Railway viaducts - What is the distance between the safety alcoves for railside workers?

[GWR_Modeller]

Hi,

I am building a model of a railway viaduct for a 1930s layout.  I would like to add the alcoves in the parapet which allowed workers to get out of the path of trains, I presume they have a specific name?  I have not found a diagram specifying the distance apart.  Can anybody tell me what was required?

 

I presume the regulations changed overtime and I have seen one picture, pre war, where the alcoves on a viaduct have been recently added or rebuilt evidenced by the different tone of brick and white mortar.  The alcoves in that case on each side were staggered.  Presumably the alcoves in tunnels and some narrow cuttings were spaced similarly to viaducts.

 

Regards, Paul

[Wickham Green too]

Refuges - to give them one appropriate name - were probably spaced according to the piers beneath ( so irrelevant to tunnels ) and the 'standard' positioning would, as you say, have changed over time and, no doubt, between builders ...... unless there was a minimum gap specified by legislation, of course.

[Kris]

Remember that many / most viaducts in the 1930s would have been built in the victorian era when health and safety was all but unknown (at least to our current ideas). Of the 2 (large) bridges on my layout, one Coombe viaduct has 5 refuges (3 on one side and 2 on the other) over a 600ft+ span. The other bridge, the Royal Albert Bridge does not have any refuges on either of the 2 main spans (455ft each). The approach spans do have refuge areas on each pilar. The refuge spaces on Coombe viaduct are more gaps in the parapet walls with metal bars for safety. Those on the Royal Albert Bridge are as shown in my photo below. 

 

 

[Michael Hodgson]

You found similar cubby holes in tunnels too.  The advice was on a double track line if you couldn't reach a refuge in time on double track with trains coming both ways was to lie down in the six foot.

 

Safety rules are indeed different now.  You shouldn't be on the track in such places with trains running.

[Wickham Green too]

..... and on a single track with trains coming both ways ............................................................

[John M Upton]

Fifty yards apart is what I have been told for tunnel refuges at least.

[Wheatley]

6 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

 

Safety rules are indeed different now.  You shouldn't be on the track in such places with trains running.

Indeed. There aren't any on Dent Head viaduct, half a viaduct is a frighteningly long way to run with one coming in each direction. 

[Compound2632]

Harringworth Viaduct, the longest in Britain, was built in the late 1870s , by which time standards for railway structures had settled down. It has refuges above every third pier, every ninth being a thicker strengthening pier. Ribblehead, built only a few years earlier, has them above every sixth pier, those being the strengthening piers.

 

The period you are modelling is irrelevant. What matters is the date at which your viaducts were built; i.e. what's your backstory?

[GWR_Modeller]

There are viaducts without refuges I presume these were either built before any requirement or were wide enough that no refuges were required.  I have looked at pictures on wikipedia and not found so far mention of width, sometimes only whether double or single track but wikipedia does mention spans.  Of the ones I have looked into more closely and considering most have only one visible side only the refuges are 120 ie 3 40' spans; 100' ie 2 50' spans apart; 200' ie 2 spans of 100' but staggered either side so 100'.  What I have not worked out is the position of the refuge on the other side of the first two. 

 

Of the ones you mention Harringworth is 40' spans so 120' and Ribblehead is 45' so 270'.  Ithink I have an answer, over 100' but not too much.

 

One change which seems to be fairly frequent is the replacement of a brick refuge protruding from the parapet with one with metal railings, I suspect this was a pragmatic repair for aging brickwork.  Looking again at the photo I mentioned in the first post there appears to have been a protruding support now unused and metal bars bridging the gap in the parapet, so a repair not an addition.

 

My 'back story' is a market town on a gwr double track secondary mainline, say OWW, or East or South of Gloucester (or Newbury Westbury maybe but I like heavy freight so maybe not) with a branch to West and a diverging mainline to East, so three thro platform faces and two bays.  The nominal period is late 1930s but that will be fudged a little because I admired the old strategic grain silo on the A34 and after I found standard plans for the dozen or  so that were built I made a card model, my first, and it will have find a spot.  That makes the line Victorian and the viaduct model I am butchering is brick and regular and maybe has a concrete cap on the plinth so I propose a turn of the century rebuild when the line was doubled.  How does that sound?  PS my model is little shorter than the Harringworth.

