NNG Cattle Guard Story

ROW's WHY? post got me to thinking about a situation on the Wyoming-Colorado RR when I was there. In several places there were cattle guards which had been there for a LONG time. The actual guard part was made of diagonally cut 8" x 8"s bolted to the ties parallel to the rails. It seems like cattle could get past them and onto the tracks and so one unhappy rancher. He had the bright idea to install an 8" lodgepole pine side to side to the sloped fence brackets. It was on a curve in the trees so I didn't see it until too late to make a smooth stop which with passengers is kind of necessary (especially with a bar car) . Being as the FP-7s were ex Alaska RR and had jim-dandy plows I decided to see what would happen. The point on the plow snapped the pole like a toothpick. On the down trip the rancher was sitting there in his pick up and some of his cattle were on the tracks. I slowed way down and crept up toward the cattle guard and blew the 5 bell Nathan horn! The cattle literally jumped over the cattle guard! The rancher just shook his head. I never did hit any cattle on that RR. JP



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2016 05:09PM by jim pallow.