Been looking for diagrams for Retro-reflective Markings on Rail Cars/Engines and have seen some but was way to small and not on the Gov. site. As I have search the Gov. site seems they don’t want you to find anything but the written BS and all I wanted was the diagrams. Any one know about them? Would help greatly.
Toad
I think it’s less about diagrams and more about area (square inches/feet). I’ve seen cars with strips of tape oriented both horizontally and vertically.
Go to the Government Printing Office website, get either the Code of Federal Regulations version of the relflectorization rule (right off the top of my head, I dont remember the CFR “part” that it’s in), or get the Federal Register publication of the the FRA final reflectorization rule. The, download it in PDF format (PDF is essential - otherwise the drawings won’t reproduce)…
Here’s the Canadian Version, which I believe cites the CFR. Gotta believe they are pretty much identical.
I didn’t bother looking any further.
That one to is no diagram. I give up. Thanks guys.
Toad
Toad - There are no diagrams because there is no standard as such.
In order to comply with the rule I linked to (and I imagine the US rules are identical), a 50 foot car must have at least 4 square feet (8 each 4"x18" strips) of yellow or 5 square feet (10 strips) of white retroreflective tape per side of the car.
The requirements for placement on the car are as follows:
[quote]
Retroreflective sheeting shall be applied along the length of each freight car and locomotive side. Retroreflective sheeting shall be applied in strips 4 inches wide and 18 or 36 inches long, unless otherwise specified. The amount of retroreflective sheeting to be applied to each car or locomotive is dependent on the length of the freight car or locomotive and the colour of the sheeting.
For the purposes of these Rules, the length of a freight car or locomotive is measured from end sill to end sill. Each side of a freight car, including each unit of multi-unit cars, and each side of a locomotive must be equipped with at least the minimum amount of retroreflective sheeting specified in Table 2.
Retroreflective sheeting applied must be l
This item will be of no help to Toad, but it illustrates the value of reflective tape on cars. One night, about 1964, I was driving from Brookhaven, Miss., to Wesson, Miss., on the old highway. As I approached the Mississippi Central crossing (unprotected), if there had not been tape along the bottom of the woodracks, I would have run into the train that was moving on the track.
This is totally unrelated–about the same year, I was driving from Hattiesburg to Wesson at night, and passed through a county that did not have a stock law (local option: some counties did and some did not), and saw something dark in the road ahead. By the time I got to the mule, it was off the highway. I still feel relief when I think about this.