Historical usage of siding bufferstops

[APT618S]

That's the one. I forgot that the incident involved two locos and one ended up on the North Circular. I presume the one at the bottom was a write-off. A couple of lads' larking about cost BR quite a bit of money.

Last time I was past Staples Corner (last year) you could still see where some of the concrete was torn away at the end of the support and this is also visible on the current Google Streetview.

 

[contrex]

I know I wrote above, somewhat sanctimoniously, about trespassing on the railway being a serious matter, etc, but I have also thought about how young people often lack responsibility and the ability to foresee the consequences of their actions. Also the legal notion of an 'attractive nuisance' (i.e. railways should be properly fenced, and rolling stock harder to set in motion).

 

[Universediver]

As a yard shunter in the 1970’s we would never use the buffer stops as a way to stop the train deliberately. As mentioned in previous replies, as we loose shunted wagons could get away and go crashing into barriers and derail or fly! When we fly shunted and tried to apply the manual brakes to the wagons sometimes the brakes were heavy to apply or were just not 100% efficient. And as someone mentioned, we came good at rerailing wagons but we had three mobile engineers cranes working in our yard and they were usually called upon to assist derails.

 

[Ken H]

As a yard shunter in the 1970’s we would never use the buffer stops as a way to stop the train deliberately. As mentioned in previous replies, as we loose shunted wagons could get away and go crashing into barriers and derail or fly! When we fly shunted and tried to apply the manual brakes to the wagons sometimes the brakes were heavy to apply or were just not 100% efficient. And as someone mentioned, we came good at rerailing wagons but we had three mobile engineers cranes working in our yard and they were usually called upon to assist derails.

You would enjoy Gerard Feinnes book 'I tried to run a Railway'. Lots of tales of re-railing wagons.

 

[devon_belle]

JUL 74 10. 37 100 at Cynheidre Colliery, July 12 1974

Explore Andy Kirkham's 1597 photos on Flickr!

flic.kr

Here's a picture I found on flickr (linked above) which shows some wagons that are a little cosy with the bufferstops!