I’m modeling the year 1956. I’m tring to find info on hiway guard rails. It’s the ones that were round wood posts with steel cables. What was the diameter of the posts. Also how tall were they?
railrder,
First off, [#welcome] to the forum! Good to have you aboard! [:)]
I can’t help you on the guard rail. But I would guess that the diameter of the posts would probably be similar to the diameter of a telephone pole - about 12". (That would be slightly larger than 1/8" in HO and less than 3/32" in N scales.) Wood rod cut to length in those diameters for those scales should be close enough to look good.
Tom
Tom,
It’s a long while ago, but I think where I lived the posts were a lesser diameter. Take a guess at 8" or 9". Of course there was a bit of variation. As for height, I would again guess at 3’6" above road height.
A lot of the ones I saw in mountainous areas used heavy gauge wire netting between the hairpin posts.
All that info is highly unreliable, based on a poor and failing memory. No responsibility accepted in defence of any case brought to court by the prototype police.[;)]
John,
After thinking about it a bit, 8 - 9" does seems more right to me than my initial response. [
] I think your “poor and failing memory” is just fine. [:)] Huh? Uh, oh…I think I hear the prototype police banging at my door right now for giving out “falsifying information”…[(-D]
Tom
Here’s a link to another style used on major and secondary roads. Rather than wooden posts, they were kind of a steel I-beam connected by steel cables. Instead of careening off them like you would with a modern style guard rail, your car got peeled back like a sardine can.
http://www.gribblenation.com/breezewood/patpk-westco-symons1980-1.jpg
If memory serves me, they were used extensively in the 50’s.
I was learning how to drive in the mid fifties, and as I recall, the posts would be about 8" in diameter and usually came to just below the car windows. I guess that would make them somewhere in the neibourhood of 42" to48" high. The cables ran through them at about 8" from the top and at about the mid point between the top and the ground.
At least that is how I remember them up in Cottage Country in Ontario, Canada.
Blue Flamer.
Tom
Too late they have been called
What I would call a shish ka Sabb
In 1956, and probably even later, (I moved from CT that year) the rural highways almost all had the black and white post type guard rails strung with cable. The bottoms were painted black as I recall (may have been creosote) and the tops white. There were two heavy cables affixed to the front of the post with a U-bolt type of hardware.
I wouldn’t try to model them with less than 1/8th dowel or they would probably be too flimsy. 3/32 would be about 8 inches HO scale so you might give that a test. A heavy braided thread painted greyish aluminum (they were galvanized) would look right. Be sure to sag it a little between posts.
I will be making miles of them on my Shore Line model of the New Haven.
You’ll be glad to know that they did not “peel your car back like a sardine can”. I know, because I ran into a bunch of them on a curve driving late at night from Bridgeport to New Haven on the Boston Post Road. Totalled the right front fender though.
Don,
Those guys look kinda scary mate. I will take more care with what I am doing. Don’t want a visit from those guys.[:-^]
If I remember correctly the posts were square 8x8 with tops cut to a 45 degree angle to shead the rain. They were usually less than 4 feet high and had two braided cables held in place by a U-bolt. The cables were not tight but sagged between the posts. The posts were white and the bottoms were painted with tar. You could sit and swing on them but they were lower than a normal size chair.
Doc
The ones I remember were round and about 30 inchees high and 8 to 10 inches in diameter. White on the exposed post and coated with tar on bottom. They also had those neat 1 inch cateye reflectors on them and two cables. Jim
I’m trying to find out how you make the hiway guard rails? Either way is helpful… the post with the wire between or the solid ones. Thanks
Did anybody else notice the presumably more modern formed-beam style along the median island, in that picture? Interesting that two different styles would be on the same piece of highway…
- Gerhard
I started driving in the mid-fifties also and I have to say that the various descriptions all seem “right.” Although I didn’t take note at the time, there were more than likely variations according to the state and/or county road department that installed them. Unless you are set on modeling a road “exactly” as it was, I’d say pick a design that you like and looks good on your layout. If it looks right, it is.
Here’s a link to a drawing of circa 1971 wood post and cable guardrail. The drawing calls for a minimum 4-1/8 inch and a maximum 5-1/2 inch diameter at the “small end”.
1956 the year I graduated from high school [D)]. I well remember those guard rail and I would say that 8-9" diamenter is right and would say they were about 36" high. From what I was told the idea was that if you went off the road the cable would wrap around the axile to stop you. I don’t believe that because a friend of nine was coming down a hill and took four of them out. Rather than to pay to have them installed, he and a couple of us went and put the post back in the holes. The cable didn’t break.[:-^]
I used the round poles as stated but I play guitar and steel guitar. I use my old guitar strings that are wound strings for cables, with a little rust paint works great and a little push gives them the sagging look, check your friends that play guitars and try it out. have fun. gondola1988
They were still in use on the Mass Turnpike Summer of '74. I created the first personal 60 MPH monorail one night riding the wire from post to post. It did peel the chassis of my then 6 month old car like a sardine can (the cabin was still pretty intact). The killer was getting the $617 bill from the Mass Turnpike Authority for repairing their guard rail.
Ah, to be young and stupid again.
Fred W
Hello Railrder
If you own, or can get a look at East Broad Top: To the Mines and Back, by Grenard and Kramer, there are three photos that may help:
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Page 36 gives you some idea of the way the cables were attached to the poles,
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page 40 gives you a look at the end guy and
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page 45 will help you with the amount of sag in the cables.
My information is from Western Pennsylvania where I grew up and, allowing for memory lapses, here is a bit of information as I remember it:
The posts were between 10" and 12" in diameter. They were maybe 24" to 30" high, certainly less than 36". The tops were painted white, cut at an angle as shown on page 36 and the bottoms were coated in tar (elsewhere creosote may have been used). In my part of the world the cables were laid but it’s possible they were braided elsewhere. The stand-off was either cast or stamped (I don’t remember) and galvanized. Cables were secured with galvanized “J” bolts through the posts with square plates and nuts on the back. As shown on page 40, at the ends of each run the “J” bolt was in line with the cable. I don’t believe the cable run included a turnbuckle. The guy was similar to those used with power poles (without the insulators, of course) and may have included a turnbuckle (I think).
I hope this helps. It would be nice for somebody to publish a REALLY BIG book with bags and bags of photos to help folk like us (MRR editors, please note) when we move away from linesides.
All the best.
Bill Rice-Johnston
Connoquenessing Valley Railroad