioa.
I have a letter from the Hobby Shop indicating that Walthers cancelled all back orders and stopped taking orders for Sequioa wheel stops. I dont think you will be able to get them from Sequioa.
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Here’s a photo of the old and the new at Boston’s South Station, Feb 04.
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