wheel stops vs. track bumpers

[jecorbett]

After using a variety of track bumpers on various types of spur tracks, I recently installed some inexpensive wheel stops by Tomar on some of the spur tracks in my industrial area. With a minimal investment in time to paint and weather them and a few drops of epoxy, these are a great looking alternative to track bumpers.

Since both bumpers and wheel stops are used in by prototype railroads, I wondered what factors determinend which type would be used. Was it a preference by the individual railroads or did other factors dictate which type of device  was used at the end of spur tracks.

[cacole]

I think the wheel stops were used mostly in passenger terminals where appearance mattered as much as function, although I have seen pictures of some dead-end passenger terminal tracks with the larger bumpers.

Most of the stub sidings I have observed out west are nothing more than a pile of dirt or a bunch of crossties piled up, with one or two cut in half and jammed upright between the last two or three.

[lvanhen]

Athough sometimes used as bumpers, wheel stops are more often used as temporary stops, a permanent end to a siding is usually more substantial.  In passenger terminals, heavier bumpers are more often used (to prevent trains from entering the concourse?!)

[jecorbett]

Athough sometimes used as bumpers, wheel stops are more often used as temporary stops, a permanent end to a siding is usually more substantial.  In passenger terminals, heavier bumpers are more often used (to prevent trains from entering the concourse?!)

You mean like in Silver Streak?

Actually, a more famous real life incident occured when a PRR train smashed into the Washington DC terminal, crashing through the floor and into the basement. If memory serves it happened as the nation's capital was preparing for Ike's first innaurgural.

[jsoderq]

In my experience, the large bumpers were indeed used in passenger terminals or where there is something that needs protection from cars being shoved. Most industrial sidings had wheel stops because of the low cost, and they could be moved if the siding was altered. The dirt piles and ties are used where it doesn't matter if a car gets shoved off.

[lvanhen]

Athough sometimes used as bumpers, wheel stops are more often used as temporary stops, a permanent end to a siding is usually more substantial.  In passenger terminals, heavier bumpers are more often used (to prevent trains from entering the concourse?!)

You mean like in Silver Streak?

Actually, a more famous real life incident occured when a PRR train smashed into the Washington DC terminal, crashing through the floor and into the basement. If memory serves it happened as the nation's capital was preparing for Ike's first innaurgural.

Your memory is better than mine - I was trying to remember that incident - in 24 hours or so they floored over the wreck & people arriving for the innaurgutation didn't even know about the accident!!

[trainfreek92]

Athough sometimes used as bumpers, wheel stops are more often used as temporary stops, a permanent end to a siding is usually more substantial.  In passenger terminals, heavier bumpers are more often used (to prevent trains from entering the concourse?!)

You mean like in Silver Streak?

Actually, a more famous real life incident occured when a PRR train smashed into the Washington DC terminal, crashing through the floor and into the basement. If memory serves it happened as the nation's capital was preparing for Ike's first innaurgural.

I love that movie! Yes you are correct it did happen at Ikes innaguartion. They the floor over the train with plywood until they could get the loco out and fix the floor! I think it was faulty breaks or a sleeping/drunk engginer?

[jecorbett]

Athough sometimes used as bumpers, wheel stops are more often used as temporary stops, a permanent end to a siding is usually more substantial.  In passenger terminals, heavier bumpers are more often used (to prevent trains from entering the concourse?!)

You mean like in Silver Streak?

Actually, a more famous real life incident occured when a PRR train smashed into the Washington DC terminal, crashing through the floor and into the basement. If memory serves it happened as the nation's capital was preparing for Ike's first innaurgural.

I love that movie! Yes you are correct it did happen at Ikes innaguartion. They the floor over the train with plywood until they could get the loco out and fix the floor! I think it was faulty breaks or a sleeping/drunk engginer?

I'm going to really stretch my memory here. I believe the name of the PRR train was The General which has a touch of irony given that Ike,  after leaving officer liked to be addressed as General rather than Mr. President.

