I just obtained a 1945 Spokane, Portland & Seattle rule book. In the section on positioning of signals, they show a smash board in the normal & reverse position with the caption “Smash-board in reverse position does not supersede signal indication”.
The only info I can find in the rule book about the above is a few pages on where is states, “Where smash-boards are in use, instructions for hand operation are posted in Release box”.
Picture shows tracks with a post on the side with bar from the top pointing toward tracks with a large round board and a bar away from the post with a small round circle. In the reverse the large circular board has dropped directly down and the smaller board has gone up about 45 degrees. ???
Smash boards had two applications… as a height indicator to warn crews when their train had a car in its consist that was to high to fit under a bridge or through a tunnel…the load would “smash” into the board, which was placed at the height of the restriction and usually far enough ahead of the height restriction to give the train ample room to stop…if the conductor riding the caboose saw a broken or smashed smash board, he would stop the train.
They were also used to protect at grade railroad on railroad crossings…some what like a manual stop sign…to warn crews of another railroad tracks they were going to cross, or a restricted area…running into a smash board was a indication something was either using or fouling the tracks ahead or access to that track was limited.
For years and years we had a stop sign/smash board that protected the diamond where the old SP had a single industrial spur that crossed our tracks and served one single industry…when ever the SP went in to service the plants, on a very irregular basis, they had to swing the stop sign/smash board over and across our tracks, as a visual and (never to my knowledge) audible warning that they would be crossing back and forth across our tracks.
This simple device was located in a heavy industrial area, on a portion of our tracks that curved, so visual sight lines were short…the idea being if you smacked the stop sign, then the SP was fouling the tracks ahead…there was a smash board on each side of the crossing, about 100 yards away on each side.
Smash boards appear as fancy or as plain as can be…anything from a stop sign on a wooden gate, like my railroad had, to the adjustable one like you describe, to a simple wood gate or bar that swings across the tracks.
Pretty durn close…even got the same ugly locomotive the SP had!
Ours was designed so that if it was hit, it would swing around and slam into a big post,(the bottom half of a telephone pole) and “smash” the sign…as was pointed out, depending on where you find the pieces tells you who ran the sign…the SP was responsible for returning the smash board to its normal position, protecting our tracks against movement on their tracks.
I was thinking that it was something that was very close to the tracks that any engine would hit if there was an obstruction ahead, such as a rock slide, and when hit would set off something ahead which would stop the train.
Interesting rule book, in that it contains rules for 9 other RR’s including Northern Pacific and Union Pacific (NW district).
The person wh had this book blacked out Northern Pacific and his name & occupation as he didn’t return it after terminating his job.
Think of a smash board as a semaphore type blade which extended out past the rail below the height of the locomotive. It was common to find these indicators at crossings with other railroads. When the route was lined for a train the smash board was lifter out of the path of the train so the train would not strike it. If the route was not lined then any train which ran the signal would break the smash board. Consider many of these applications were at locations in dark or non-signaled territory or where ABS signaling was employed. There was no paper trail of signal indications at absolute locations like there was/is in CTC. So the broken signal arm was evidence some train crew had not complied with the signal indication to stop if the signals were against them. The next train at the interlocking would be required to report the smash boards had been broken and then the railroad officials could determine from a dispatcher’s sheet which train was the culpret and the crew would serve time for the signal violation.
The line which notes the signal indication superceedes the smash board position tells you that even if the board is raised yet the signal displays a STOP indication, you may not pass that signal without complying with the instructions in the bungalow. Now some backwoods locations in dark territory the interlocking signals for the crossing at grade could be manually operated. They would always display stop in all directions and each train would have to stop and line the signals for their route. Commonly these were converted to automatic interlockings where trains approaching the interlocking would trip a signal circuit when the passed the approach block signal. The relays would check to see if any other trains approaching the interlocking had passed their respective approach signal and tripped the block. If the route was clear for the arriving train the signals would automatically clear up for the first train and they co
Smash boards are often used to protect movable bridges. I believe that they are used on PATH for this reason. They can alert the operator and hopefully prevent a repeat of the 1958 Newark Bay Bridge disaster.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a smash board, though I’ve often seen the reference in the rules.
I have, however, seen crossings “protected” by gates, which I think have also been alluded to in this thread. Probably not much of a difference.
Our timetables used to have two symbols for gates: “G” when the normal position was for your route, and “g” when the normal position was against your route.
The city of Muskegon, Michigan, used to be probably the gate capital of the country–PM/C&O had no fewer than seven non-interlocked crossings scattered throughout the city, and six of them were protected by gates (the seventh was a crew-operated semaphore with lights at each end).
There used to be one at the north end of Oshkosh, WI where a CNW spur off its main crossed the SOO Line main. I think it disappeared when Wisconsin Central consolidated the two lines.
There was/is one in Gary Indiana about 1/4 mile west of I-65 along the north side of route 12. One of the railroads (EJ&E?) parallel to the South Shore has a siding that crosses the South Shore and the railroad side has a smashboard to protect the crossing.
Gates are commonly about waist high to an employee and extend the full width of the track. I have never seen on operated any way other than by hand. Smash boards are commonly about the height of the cab of the locomotive and seem to end about the middle of the rail. The smash boards operate with the signals unless there are no electrical signals present.
Only one I ever saw was at Devils Lake,ND where Soo crossed GN. Basically it was a large semaphore arm that dropped across the Soo about cab window height when route not lined. When Soo’s route was lined it went straight up. It was used in conjunction with an automatic interlocking.
Many, many years ago there was also one at the GN/Soo crossing at Nashua,MN. There was a Soo GP9 that had a dent in the front of the cab from it, I do not remember the number. I once saw a copy of a 1929 Soo employee timetable and Nashua was shown as an automatic interlocking then. The retiree that had the timetable would not part with it.