This reminds of the series of videos posted to GoogTube I found yesterday called 11foot8 which is a train trestle that is only that tall. Guess what? Trucks run into it all the time. There are warning lights that flash if your truck is above that height but trucks still go through. The railroad company even installed a crash bar (I-beam) in front of the bridge because the collisions are so common.
Here’s a great compilation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj8Bkn9kaLE
Crash bar gets bent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9NusQdPYvY&feature=related
GoogTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/yovo68
Yep, that’s the Gregson Street Trestle in downtown Durham, NC just a few miles from where I sit now. The owner of that channel has two cameras setup in different buildings covering that old trestle (built around 1910). He has captured an average of one crash *per month* in the past four years.
The railroad (not sure which one) that owns the bridge put that steel I-beam in front of it years ago. The vast majority of impacts are strictly to the crash beam because it’s usually hit by box trucks that just get peeled back like a sardine can when they meet that heavy steel. The crash that bent the bar, though, actually *did* contact the trestle deck, because that was a heavy piece of machinery instead of a flimsy trailer box. (It’s also claimed a couple of RV’s air conditioning units, and some haybales, in the past year or so.)
}:-)4