This siding was recently put in near where my kids take golf lessons. I asked the boss of the crew that was putting in the new siding, why the guard rails on the siding? He said it was so a derailment would not take out the four lane highway bridge above. The main track was far enough away that it was not required. I thought this was another little detail that could be added to a MRR.
Does anyone have other examples of guard rail placements in places the modeler might not think of putting them?
On the Durango & Silverton narrow gauge tourist railroad in Colorado there are guard rails on the high line where there is a precipitous 400-foot drop off into the Anamas River.
Brent,
Watch the movie, ‘’ The Bridge on the River Kwai’’ and you will see guard rails on the inside curve’s of the narrow gauge railway in Burma. Common place on railroads in that country and also others.
Frank
Here is the “movie” version of the bridge. I wonder if the real one had guard rails in 1943.
In the spirit of Rio Grande tracklaying, on my Cascade Branch I’ve added a “good idea” guard rail. It’s on a 22" curve, 2.5% apprach to the bridge over Lime Gulch. The bridge itself is also on a curve and grade. And it is about a 500’ scale drop to the floor if things go pear-shaped.
So I decided a little insurance is in order before disaster happens. It’s an extension of the bridge guardrail on the inside rail of the curve only.
Southern Pacific had double guard rails on the trackage climbing out of the Sacramento River Canyon on their Shasta Division trackage, because of sheer cliffs. I’ve put the same thing on my Yuba River Sub for the same reason. Main line is double-guard railed, house track has none.
Tom
Guard rails are seen all ofver the NYCT elevated lines. Even the guard rails have guard rails!
It makes for some very interesting trackwork. LION will have more on that as he builds a gnu section for ewe to sea.
We’ll be checking to make sure you paint the yellow bits on the ends properly.[swg]
Was just browsing some more pics in the Barriger collection:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/barrigerlibrary
On the D&SL west of Denver there are lots of tunnels. At least back in those days, these tunnels seem to have guardrails in place in many locations on curves. So there’s another place for them.
Sort of on the same topic, near where I live they have concrete barriers at interstate over passes that would take the brunt of a derailment…rather than the overpass piers themselves
They are sorta sloped to deflect the train car(s) back towards the right of way & away from the piers