Here’s a LINK to the tank head protection standards (scroll down to "Schedule Specifications for Safety Equipment - clause 2). As I noted previously, I’ve been searching for info on those bars and nowhere can I find them even mentioned, nor are they identified on drawings or photos with tags identifying the various safety features. If I don’t hear back from Procor (the Canadian subsidiary of Union Tank) by noon tomorrow, I’ll give them a 'phone call.
Here’s a LINK to a PROCOR gallery of railcar photos (including tank cars). You would have trouble convincing me that that flimsy-looking bar offers any protection against vehicular incursions. [swg]
I dragged out my GATX Tank Car Manual at home this evening and found that it refers to both the end handrail and the “anti-personnel bar” as a “handrail.” That is just plain weird. John Timm
Larry, I think that Ricky is correct: the item across the top of the endsill is merely a handrail. The head shield is hidden by the tank jacket.
While looking for information on the head shield, I came across THIS. If you scroll about halfway down the page, you’ll see a section dealing with “Tank Cars Without Underframes” and mention of both the end handrails and side “safety railings”. Here’s a quote copied from the linked page:
Given the fact that tankcars designed to carry flammable gases commonly do not have those bars on the side, they cannot be protection for a collision. Which is more important to protect, a car carrying corn syrup or a car carrying a flammable gas?
I talked to Leon again last night at length and his words-I didn’t include the expletives he used:
Those are indeed “collision bars” mandated by the FRA.If’n they work-chuckle-there’s a lot of weight being toss about in a wreck and we have seen on the news tank car explosions and leaks after a wreck…You could calls 'em safety bars,anti personnel bars,monkey bars,candy bars,side rods or any thing you wish but,the hard fact remains they are collision bars.I ain’t never heard the things called by any other name in the 34 years I spent repairing/rebuilding tank cars…
Just an update of sorts: I haven’t heard back from Procor and was, unfortunately, not around today to 'phone them. I haven’t forgotten, though, and will call them on Monday.
Well, if Union calls them “side safety bars” and the Railway Safety Appliance Standards document (to which I provided a link on page two) refers to them as a “side safety railing” and groups their required specifications with the “end safety railings”, all of this within a document covering safety appliances for the protection of railway employees (not railway equipment or shippers’ cargo, or the general public), then I think that we should use the proper term when discussing them - with all due respect to Leon, his former employer chooses to call them safety railings: calling them collision bars doesn’t make them so and only confuses the issue.
There are lots of shop-floor terms used in many industries that aren’t the “official” terms and lots of misconceptions caused by such misnomers, both amon
Then there’s the names that railfans and modellers give things… [sigh]
No-one seems to be considering the possibility that different people are calling the same thing by different names. The different names can be official or unofficial. Neither is supposed to happen these days - with the intention of avoiding confusion and thereby reducing risk.
That said… Procor appears to be the Canadian subsiduary (from what’s been posted) so there is a possibility that they may use a different term from their neighbours south of the border.
Similarly there is a chance that the usage Brakie’s friend was familiar with was contemporary, workshop official or any combination. Although not explicit the side bars at least may have been called “anti collision” or just “collision” as an abbreviation of “anti-personnel collision”. This is 100% conjecture [:)]
As to some cars having bars along the sides and others not I would suggest two things.
Cars that do not have bars are (as far as I’ve seen) “fat” cars on which there is no place for a side bar to stand off from the side without going out of the loading gauge. If the bars are anti collision damage/protective they would have to stand away from the side to work.
Fat cars also fill the loading gauge between trucks so (I woul
No-one seems to be considering the possibility that different people are calling the same thing by different names. The different names can be official or unofficial. Neither is supposed to happen these days - with the intention of avoiding confusion and thereby reducing risk.
Come to think of it you are more then likely correct.Railfans uses terms like Phase 1,2,3 etc to the locomotives builders,railroads and railroad shop workers there is no such thing.I have heard shop crews call number boards “bug boards” and “number boxes”.Modelers call a switch a turn out…Railroaders calls 'em a switch.A turnout can be the protective clothing(gear) a firefighter wears as well…
You’re right, Larry, and I think that’s what’s causing the confusion, as I’ve been trying to point out. You would think that both the manufacturers, in this case Union Tank and its Canadian subsidiary Procor, would use the same “official” term for the appliances in question. The document to which I linked on page two uses a similar term, and while I can’t locate the site again, it was mentioned elsewhere that both U.S. and Canadian regulatory bodies use the same terms and language, as these cars move continent-wide. I assume, too, that Mexico would also be included in this.
The problem arises when someone, for convenience, shortens or alters the original term which appears on the engineering drawings, then that term becomes the one used by the general public (in this case, railfans). If the “new” term is far-enough removed from the original, it’s easy to see how its intended use could be misinterpreted. I don’t doubt for a minute that Leon knows them as “collision bars”, but I think that the term is a misnomer and that its useage, particularly by railfans, conveys a meaning far removed from the true purpose of the feature under discussion.
Wow, 34 replies to a simple question, who woulda’ thunket, LOL! While I’m still not 100% certain what that thing is called, I’ve sure been entertained by the spirited dialogue. Thanx again gents, for making it interesting.
I’m not completely done with this project, but here’s a before-and-after pair of images. I still need to print and apply the GATX decals, and install the underbody piping. But I’m happy to just get rid of those side walkways and have those personnel-anti-safety-bar-thinghamahoozits in their place.
[img.][/img.] Here are a couple of kitbashes of the Athearn 62’ car, based on an article by Jim Slaughter in the October, 1985 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. The ACFX car dates back to the late 1980’s. The CELX version is about two years old. John Timm
John - your cars look awesome. I’ll have to try to find a copy of the Oct 1985 RMC and read that article, in the meantime I have to re-decal my 4 tankers for GATX and try to find some Staley logos for one of them, and make the letters look like they’re rusted off (as in the proto-photo on rrpicturearchives.net).
