Buffer Stops

[Despatcher]

I am building a small O gauge diesel servicing depot/facility for shunting locos. End of green beginning of blue era roughly. I am trying to find out what colour the buffer stops would have been, in particular the horizontal "board" at loco buffer height. My stops will be rail built so I am assuming the whole thing would have been just a mucky rusty colour but, in various modelling magazines, I can find photos of layouts with locos that match my era where the boards are white and some with red where the locos buffers would make contact with the board if the driver gets the braking wrong (?). Any help much appreciated as buffer stop photos seem a bit of a rare item on the world wide web. Thanks.

[micknich2003]

I am building a small O gauge diesel servicing depot/facility for shunting locos. End of green beginning of blue era roughly. I am trying to find out what colour the buffer stops would have been, in particular the horizontal "board" at loco buffer height. My stops will be rail built so I am assuming the whole thing would have been just a mucky rusty colour but, in various modelling magazines, I can find photos of layouts with locos that match my era where the boards are white and some with red where the locos buffers would make contact with the board if the driver gets the braking wrong (?). Any help much appreciated as buffer stop photos seem a bit of a rare item on the world wide web. Thanks.

Is this of any use? Former Down Bay at Brough East Yorkshire, was a through line until c1975, I pressume the buffer stop originates from then. Photo' c2000

[Despatcher]

That is what I was thinking they would look like.  I love the lamp and the primitive wiring. That has given me a few ideas too. Many thanks.

[The Johnster]

Buffer stops in those days tended to be installed and then pretty much forgotten about, and not replaced until a driver had forgotten about them and removed them unintentionally with a locomotive.  08s were particularly popular for this sport, but anything would do at a push (sorry, it's been one of those days).  The only ones with lamps on them were those at the ends of running lines, typically bay platforms at passenger stations, with the lamp being in effect the next signal, permanently on red.  Stops in sidings or yards would not have lamps.

 

Rusty and forgotten is the typical condition for the period, but one or two might have traces of red paint on the crossbeams, and some had white patches above the rails where the buffers would hit them.

 

I wonder how National Construction Week went...

Edited September 12, 2017 by The Johnster

[Despatcher]

Thanks for the explanation about lamps and signals. That makes sense to me now. Rusty and forgotten it is then ...

[The Johnster]

I like rusty and forgotten.  I can sort of identify...

[Reorte]

Looking through some books with colour pictures from the 60s of the Settle-Carlisle the cross pieces (rail in these cases too - do they have a specific name?) are white on several, with no sign of red. Rather rusty white in some cases.

[brianusa]

I was always intrigued by the large hydraulic buffers in termini, while out of context, can someone tell me if they are still in use, please and was the concept workable? Even Hornby got in the act to prevent a runaway clockwork train!

 

Brian.

[big jim]

I was always intrigued by the large hydraulic buffers in termini, while out of context, can someone tell me if they are still in use, please and was the concept workable? Even Hornby got in the act to prevent a runaway clockwork train!

 

Brian.

 

the one's in crewe appear to still be in working condition, certainly the tanks stood behind them are "in date" test wise and the gauge on it is showing pressure, i'll see if i can grab a pic tomorrow morning as i have to walk past them between parking my van and getting on the train

[Ian Smeeton]

I came across this some time ago.

 

No good for painting instructions, but still worth a look.

 

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-buffer-stop-tests-at-bradford-1945-online

 

Regards

 

Ian

[Dungrange]

I came across this some time ago.

 

No good for painting instructions, but still worth a look.

 

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-buffer-stop-tests-at-bradford-1945-online

 

Thanks for posting that link.  I had no idea that what are relatively low speed collisions could cause so much damage to both wooden bodied rolling stock and the buffer stops.  Interestingly, I note that a lot of the movement of the buffer stops seemed to be due to the bolts in the fish-plates shearing and the last track panel to which the buffer stop was attached moving as opposed to the buffer stop itself deforming. 

[Ian Smeeton]

If I still had all my old B & W negs, I would post up the results of a visit to Mossend Yd in about 1980.

 

Each one of stops on the dead end roads had been reinforced with a pile of concrete sleepers.

 

Most roads had at least one, and up to three wagons perched on top of them.

 

Regards

 

Ian

[The Johnster]

That film looks like a quiet morning at Severn Tunnel Down Hump...

[big jim]

I was always intrigued by the large hydraulic buffers in termini, while out of context, can someone tell me if they are still in use

Here are one of the sets in crewe plat. 9/10

 

Regularly maintained and tested apparently

[Trog]

Buffer beams are supposed to have had a red painted boarder with a central white stripe since at least the 1980's, with both the red and white paint being retro-reflective.

 

However as most buffer painting is the result of individual staff keenness, you tend to get whatever the keen member of staff thinks looks right or remembers from the last time he saw a freshly painted stop.

Which may have been on his way to a family holiday in the 1960's, or the local historic traditional scheme.

