Track Bumpers

Many Railroads use track bumpers. Here is another thread that talks about using track bumpers.

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/track-bumpers-12188158

This might be suitable for 1920-40?

http://jbrr.com

End of track

Real railroads would use nothing or a pile of dirt.  Industries would use bumpers.

If you mean the end of the

Do you mean the end of the track that the railroad owns or the physical end of the track?  Where I worked, we just had signs that marked where our track ended and the NS and CSX owned track began.  If you mean the end of sidings, then the above suggestions are what you need.

Tracker Bumpers

After doing a little looking, I found this in a book from 1904:

Bumpers

 The railroads generally don't use bumping posts on the ends of their tracks because in most cases, except maybe for those massive concrete blocks,  a moving car will plow right through most bumping posts.  They use something like a pile of dirt or some crossties so when the car is shoved over the end of the track, its easy, quick and cheap to repair and rerail.

Most industry tracks use a "Hayes" bumper or wheel stops, those triangular castings that bolt to the rails.  Cheaper and just as effective.

This is one alternative

That I photographed in Fairbanks in 2010.  Its on the stub track next to the Fairbanks Newspaper plant on Driveway Street.

Or...

On the end of the CN former Green Bay and Western line east of Plover Wisconsin is this -

Just a red painted square of sheet metal!  There are a couple industries served off this line and it is also used for storage of rolling stock.  Just beyond this point, in the past, GB&W Alcos would begin a short but steep climb up the Arnott Moraine cresting at milepost 75, the highest elevation on the road.

yes...

Exactly what I was thinking of!

Re: Bumpers

They do have their limits...

Pictures taken by Ken Glover, Woodstock, TN 1978

"I was wondering if anyone

   It depends on the railroad and the location. A city passenger terminal might have nice metal bumping posts set in concrete while a rural spur could have a pile of dirt. The more developed and industrialized the location the more likely it has a manufactured end of track product.  I'd look for photos of similar era and location railroads to get some modeling ideas...DaveB

As others have said - It depends...

Hi Chris

For your stated period of the 1920's-1940's the end of track "stopper' can be very basic for holding sidings that are shunted at low speeds. These "stoppers" were generally built with using what the railway had lying around (like sleepers/crossties and ballast/dirt). 

These "stoppers" can range through a single sleeper bolted across the rails (Gembrook Vic Australia). This could be easily modelled with a spare sleeper ACC'd across the tracks at the end of the siding.

a more modern metal version using wheel-stops that are clamped to the rails (Port Alberni Canada). This could be easily modelled with some styrene filed to shape and then ACC'd to the head of the rails at the end of the siding.

through a few sleepers bolted together to form a timber bumper stop (also at Gembrook Australia)

This one is on 2'6" narrow gauge tracks, for standard gauge, the supporting side timbers would be vertical  and would be braced with other sleepers see  http://www.gwydirvalleymodels.com/resources/images/products//Buffer2.png for some inspiration.

The Hayes type steel bumper has already been mentioned by others, It looks like they might be suitable for your period. For far more information than you are like to need, but for everything you need to build these have a look at  http://www.westernsafety.com/wch-railroadproducts/BumpingPosts.html

Using dirt or gravel, the "stoppers" can range from a suitably large rock and the tracks are slewed to use it as a buffer stop (as seen outside Broken Hill Australia on a quarry siding). Unfortunately this one is too far away from the road for Streetview to be any use)

to the pile of dirt/ballast as modelled by a few sleepers spiked together and infilled with ballast/dirt as shown to the right of the car in the photo below. This can be easily modelled with some spare sleepers pinned or glued together and some ballast/sand/rocks piled up over the end of track. In model form this version probably won't work as well as some of the other modelling options shown for stopping a model train dead.  if a model train is pushed in too far after the infill material has been glued in, then the wheel flanges will ride uip on the infill material instead of bogging "in the dirt" as they would in the real world..

Your next level for dirt "stopper" just uses higher timber walls and more dirt/ballast. Something like these available from Peco  http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/pco/pcost8.htm 

Then there is the ultimate " stopper' - a large block of concrete across the tracks that is higher than coupler height.  

I hope that this has given you some ideas

dirt "stopper"

When I was a kid the SP put a large dump truck load of dirt at the end of the Capitola spur, we found it made an excellent bike jump to pass time waiting for the local . Over the years the spur was removed and the pile got spread out more and more and now when I walk by there's just a slightly rounded patch of grass and I doubt many folks realize what it was....DaveB

End of Track

CN in Prince Rupert, BC marks the end of their mainline with a sign and bumpers. As I suspected CN's layout is a point to point and not a loop. 

 Larry

Some more Canadian End-of-Tracks

Hi Chris

heading out of Vancouver:

Some Hayes type on industrial trackage

The concrete equivalents

Further west near Basque? on CN tracks, just west of the CP/CN junction - a wider view of the whole end-of track

and a closer look at the wheel stops

Hopefully that will do for inspiration purposes,

Hmm...

I kinda like the idea of the IC Geep being used as a bumping post.  Has a real "Railroady" feel to it, don't ya think? 

Oh...wait - there's a bumper BEHIND the Geep... oops!

Or nothing

I have a photo somewhere of a corn syrup facility in Baltimore with nothing more than yellow paint on the last couple of feet of rail.

Check the bulge on them Gons...

Dear MRHers,

Check the bulge on them gons, the next railcar weathering "how to" article in MRH...???

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Bumping posts

When i worked on Norfolk Southern back in the mid 90s. All of the sidings that I went into had the Hayes Bumping posts at the ends of the sidings.  We had a rule in our rule books that we couldnt Touch the face of the Bumping post with the face of the knuckle. The management was adamant about this rule also. If they caught you putting a car or cars all the way into the siding and if the Knuckle face was touching the post face. That would bee a free 30 day Vacation pending Investigation.  So I always brought the cars knuckle to within 15-20 feet of the face, then cranked the hand breaks tight.        Kevin

Signage

Alaska Railroad typically uses either a red flag or a sign that simply says "End of Track." There are sometimes accompanying wheel stops or other bumpers, but not always.

BNSF, at least in eastern Montana, was generally the same, when I worked there.

Thanks

Thank you for all the replies.  I will be seeing about trying to get to a stub yard to see what is there and get some ideas.  Then I will take what you have given me and work something out.

Thanks again,

Chris

Who said you need a bumper?

Just bevel the end so the car doesn't jolt to the ground.

One solution - the Keebler Bumper

One possible solution found at the Quincy copper smelter complex at Ripley in Michigan's Upper Peninsula:
Photo by Mike Forgrave

The original patent for the bumper:
Large version can be found on Google Patents by searching for "Keebler Bumping Post"

You could have little bit of

You could have little bit of dirt on end of track with some static grass and weeds to show cars don't go further. I've seen pavement put over tracks and tracks end on other side of road with weeds and old bumper. At a local Nestle plant spur all the extra storage tracks end like this with weeds starting 20 feet before the road and 20 feet after wards into a bumper. There is no crossing or heads showing of rail- pavement and asphalt just go over.