[Compound2632]

43 minutes ago, GWR_Modeller said:

Of the ones you mention Harringworth is 40' spans so 120' and Ribblehead is 45' so 270'.  Ithink I have an answer, over 100' but not too much.

 

Pedantry: allow for the thickness of the piers! Ribblehead is to standard S&C dimensions so ordinary piers are 6 ft at the springing and strengthening 24 ft, so a 6-arch section is 324 ft. 

[kitpw]

Refuges varied - the 11 span Huckford viaduct (1902, GWR, aka Winterbourne viaduct) over the river Frome has refuges over the centre of every other arch - possibly not original as they are pierced through the stone parapet.  Over each pier or every other pier is also commonplace and I suspect that they were placed for architectural reasons rather than H&S.  This reference is useful:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_bridges_and_viaducts_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

Kit PW

A 1920s 7mm terminus layout: Swan Hill - https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/blog/2502-swan-hill/

[Trog]

On 09/02/2021 at 11:59, Michael Hodgson said:

You found similar cubby holes in tunnels too.  The advice was on a double track line if you couldn't reach a refuge in time on double track with trains coming both ways was to lie down in the six foot.

 

Safety rules are indeed different now.  You shouldn't be on the track in such places with trains running.

 

Would not want to stress out the H&S snowflakes would we, although the track staff would probably still be quite happy to use them. It was much the same with the toilets, safety, union and office staff getting worked up over something those getting the toilets flushed over them (including me) did not really care about.

[Reorte]

4 minutes ago, Trog said:

 

Would not want to stress out the H&S snowflakes would we, although the track staff would probably still be quite happy to use them. It was much the same with the toilets, safety, union and office staff getting worked up over something those getting the toilets flushed over them (including me) did not really care about.

 

Can't say I'm the most enthusiastic about the current H&S environment (but then again I'm not working in close proximity to fast-moving heavy machines, which might change my views a bit if I was) but having to walk down a tunnel and possibly dive into the 6' very much sounds too far to the opposite extreme to me! Having toilets flushed on me doesn't really appeal either (having to have retention tanks and retrofitting them always sounded like a definite positive change), perhaps I'm softer than I thought.

[Trog]

In some ways being in a tunnel is safer, less distractions and the twinkle of light as an approaching train blocks half the light coming in at the end of the tunnel is very noticeable. Most tunnels I have worked in had refuges about every chain, with the refuges on alternate sides of the tunnel. Kilsby tunnel once had a big sign at the south end saying that the refuges were under sized and to spread yourselves out so that only two people would be in each refuge. However with the proper incentive six would fit quite easily. It was strange Kilsby is a wet hole with various coloured slimes running down the walls and into the refuges, making them look most unwelcoming. But once you saw the light at the end of the tunnel all that went away and you were quite happy to pile into them. Happy days.

[TheSignalEngineer]

When I started on the railway we used to carry a paraffin flare like an Aladdin's lamp when working in tunnels. When a train enters the tunnel mouth the flame leans in the direction of travel. Works even when the tunnel is full of smoke and steam.

When walking a group through a tunnel my policy was to go on twos and stay one refuge apart. That way you were never more than half a refuge space from safety. To do the work I would post a lookout in the refuge one beyond the ones those working were going to use, one in each direction if working foul of both tracks or using refuges on both sides.

[GWR_Modeller]

12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Pedantry: allow for the thickness of the piers! Ribblehead is to standard S&C dimensions so ordinary piers are 6 ft at the springing and strengthening 24 ft, so a 6-arch section is 324 ft. 

Interesting, I had assumed the measurement was between centres, now you mention it the term span is clearly not that, so is there a simple term centre pier to centre pier?