[Paul3]

The original question was about Wheel Stops vs Bumpers. Wheel stops are cheaper than bumpers as a rule of thumb, but they don't have the same "stopping" power of a track bumper, and tend to derail a car that a bumper would stop. South Station in Boston, MA has always had track bumpers from 1898 to today. In fact, they had a hydraulic or pneumatic bumper over on Track 13 a few years back. I asked a friend of mine (and fellow RR club member) who used to be the South Station yard goat engineer for Amtrak about the track bumpers, and how one in particular looked like it'd been worn. He sarcastically replied, "How do you think that happened?" I said, "You mean they hit the bumpers?" And he said, "Paul, if I had a nickle for every time someone hit the bumper, I'd retire early." For customers sidings, the customer owned the siding after about 15'-20' after the switch. So of course they aren't going to pay for anything more than they have to. About the Washington, D.C. wreck: The name of the train that crashed was Train 173, "The Federal", a PRR-NH sleeper train that ran daily from Boston (departing at 11:00 P.M.) to Washington according to my 4/25/54 NH Timetable. Look in the "Trains" issue for August, 1953, page 18 for the story. Or, look here: http://www.thejoekorner.com/rrfolklore/fedexp.shtm Or here: http://www.dcnrhs.org/union_station/union_wreck.htm And no, the engineer was not drunk or sleeping. BTW, if you read the links above, you'll note that they in part imply blame on the original NH engineer for not passing the word about the brake problem. I used to work with that engineer's son (another RR employee), and he claimed that they were out to get his father, but were unable to find fault with him as the NH had over 200 cars for 5 years with the same brake design. Paul A. Cutler III ************* Weather Or No Go New Haven ************* P.S. Can someone tell me why I don't seem to have any "returns" in my post? I've typed this post three times, and all I get is the ultimate word wrap. Look at my sig, for pete's sake. It's supposed to be on 4 lines, and now it's all on one line. Jeez, is this the worst Forum software that Kalmbach could buy or what?

[Kurt_Laughlin]

P.S. Can someone tell me why I don't seem to have any "returns" in my post? I've typed this post three times, and all I get is the ultimate word wrap. Look at my sig, for pete's sake. It's supposed to be on 4 lines, and now it's all on one line. Jeez, is this the worst Forum software that Kalmbach could buy or what?

Works

fine

for

me.

Maybe

the

problem

is

your

software?

KL

[BRAKIE]

I have seen wheel stops and track bumpers in use and I notice it depends on the tracks usuage..Industries seems to use wheel stops as does some small stub end yard tracks..Passenger terminals of years ago seem to abound with track bumpers.

My suggestion would be to do a Internet search on track bumpers and wheel stop usage.

[larak]

P.S. Can someone tell me why I don't seem to have any "returns" in my post? I've typed this post three times, and all I get is the ultimate word wrap. Look at my sig, for pete's sake. It's supposed to be on 4 lines, and now it's all on one line. Jeez, is this the worst Forum software that Kalmbach could buy or what?

Hi Paul,

I clicked on quote and your message appeared WITH returns while it was loading. The disappeared as soon as the message was complete. Very strange. What OS and web browser are you using?

This almost looks like a keymapping issue with a Linux box, but is more likely an incompatibility between your software and the forum's.

Try your next post with TWO carriage returns between paragraphs just for fun.

Also try holding the <alt> key while typing 015 on the NUMERICAL keypad (numlock on). Press <alt> 0 1 5 release <alt>. This will send the ascii character for carriage return.

If that doesn't work try <alt>012  (line feed). It didn't seem to to anything from here though.

 

If none of this works, take a large hammer ...

Merry Christmas,

Karl 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tomikawaTT]

I have seen wheel stops and track bumpers in use and I notice it depends on the tracks usuage..Industries seems to use wheel stops as does some small stub end yard tracks..Passenger terminals of years ago seem to abound with track bumpers.

My suggestion would be to do a Internet search on track bumpers and wheel stop usage.

Back in the dark ages (before conversion) there was a forum thread on bumpers, mostly in reference to the appropriateness of the Walthers kits.

One point I raised was that the importance of a track has a lot to do with the size and strength of bumper.  One track (stub remains of the eastbound main of a now-abandoned railroad,) used to store excess rolling stock in Amarillo, Texas, had been 'terminated' with about two dump trucks worth of ballast.  If there was anything else under that, it sure wasn't obvious.

