Fact Files - Road Guard Rails

On SDJ we can see these guard rail along most of the steeper places. It would not look good if any vehicles went off. The type of guard rail presented here is a typical Swedish version with pillars in eother granite or concrete, and with a beam for vehicle protection and a pipe-rail on top to protect people. The beam and pipe-rail are almost always painted green. The sketch below shows some of the standard measures and beam profile types we use.

Skiss 3: Road Guard Rails

The sketch shows the principal measures for a Swedish guard rail since a very long time. (H0-measures within brackets). The pillars (A) were either made from stone (granite) or concrete and is about 2 m long. Above ground we can only see 0.7 m (9 mm) or 0.9 m (12 mm). The lower 0.7 m is used for the beam (B) normally called hub-follower, which is designed to hit a car axle in hub height and thus be able to guide the vehicle along the besam. If it was fairly steep outside of the guard rail, aniother 0.2 m was added along with a 2" or 50 mm pipe to act as protection for persons.

The pillars were placed somewhere between 2 and 4 m (23 - 46 mm) apart depending on the local circumstances. The shorter distance is more common. The pillar is about 0.25 m square (2.8 mm) regardless of material. The concrete pillras are normally rounded off at their tops for better draining.

The protection beam (B) was made from wood in the beginning and about 50x250 mm (0.6x2.9 mm). Next generation was steel C-profile with the same measurements, and today it is either a steel Kohlswa or W-profile beam, still with the same measurements.

The top rail (C) was and is normally made from ordinary 50 mm (0.7 mm) steel pipe joined to an "endless" length using extension nuts every 6th m (69 mm). The top rail was the secured to the pillars using sulphur bonding.

In the earlier days the guard rails were ended quite abruptly which have turned out to be dangerous if you hit the rail at the end, so in later years  the ends of hub-follower and top rail are bent down towards and even into the ground to make it impossible to hit the end. On SDJ I use the middle version with Kohlswa-profiled steel hub.follower and top pipe-rail were so required.

Pictures of real-life guard rails ans well as model versions will turn up later.