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Need input on '50s highway yellow center lines...........

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  • Member since
    January 2010
  • From: Chi-Town
  • 7,712 posts
Posted by zstripe on Thursday, January 12, 2017 7:23 AM

Rich,

LOL Fortunately, I never had to use one. There are only two states in the US that I never drove a truck in, Maine and RI. What I used to get a big kick out of and many others drivers on the CB, was to come up on a truck runaway ramp and see a sign that said ''closed''...yeah right! In some parts of CA. Their port of entry (which is the scale house) would be half way down the grade and if You pulled in there with your brakes smoking, they would put you out of service and go over your truck with a fine tooth comb....sneaky...lack of a better word ...guys! Lucky if you could get out of there without paying some kind of fine.

''Happy New Year'' Richie.

Take Care! Big Smile

Frank

  • Member since
    September 2004
  • From: Dearborn Station
  • 24,281 posts
Posted by richhotrain on Thursday, January 12, 2017 7:51 AM

zstripe

Rich,

LOL Fortunately, I never had to use one. 

''Happy New Year'' Richie.

Somehow I knew.  Yes

"Happy New Year" Frankie.

Richie

Alton Junction

  • Member since
    August 2013
  • 3,006 posts
Posted by ACY Tom on Thursday, January 12, 2017 9:30 AM

richhotrain

 

 
Enzoamps

Vaguely related.  Something I never saw before driving in West Virginia was the escape lanes for trucks.  On long steep downhill highways, there were occasionally what looked like exit ramps to nowhere.  If a truck lost its brakes, it could steer up one of these to come to a stop.  there were sand barrels at the end just in case.   Do we know when that started?

 

 

 

Nearly 47 years ago, engineers developed the "runaway truck ramp", also known as a trust arrester bed, that allow drivers to stop their vehicles even if their brakes fail.

 

Rich

 

I'm sure they were in place before 1970 in certain areas of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. To bring this back to railroading, there were such escape tracks on the B&O, Southern, and others a hundred years ago. They were sometimes actually used, and they worked. The train wrecked, but it wrecked at a remote location high in the mountains, before it could gain enough momentum to do even worse damage.

Tom 

  • Member since
    January 2007
  • 599 posts
Posted by azrail on Thursday, January 12, 2017 2:01 PM

Before 1972 every state had different striping/highway sign standards..the unified Federal striping/signage (the beginning of the symbols on hwy signs) requirements took effect that year.

There was some leeway..Calif. information/destination signs (the green rectangle w/white lettering) were for many years black w/white lettering. The feds forced them to change them to green, but California uses a dark green as compared to other states.

  • Member since
    December 2008
  • 25 posts
Posted by lidgerwoodplow on Thursday, January 19, 2017 4:30 PM

zstripe

I don't remember ever seeing dashed yellow concrete highway lines on country two lane roadways. White dashed lines and solid yellow in Your lane for no passing zones. That is in Illinois in the 40'/50's era! Some black-top roads in the country, secondary roads, had no lines at all and no shoulder.

Take Care! Big Smile

Frank

 

In the 60s there was a trucker song called "White Line Fever," apparently referring to a sort of highway hypnosis.

  • Member since
    January 2010
  • From: Chi-Town
  • 7,712 posts
Posted by zstripe on Saturday, January 21, 2017 2:48 AM

lidgerwoodplow

 

 
zstripe

I don't remember ever seeing dashed yellow concrete highway lines on country two lane roadways. White dashed lines and solid yellow in Your lane for no passing zones. That is in Illinois in the 40'/50's era! Some black-top roads in the country, secondary roads, had no lines at all and no shoulder.

Take Care! Big Smile

Frank

 

 

 

In the 60s there was a trucker song called "White Line Fever," apparently referring to a sort of highway hypnosis.

 

 

If I'm not mistaken.....I believe there were movies out by the same name!

Here's one of them:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073896/

''Keep the shiny side up''.

Take Care! Big Smile

Frank

My 1969 White Freightliner double wide COE.....that I restored. Used to be a Mayflower Van lines truck, only 50 made.

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