 

Should a member of staff look up how it is supposed to be done as I did as a young and keen STO in the 1980's, the first problem with the official instruction to use red and white retro-reflective paint was that retro-reflective paint was only available in white. So I had the Royal British Legion who did most of BR's signs at the time make me up some retro-reflective sheets in the standard colour scheme about the same size as a buffer beam, I then strapped some marine ply to the rails making up the buffer beam and nailed the sign to it.

 

A few weeks after putting one of these sheets on the buffer at the end of the local single track branch, I went to the local train crew depot to ask what they thought of my invention in the hope of some feed back to see if it was worth doing more buffers. But as it turned out none of the ungrateful (persons of parental marital status negative) had even noticed that the buffer now had a retro-reflective face. So I did no more. However I have since seen the same thing done in several other places, but do not know if the later ones are copies of my idea or other people independently coming up with the same solution.

[micknich2003]

Paragon Yarcd, c2003. The buffer stops were specialy painted for a forth coming "Special Event", that, and typicly never happened.

tachment=900279:PARAGON, Buffer Stops c2003..jpg]

[Steve Hewitt]

I was always intrigued by the large hydraulic buffers in termini, while out of context, can someone tell me if they are still in use, please and was the concept workable? Even Hornby got in the act to prevent a runaway clockwork train!

 

Brian.

Hi Brian,

 

We have working "hydraulic" buffers on all 11 platforms plus some sidings on Liverpool Lime Street.

This link and later posts show how they were modelled: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/33141-lime-street-station/page-35&do=findComment&comment=1120549

 

Steve.

[The Stationmaster]

That film looks like a quiet morning at Severn Tunnel Down Hump...

 

Nah, the dead end roads in the Bristol Yard were the ones to see - apparently at one time there were none of the stop blocks without  battle cscars of various sorts including the many which had long since ceased to be connected to the siding they were supposed to serve.  Mind you pushing through on a dead end road tended to be a lot less entertaining than doing the same on a double-ended road which 'just happened' to have something standing at the other end - one of the old london Diviosn Inspectors always used to say, with a fair degree of sense, that single ended sidings were far safer places to shunt than double-ended sidings.

[The Johnster]

On a double ended siding the 'something at the other end' might even moving the other way...

 

I used to get a bit nervous (by which I mean terrified) being loose shunted with a van and a few hundred tons on top of me at Radyr into an empty road that might or might not be empty at the other end, at night between canyons of minerals or coke hoppers round a long S curve; nerves of steel you 'ad to 'ave, boy, nerves of steel. 

 

Nerves of steel, will of iron, knob of butter.

[Ian Smeeton]

How are these for heavy duty?

 

 

But looking at the size of the steel trains at  Appleby-Frodingham, I doubt that these would stand up to much more than a gentle shove.

 

Regards

 

Ian

[jim.snowdon]

Not long after the rather embarrassing over-run at Cannon Street, I can recall it being said by someone senior in BR that the only real purpose served by a set of buffer stops was to provide a tidy end to the railway and somewhere to plant the red light. By and large, buffer stops, even the impressive hydraulic types at some termini, are good enough to handle a minor misjudgement on the part of the driver, but not much more.

 

Jim

[The Stationmaster]

How are these for heavy duty?

 

2016_08130033-2.jpg

 

But looking at the size of the steel trains at  Appleby-Frodingham, I doubt that these would stand up to much more than a gentle shove.

 

Regards

 

Ian

 

A decent (by which I mean a somewhat careless) Shunter could have those in bits in pretty short order.  And they be useless at stopping anything - to be most effective you need the sleepers planted in well matured and solidified stone dust as it makes a far better 'brake' than ballast or chippings (as long as the stop block stays in one piece that is).

[iands]

Hi,

Although the original post from 'Despatcher'concerned buffer stops at depots, you may find the attached photo's of interest, particularly from a modelling perspective. The photo's are of a buffer stop (or two!) on a disused siding at Sleaford West. The end buffer stop was originally provided with a lamp on a separate post to the "cess" side of the buffer stop. What is interesting in the last two photo's is the presence of a second buffer stop approximately a third of the way along the siding, and the track beyond being disconnected by the removal of a short section of rail. Presumably this was the most expedient way of shortening the siding rather than lifting the rest of the unused siding and relocating the original buffer stop.

 

If you are wondering, the photo's were taken as part of an official survey under controlled safety conditions (e.g. COSS and Lookout) as part of Sleaford resignalling project - didn't just wander of down the track!

 

I have a few other photo's of signals etc. in the area, if anyone is interested in seeing them let me know and I'll post them in the P.Way, Signalling and Infrastructure area.

 

Regards,

 

iands.

[The Stationmaster]

Don't forget that in the circumstances shown in the top photo in 'iands' post the buffer stop lamp should show a white light and not a red light (unless the LNER went its own way on such things).

[Trog]

With some of those older buffers some of the sloping rails went deep into the ground and were attached to a timber or such like buried at depth to give them extra shove resistance.

 

These days if you want to move something like that you would be talking about a crane and road rail excavator, cheaper to just leave the old one and install new.