Note that almost every photo of trackside structures and bridges are covered with rust. The recent issue of TRAINS has a pic of the rusted catinary. Why are the railroads not painting the equipment? This does not present a very good image of a good corporate citizen. The only paint seems to be from the graffitti "artists" which is another subject.
Bottom line - it costs money.
As long as the structure does its job in a satisfactory manner (like passes bridge inspections), it makes little difference to the railroad what it looks like. And many old bridges were so over-engineered that they'll last near forever regardless.
There is Cor-Ten steel, but I don't know where it's used these days.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
It's all about functionality, appearance matters little to people other than railfans or some overzealous marketing types. Words such as "we can't ship our stuff with that railroad because their bridges are rusty" have never been spoken. Same with graffiti.. it looks like hell, but it doesn't affect performance one iota..
FIRST: Rust or graffitti have no bearing on the structural integrity of most railroad bridges. They are inspected more often and more rigorously than most highway bridges under FRA rule (agencies like light rail under FTA guidance are a different story, witness Washington, Baltimore and Chicago..but you have singled out freight common carriers). The ratings, bridge maintenance plans and inspections are much more involved and rigorous. If you want to be scared or concerned - focus in on your local highway infrastructure, it's more likely to fail.
SECOND: Most of the complaining comes from local politicians trying to deflect attention from their own shortcomings by trying to get into the railroad's business. if you look back in the forum, you will find threads about bridges at Covington, KY (CSX); Toledo, OH (NS); Blissfield MI (Shortline ABDN) and Philadelphia (Transit) all that had unqualified individuals (busybodies without a clue) fraudulently claiming there's a problem. The graffitti is largely because of the politician's "finer citizens" being out of control and the local PD unwilling to deal with the issue.
THIRD: Painting operations are not cheap and don't really accomplish that much. Railroad claim agents hate 'em because of all the frivolous claims.
(tree: watched erection of a pre-rusted railroad bridge pair earlier this week in San Diego over the Mission River and another one for the Indiana RR last year...fairly common anymore)
Until the locals clean up their act, don't expect any reciprocal action by the railroads. They've heard this sad story too often.
Why not more bridges painted like the famous Enid Can Opener and painting "Stupid Trucker Zone Ahead" on the pavement?
tree68 As long as the structure does its job in a satisfactory manner (like passes bridge inspections), it makes little difference to the railroad what it looks like. And many old bridges were so over-engineered that they'll last near forever regardless.
zardoz tree68 As long as the structure does its job in a satisfactory manner (like passes bridge inspections), it makes little difference to the railroad what it looks like. And many old bridges were so over-engineered that they'll last near forever regardless. Back in the "good old days" railroads would advertise by placing their nameplate on bridges, just as they put their name and slogan on freight cars; and because it was advertising, they kept them looking good.
Back in the "good old days" railroads would advertise by placing their nameplate on bridges, just as they put their name and slogan on freight cars; and because it was advertising, they kept them looking good.
Some of the legacy carriers naming still exist on bridges in my travels - all well faded and only meaningful to those that know what they are looking for.
Present day carriers don't seem to want to publicize their existance.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
mudchickenRust or graffitti have no bearing on the structural integrity of most railroad bridges.
Rust has always influence on structural integrity as it lets steel sections shrink, but over a very long time within legal limits. Often steel bridges are constructed with larger steel sections than the structural design asked for to provide for some rusting.
As someone said before many of the old bridges were overdesigned, if for rusting or looking forward to future higher loads or just so I can't say. But the effect is the same.
At some point in the lifetime of a bridge the railroads have to decide if to build a replacement or start with corrosion protection. As many of the railroad bridges are quite old they are nearing the end of their lifespan anyway so the decision is easy.Regards, Volker
Painting is cheap. Disposing of the paint chips is expensive.
VOLKER LANDWEHRAs someone said before many of the old bridges were overdesigned, if for rusting or looking forward to future higher loads or just so I can't say. But the effect is the same.
I've always thought of the overengineered thing as a result of the lack of sophistication of their design computations. Rather than design specifically to use, as occurs today using computer modelling, they threw in a significant margin of safety.
mudchicken Why not more bridges painted like the famous Enid Can Opener and painting "Stupid Trucker Zone Ahead" on the pavement?
