I have been watching an industrial spur being rehabbed to allow unloading hopper cars. As part of the work, the contractor placed a dump truck load of dirt at the end of the spur to serve as a bumper. Years ago, I saw a similar “pile of dirt” bumper fail as a heavily loaded tank car pushed an empty stock car through the pile of dirt. You know that a 40 foot stock car effectively blocks a 40 foot street!
Does anyone know what current requirements are for end of track bumpers?
dd
If you are asking what laws or regulations are in effect the answer is probably none. The only place I have seen bumpers like steel posts and concrete abutments is in and arornd stations and major cities. I suspect in those cases it is more for image than anything else. A GG1 (4876) crashed through the bumper in DC around 1952 and would up in the basement so they aren’t any better than dirt at anything above about five miles an hour. Dirt is a lot cheaper.
From what I understand, if a train hits a bumper at any kind of sped or power it is just going to keep going. Happened at a local terminal a while back, so i’ve been told, and they have a whole concrete platform in back. I think a derail is preferred in many cases on sidings.
Maybe the SOUNDS of a bumper being torn apart, and a car going away from the track at an odd angle are a hint for the engineer to put down his sandwich, and quit shoving?
also refered to as “sonic spotting”.
dd
Railroads use to (and probably still do) maintain books of standard structures including end of track bumpers/devices for their lines. You can buy reprints for many popular railroads - I have one for PRR.
Enjoy
Paul
…For stub end industrial, business tracks one might consider a “dump truck load of dirt” and then…the typical angled steel bracing fastened to the track that forms kind of a triangle. The dirt would absorb most of the energy and then the angled steel “end of track” bumper would do the final stop.
PS: I note here in town an “end of track bumper” still in place and no railroad even exists there anymore…Must be a short piece of track covered with ground that still keeps the “bumper” in place. Building is angled in it’s position from the street position that gives it away it once had a rail siding into it.
I have seen two old ties partialy sunk into the ground, forming an “X” of sorts used as a bumper. I use thse on my garden railway.
In North Fond du Lac, they have two railroad ties stacked on top of each other and “strapped” to the rail with lengths of cable. A large red square sign was placed on each “bumper” to mark the end of the track.
I have seen the dirt piles as well here in Northeast Wisconsin. I guess, whatever works.
Ties or rail strapped to the end of track is common on industrial spurs. These will derail the car so it will not go very far. I have also seen piles of dirt, rock or Hayes bumpers placed at the end of track. As stated above if the car is going fast (i.e. the car was switched while on the move) it can go through the piles of rock or dirt and keep on going.
(1) I have seen two old ties partialy sunk into the ground, forming an “X” of sorts used as a bumper. I use thse on my garden railway.-GP-9 Man11786
-BNSF will not allow this on their railroad, not in their standard plans and cause of a fatality on ATSF in 1986 at Hugoton, KS that resulted in a stupid huge lawsuit.
(2) The old Buda and Hayes type WK and WH bumpers, properly installed with guardrails and square joint ahead of the bumper will rip the trucks out from underneath a railcar by design. At $1400 a pop, they are too expensive to replace when operating crews ram them constantly (the idea is to shove up to them and not touch - EdB, Mark H, LC, the aussies and I explained this in detail once before, look up blind shoves, nobody protecting the point during a shove …as a roadmaster in LA and Colorado, I replaced lots of them and lots of train crews had unpaid vacations, justly deserved, due to repeated encounters with them)…Dirt piles are cheaper, but more unpredictable. Also, getting industries to pay for and replace track bumpers/ wheel stops damaged by their ignorance is worse than pulling teeth.[grain elevator operators can be absolute boneheads in this regard)
(3) Wheel stops (at $600 a set) use the rail and/or ties as a buffer to push against , using the friction on the railor the ties to stop a car that has gone too far. Prone to failure by wishbone action, less effective than a pile of dirt or a track bumper.
(4) There are hydraulic track bumpers for use in special applications that will stop a cut of cars at 10 mph, but they cost more than a good used locomotive. (anyone in LA can look at the red line’s holding yards at 1st Street and see some $350,000 examples or some $380,00 examples on the ends of Denver’s light rail lines…Those big yellow sawhorses at Mineral Avenue & Santa Fe are the easiest to find)
FRA and OSHA rules reguarding track bumpers are very generic. These pieces of OTM have to work as in
The “end of track” “bumpers” in one area where I work will likely stop all but the largest, heaviest car, and that will suffer greatly…
The 5 or 6 yard tracks end at a loading ramp. Not just your normal loading ramp, but a large, concrete paved area at road level. The tracks slant down to the decks of flatcars are level with the ramp surface.
I suspect most cars would stop right there…
A track beside the shop at my local museum has wheel stops and, just for added safety and clarity, a sign on a post which reads “End of Track.” I’ll post a picture if anyone wants to see (or knows how for that matter).
Have they seen the Welded or Bolted Rail Section Bumpers?
The Harborlite Silica Plant on East W Avenue in Kalamazoo County, Michigan has a spur with a Rail Section Bumper.
ATLAS O makes a model of these bumpers.
Andrew