Silly Question, but

[lenht1951]

Hi, what was placed at the end of engine sheds to prevent locos going through the end brick wall, buffers, concrete blocks or something else. I've searched the internet but have been unable to see any photos of empt engine sheds.

[Ex-Pat]

In some depots the ends of the rails were curved up.

Will also have a good look at my books!

[Bufferstop]

Sometimes a couple of cast iron wedge shaped blocks bolted to the rails. There's plenty of reports of locos coming through the end wall of sheds.

[flying scotsman123]

Not a lot usually! curved rail ends, maybe a sleeper or two or some other similar huge lump of wood, unlikely to be full bufferstops. Certainly plenty of pictures of locos going through shed walls, although after a very cursory search I can't find any at the moment!

[Ex-Pat]

A quick look at my books devoted to steam loco sheds reveals very few interior photos (presumably lighting conditions didn't encourage even the authorised photographer) .

The few I have come across are roundhouse photos and, apart from one instance of "chocks", there seems to have been no other method . The theory presumably being that nothing could move that fast off a turntable ?!

[lenht1951]

Cheers guys, thanks very much for your time. Think I will go with the idea of sleepers at the rail end,

[Bigmet]

Hi, what was placed at the end of engine sheds to prevent locos going through the end brick wall, buffers, concrete blocks or something else...

The 'something else' was exactly the same arrangement that prevented locos being driven into the turntable pit, when the bridge wasn't aligned with the track an approaching loco was on. Diligence of both loco crew and shed staff to doing the shed work with due care was always the primary method.

Knocking out a section of (single skin?) 'screen wall' by overrunning the rail ends in a dead end shed is probably preferable to the degree of damage that might occur by positive prevention of such an event by a sufficiently massive stop block. That might leave the tender and or loco significantly damaged and possibly derailed, with all the disturbance to the work of the shed that re-railing would require, and do damage to the shed's foundations. Some holes in the brick work were of no great concern, and a few superficial dents on the tender or loco of little significance. The various descriptions of such events are typically fairly light hearted, very different in degree to experiences of failing to observe signals on the running lines - which happily had no consequences beyond delivering a reminder that fullest attention was required at all times when out on the road.