Hello,
I normally don't watch too many of these Virtual Railfan videos but there was a grab-bag offered and my coffee was still hot.
This scene caught my eye and raised my curioscity.
VR_SanCapistrano_CA by Edmund, on Flickr
Go to 5:40.
I suppose it could help alert the engineman to anything laying on the track (a body?) but this is a new feature for me. Might make an interesting model detail.
I've seen plenty of these reflectors used on highways, especially epoxied to K-barriers. But nailed to ties?
Regards, Ed
Don't know, Ed. VR has a cam in WI., that's the only one I watch.
This in California, so who knows what they are about! Maybe soem of our freinds on here from CA knows.
I've never noticed or seen them at any Amtrak stations around here, in WI. I've been the Hiawatha trains many times. (Chicago/Milwaukee)
I like your idea, about seeing something on the tracks.
Mike.
My You Tube
Since it appears to be a passenger (commuter?) station on a line also used by freight trains, it may be a way to alert an engineer at night that they are nearing a passenger station and to be alert for people on/near the tracks?
Might also be intended to discourage sleepy/drunk motorists from thinking it is their road and turning on to the tracks at the grade crossing. The GPS said to turn, but meant at the road intersection just ahead, not right now at the tracks.......
At stations in Europe, there are lights down the centre of the track like those that activate when a train is coming. Some trains blow through the stations at a high rate of speed and the lights cascade in a way that also shows the direction the train will be going. Could these be lights and not just reflectors?
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
I read somwhere a while back where the railroad/city/authority attached things to the ties at stations (like those stand-up relfectors) to discourage people from walking on/across the tracks at places other than the dedicated crossings.
May not be the case.
Does make the station area stand out if you're running on that line.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
I like the suggestion that they are to alert people who's GPS told them to turn onto the tracks. I believe the LIRR has installed reflectors on posts along double track grade crossings to deter this behavior. On a somewhat similar note, the LIRR has installed blue lights at the end of the platforms at some stations. Apparently studies (Japan?) have shown that this cuts down on the number of suicides.
Seems clear to me that with so many of them per tie, Part of it will be to reflect enough light that anyone facing away from the train in that area will clearly recognize something's there.
Note how dark it gets behind the consist.
I like the idea of impediments to walking in the gauge, or turning a vehicle with wheels in the gauge. Perhaps they used the kind of raised traffic markers they had in stock or could get cheap and quick on order?
At least they're not Botts dots.
I know there is nothing like that at the La Plata, MO, Amtrak station, which I watch frequently. Went to the San Juan Capistrano VR YT page and they are not mentioned in data and info on page.
Why not go ask in the chat on the SJC page? Surely someone there would know.
Playing in Google for a few minutes just now found no answer.