My pet prototype used a rather odd form of wheel stop in areas where locomotives maneuvered in tight spaces.  The rails themselves were humped in a rough omega shape, top of the hump about a meter high.  Since the curve in the steel is rather sharp, I'm sure that some very serious heat had to be applied before the rail was bent to shape.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[chutton01]

I'm gonna be a little contrarian, and state from (antcedotal) experience that in the NY Tri-State area track bumpers (similar to the Walthers offering) are far and away the most common end-protection seen on customer sidings (next up seems to be various home-grown solutions, usually concrete blocks or C&D debris or the track simply vanishing into dirt/pavement; I only remember seeing wheel stops in a handful of situations). Can you find ties, dirt mounds, wheel stops, etc. around in this area? Sure, but the most common type I have seen is the track bumper. Indeed, track bumpers often seem to outlast the sidings they once protected, and it is common enough to see one, often rusted, bent and twisted, next to a building that has since been converted to a different, non-rail-freight-using purpose (a even better example is a track bumper visible in Farmingdale on the north side of Conklin St, west of 110, in the middle of what's now a parking lot - the track have long been paved over, and a chain-link fence erected along the middle of the former ROW right up to the track bumper). Perversely, track bumpers often become the last 'flag', displaying to all that rail freight once ran upon what is now a long vanished freight siding...

[Paul3]

Kurt, What irks me is that my software was working just fine with this Forum before...like a couple days ago. But what's odd is that from the time of the last big switchover to about two days ago, whenever I hit "Enter", I would get a double space. To eliminate that, I would hold down "Ctrl" and hit "Enter" and I would get a single space. Now, I hit "Enter", and I get only a single space that shows up just fine on my screen (as I'm typing this, in fact, there's a space before this sentence). Why now? And here's another thing. Where'd all my little things like "font" and "color" and "bold" and "smilies" buttons go? They're all gone...at least on my screen. They used to be there, I swear it. Now, since I haven't updated my IE in the past year or two, why is it that something that used to work now does not? If it ain't me, then I'm thinkin' it's Kalmbach trying out another update that has somehow screwed up my Forum enjoyment. At least it's better than the original MR Forum...the one where one had to click on each post to read it (shudder), and you had no idea who was posting what. That was truly awful. larak, I'm using WindowsXP from 2002, and IE 6.0, so it's not like I've got the IE 7 problems (not by any means). And no joy on the ascii tricks, or double spacing or even holding down the space bar. All my spaces are reduced to a single space. I suppose I should be glad I have seperations between my words. This is ridiculous. Paul A. Cutler III ************* Weather Or No Go New Haven *************

[fwright]

Kurt, Now, since I haven't updated my IE in the past year or two, why is it that something that used to work now does not? If it ain't me, then I'm thinkin' it's Kalmbach trying out another update that has somehow screwed up my Forum enjoyment. At least it's better than the original MR Forum...the one where one had to click on each post to read it (shudder), and you had no idea who was posting what. That was truly awful. larak, I'm using WindowsXP from 2002, and IE 6.0, so it's not like I've got the IE 7 problems (not by any means). And no joy on the ascii tricks, or double spacing or even holding down the space bar. All my spaces are reduced to a single space. I suppose I should be glad I have seperations between my words. This is ridiculous. Paul A. Cutler III ************* Weather Or No Go New Haven *************

Paul

I'm experiencing the same issues with a controlled image at work (XP Pro SP2, IE 6) that I'm not allowed to alter. So it has to be a change in the forum software that "breaks" some, but not all, IE6 systems. In light of the problems of the big software change this past summer, it's hard to believe Kalmbach's software supplier continues to do such a poor job of testing before installation of changes.

Interestingly enough, in the post entry box your post is correctly formatted, but is all run together in the primary view.

I've had to resort to the HTML tags - "arrow-p-arrow" and "arrow-slash-p-arrow" to get the paragraph formatting to work. I've also lost visibility of all the other formatting options. This just happened last Thursday or Friday.

tired of having to type HTML tags

Fred W

[Paul3]

Fred, Thanks for that. Nice to know I'm not the only one. I'm gonna try that html tag trick...hey, whaddaya know? It works! Now if I could only my sig would straighten out... Cool! I got it. I typed in arrow - pre - arrow before my sig, then arrow - /pre - arrow after it, and it came out like it's supposed to. At least I can fix it. Thank goodness for basic html tutorials online.

What gets me is that there are so many web forums out there, all running on what is apparently competant software. Why does Kalmbach have such a clunker? I mean, really, take a look at all those sports forums or other train forums that are not profit making websites. Do they have all these compatibility problems?

Paul A. Cutler III
*************
Weather Or No Go New Haven
*************