Why can't the highway departments put up a warning apparatus sort of thing a couple hundred yards back on the highway? For example, in the case of the bridge show, put an 8” steel I-beam above the highway at 11’-4” above the pavement. Any truck that hits it would likely tear up the top of a trailer and damage the I-beam. Wouldn’t that be a whole lot better than hitting a bridge at speed, probably destroying a truck and trailer and possible doing $1 million damage to the bridge? In the interest of awareness and public relations, they could put a sign above the I-beam that reads: “(Your town/state here) welcomes America’s most attentive truckers. Please have your insurance information readily accessible.” That way they’d have a nice backdrop for the news photos and insure that your bridge got some national internet exposure. We have a bridge over the interstate here that has been hit hard at least 6 times. I recall 2 of those times they had to close lanes on the interstate to do repair work, once for several months. I believe the owners and insurance carriers of at least 6 trucking firms would have preferred a warning apparatus.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Larry is probably right. South Shore's recently replaced overpass over NS and Torrence Avenue lasted over 100 years and looked like it could handle heavier loads than it got. I can also remember it being repainted in the early 1960's (orange primer really sticks in your memory) and never again.
ccltrains Note that almost every photo of trackside structures and bridges are covered with rust. The recent issue of TRAINS has a pic of the rusted catinary. Why are the railroads not painting the equipment? This does not present a very good image of a good corporate citizen. The only paint seems to be from the graffitti "artists" which is another subject.
In a weird sort of way, rust is given a bad name. Does that make sense? When people see rust they equate it with something rotting into collapse. For example, most people freak out when rust appears around the wheel wells on their car; which by the way doesn't mean the car is going to fall apart tomorrow. I don't think rust on solid steel structures is necessarily a sign of structural weakness. Think of it more like people who put unfinished wood siding on a house and let it weather out to a natural gray. There are exceptions of course. That’s why the rusty structure gets a periodic inspection. The house siding never gets inspected. Instead of fading to that beautiful, natural, silver-gray patina, it just turns several different shades of shaggy, rotten wood gray.
We had an incident in Dallas where an old single track railroad bridge was to be removed and replaced with a double track bridge for our light rail system. One night a dumb trucker helped us to remove the bridge. He was driving a dump truck and the bed was tilted into the dump position. Byby bridge and thanks to the stupid driver we had the bridge removed at no cost to us.
Speaking of Bridges vs, Trucks: As I recall, there was a bridge in the Greenville, High Point(?) areas of North Carolina. It seemed to be a'regular' subject photo in TRAINS(?) as the object of another 'hit' by an unobservant Trucker. The problem was that it was on a road directly off a major highway, and offered a way to get into town. It had been originally, a Sou Rwy Structure, and then if became a child of NS. As the weight of freight cars escalated, it was found that the bridge 'flexed' under the load of passing trains, that downward deflexion effected the passing of regular 13'6" height road equipment; ultimately, the bridge seemed to be 'hit' more times that most boxers.
Repaving of roads is another reason that causes the passing truck traffic, to loose roof sheets, and other bits and pieces...MudChicken's " Highway Bubba's" can repave a road quickly, but replacing height signs, not so much. Contributing to the local economies, and truck repair shops. The Chicago area, also, being a prime example of that lack of any local jurisdictions ability's in adjusting bridges, roads and signs.
tree68 VOLKER LANDWEHR As someone said before many of the old bridges were overdesigned, if for rusting or looking forward to future higher loads or just so I can't say. But the effect is the same. I've always thought of the overengineered thing as a result of the lack of sophistication of their design computations. Rather than design specifically to use, as occurs today using computer modelling, they threw in a significant margin of safety.
VOLKER LANDWEHR As someone said before many of the old bridges were overdesigned, if for rusting or looking forward to future higher loads or just so I can't say. But the effect is the same.
The structural analysis of trusses is not sophisticated. The Cremona diagram or the method of sections are known since the 1860s and are exact for statically determined trusses.
That doesn't say that you are not right. I think we don't know the reasons. Therefore I added "or just so".Regards, Volker
VOLKER LANDWEHRThe structural analysis of trusses is not sophisticated. The Cremona diagram or the method of sections are known since the 1860s and are exact for statically determined trusses.
What's gotten sophisticated is the determination of the materials needed. Nowadays, instead of just using, say, the next size larger beam, the computer determines that such and such a size will suffice, over a span of X, etc. The making of structural members (ie, the steel itself) has also gotten more sophisticated.
