Industrial Archaeology: C. 1908 Bumping Post

I love Google Books. They have scanned books before 1927 that are priceless for the Model Railroader. Often what you get are old grainy photos with a possible description of what you are looking at.

The fun part is taking that photo and that description and bringing it back to life.

Universal Portland Cement Company, Bulletin, Issues 614-115. In this in issue No. 97 page 107 (Published 1912) we find this:

Concrete Bumping Posts for Special Locations

Massive concrete bumping posts have been used by the Baltimore & Ohio Ry. in Chicago, on several teaming tracks with a 2 1/2% grade and several hundred feet long, to prevent cars breaking loose and going over an ordinary post into the street, or into buildings on the opposite side of the street. Their first was built in 1908, and though several cars have gotten beyond control the only damage done has been to the cars or to the timbers shown in front of the concrete post.

They have in all, six of these bumping posts in Chicago, each costing $340.00 including the timbers and springs on the bumping face. The weight, including foundation, is about 67 tons, containing 352 cubic yards of concrete. The foundation is 15 feet by 8 feet by 4 feet deep and the face rises 11 feet.

For use on team tracks having a steep grade, or to prevent cars going over an abutment, these posts afford a thoroughly practical solution of the problem.

From that page I pulled the photo out and cleaned it up as best I could. Published in 1912 it’s only a bit less then 100 years old.

Now come the magic bit. I imported this photo into Sketchup as a New Matched Photo. Match Photo in Sketchup is pretty cool. You bring in a photo, like this bumper post, and you will see a bunch of lines, green, red and blue with handles. The green and red are perspective lines, one for the top and bottom of the object. By aligning the lines along parts of the object you are setting the vanishing points. When this is done you then draw along the object, following the outlines on the photo. What you are doing is creating a 3D object that you can then spin and modify at will. 

Here’s that same photo with the perspective lines/vanishing points set. Note that on the left side the handle on that green line is below the apparent ground level. That was done to swivel the blue vertical line along the vertical edge of the bumping post. The ground was sloped and higher at the back.

With the vanishing points established we can then draw along the object. One thing to keep in mind is that you just can’t start anywhere. You need to start from a place where the vanish points cross and then always start a new line off of another. That will keep the elements related within the program.

Finally when everything is drawn and extruded and modified as needed (in this case you can only see one side so you mirror the other - things like that) you have a 3D object you can use to build a model.

Note that the text states that the dimensions of the bumping post was: The foundation is 15 feet by 8 feet by 4 feet deep and the face rises 11 feet.

I measured up the vertical edge of the construct and scaled the drawing to that. My dimensions are different. That could be for two reasons. One, the camera lens could have distorted the photo. I suppose if you were knowledgeable about it you might be able to “un-distort” the photo presuming you knew what kind of lens took the photo. Two, whoever wrote the book had the measurements wrong.

In any case it would have been easy to modify the measurements to match the text. For me, the 3D object matches very closely to the photo and is fine as is.

Now, is such a massive bumping post usable on your layout? I have no idea. The first one was built in 1908. That would make it 103 years old if you modeled the present day. My layout is set around 1940. It would have only been 32 years old then. Even today you could model a piece of abandoned track with a weed overgrown, stained and crumbling monster of a bumping post lurking in a corner. If not download Sketchup (it’s Free) and browse through Google Books. Not telling what you will find.