SealBook27Seem to remember back in the eighties, some steel manufacturer put out a product that would deliberately form a coat of rust that acted as a protective much like a coat of paint. Anyone else remember anything about that?
Cor-Ten? I think it may actually go back before that.
SealBook27 Anyone else remember anything about that?
Not only do I remember it, I used a similar product several weeks ago on my Jaguar. (It came from a little old man in Morristown, New Jersey, and he drove it in the winter ... not much, but enough for an English car!)
There are actually two versions of this: one does the full conversion to a 'paintlike coating' and the other needs to be covered by a proper primed topcoat for weather resistance. They work, and are nifty for 'completely rusty' items if you have the funds to acquire them.
The problem is that they don't penetrate well under adjacent areas of old paint or other contaminants, and it's expensive to use 'enough' of them to convert scaly and structurally-incompetent surface rusting above the metal surface itself. Therefore you really need to get out the needle gun, sander, etc. to get the surface prepared, and then you have to deal with the old paint, rust chips and dust, etc. as well as the labor and equipment and time. And you still may not get full coverage into the seams and cracks in the structure, or 'convert' problems with rivets or welded areas.
samfp1943 Speaking of Bridges vs, Trucks: As I recall, there was a bridge in the Greenville, High Point(?) areas of North Carolina. It seemed to be a'regular' subject photo in TRAINS(?) as the object of another 'hit' by an unobservant Trucker. The problem was that it was on a road directly off a major highway, and offered a way to get into town. It had been originally, a Sou Rwy Structure, and then if became a child of NS. As the weight of freight cars escalated, it was found that the bridge 'flexed' under the load of passing trains, that downward deflexion effected the passing of regular 13'6" height road equipment; ultimately, the bridge seemed to be 'hit' more times that most boxers. Repaving of roads is another reason that causes the passing truck traffic, to loose roof sheets, and other bits and pieces...MudChicken's " Highway Bubba's" can repave a road quickly, but replacing height signs, not so much. Contributing to the local economies, and truck repair shops. The Chicago area, also, being a prime example of that lack of any local jurisdictions ability's in adjusting bridges, roads and signs.
Johnny
Sure do remember that stuff... a bank built a new building here with the siding made of it. It was not supposed to rust further and they said it would not stain the sidewalk. They kept advertising about the new building with: "Its big, its rusty and its yours!" I said, "If'n it were mine, I'd paint it."
It did stain the sidewalks and the city threatened to sue. I vaguely remember that the bank and architectural firm had to clean the sidewalks and maybe replace some parts to get rid of the very noticeable and ugly stains leading from the building across the sidewalks.
I think it took nearly a year before it stopped leaving rust streaks after a rain.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Cor-Ten and other such steels (e.g. 'copper-bearing') are different: they are intentionally over-reactive to common environmental corrosion factors, and form a thick coat of oxide quickly that is supposed to be impervious enough to keep the corrosion factors from penetrating to the (reactive) metal surface itself. In this it is similar to many of the aluminum alloys, which almost immediately form an impervious oxide layer that is essentially self-healing in air. (This is not the 'chemical rust conversion', often a phosphating process, used in the 'rust converter' products)
Obviously the steel mill produces a plain steel shape from which some forms of mill scale have to be cleaned, and the steel is erected and welded essentially 'bare' (it may have to be spot-derusted in field weld locations). In the 'old days' there were enough atmospheric contaminants, particularly sulfur-related 'acid rain' related chemicals, to get a good quick and reasonably even oxide development within a few months of installation. Now that air is cleaner, some installations never quite get the right impervious-oxide composition, particularly as I recall in areas subject to chloride contamination, and there you get soluble oxide that forms mottled patching and continued runoff of stain. There is no magic in this kind of chemistry or this kind of protection, but sometimes it's not OK to be kind to Mother Nature when you expect her response to be stronger...
Murphy Siding We have a bridge over the interstate here that has been hit hard at least 6 times. I recall 2 of those times they had to close lanes on the interstate to do repair work, once for several months. I believe the owners and insurance carriers of at least 6 trucking firms would have preferred a warning apparatus.
Interestingly, railroads employ wide-high detectors ahead of certain mischief-making features, like tunnels. About four miles east of Tehachapi, the new clearance detectors operate apparently to ensure no problems for the tunnels going down the hill. Maybe a similar distance west of Caliente on the same route there is another detector.
Something similar might or might not help, but the rubber tire folks are not necessarily so aggressive in protecting low bridges, it would seem.
ChuckCobleighSomething similar might or might not help, but the rubber tire folks are not necessarily so aggressive in protecting low bridges, it would seem.
I think the situation is slightly different in that much of the railroad detector architecture is to catch things like shifted loads as opposed to the sort of mislined load that used to produce lots of tinfoil from auto racks 'back in the day'. Trucks that hit bridges are just plain where they shouldn't be, and it's difficult to figure out how to make an active 'nondestructive' detector or telltale that would reliably stop them short of many of these obstructions.
What I suggested to one of my state representatives is an active telltale deployed from 'catenary cross-suspension' across each of the approach roads leading to a bridge, connected to a system of strobes and red 'truck traffic lights' ahead of and on the bridge structure itself. This would produce enough of a light show, enough ahead of even the dumbest truck driver, to give fair warning that something's not about to clear.
I think there are ways to formalize this kind of alert system within, say, MUTCD as an active system of signage for fixed overhead obstacles. What kind of signage is desirable to 'instruct' drivers as to what to do if they see the lights is not yet determined, of course.
As is who will be paying for the detectors and their maintenance, the fancy lights, and the power to run them. I of course argue that this is a road issue, not a bridge-owner issue. That's not the only potential answer.
One of the local water agencies replaced a large standpipe with a new structure using that material a few years ago. As it went into its planned surface change, the local residents got up in arms about the "eyesore" and mounted a campaign to have the district paint the tower. The campaign fizzled when the district explained what would be involved and how often the repainting would occur and how much that would affect their water bills. I drive by it frequently these days and I bet neither I nor most of the complainers even notice it most of the time.
OvermodWhat I suggested to one of my state representatives is an active telltale deployed from 'catenary cross-suspension' across each of the approach roads leading to a bridge, connected to a system of strobes and red 'truck traffic lights' ahead of and on the bridge structure itself. This would produce enough of a light show, enough ahead of even the dumbest truck driver, to give fair warning that something's not about to clear. I think there are ways to formalize this kind of alert system within, say, MUTCD as an active system of signage for fixed overhead obstacles. What kind of signage is desirable to 'instruct' drivers as to what to do if they see the lights is not yet determined, of course. As is who will be paying for the detectors and their maintenance, the fancy lights, and the power to run them. I of course argue that this is a road issue, not a bridge-owner issue. That's not the only potential answer.
REMEMBER - every time you think you have made something idiot proof - along comes another idiot that defeats your protection - so who is the real idiot?
BaltACDREMEMBER - every time you think you have made something idiot proof - along comes another idiot that defeats your protection - so who is the real idiot?
Isn't that obvious to anyone who has been reading many of these forum threads carefully?
But seriously: in many cases you don't need to completely idiot-proof things, you just provide better notice and let Talmudic kares do the rest. Here I thought the issue was just a little different: we need something that reliably indicates ONLY that a 'high-vehicle' condition has been detected and will result in immediate problems. It doesn't have to do that European thing where rising barriers plow through the truck's engine compartment to protect it from damage to the body from the overhead bridge. And if the truck driver in question doesn't stop ... well, from law enforcement's standpoint he's done the equivalent of running a different kind of red light.
I'm surprised we haven't heard from the coordinated-camera-and-satellite-radio people about doing machine vision on the overheight truck and sending a disabling signal to the FADEC or whatever to 'make it stop'. I am not that much of an idiot and hope no one else who posts will be. But there is a difference between putting explicit notes in your documentation that the lawn mower is not to be used as a hedge trimmer and putting an interlock on the mower that alerts any time there are fingers adjacent to a running blade.
And there's another issue: when you think you've made something idiot-proof and introduce new failure modes or opportunities for idiots to cause trouble ... you may not have thought you were an idiot, but reality begins to suggest otherwise.
Just require next vehicles that hit bridge to pay for the warning system.
There are warning systems in place for some of these low bridges. I believe most use lasers, or at least electric eyes. Ultrasonics might come into play as well.
Such a system might not have helped for the megabus that hit the railroad bridge just north of Syracuse a few years ago - The driver missed a turn and was busy fiddling with his GPS whilst trying to find his way back to the bus depot.
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