Safety cages on railroad structures

[SteamGene]

I have a model of a Fairbanks-Morse sanding tower made by Winchester Station.  (Anybody know what happened to that company?)  The kit has, and the plan mentions, saftety cages or hoops for the ladders.  Somehow I wonder about those on a railroad structure in 1957. 
Thoughts?
BTW, the kit comes without the standpipe to fill the sanddome of the locomotive, but I will use the "modern" standpipes from the new Walthers kit and the old standpipe with the Walthers sand storage building in one of the towns.  Climbing that 2% grade those 2-6-6-6s and 2-10-2s and 2-10-4s use a lot of sand!
Gene

[Ken]

 Gene
  Certainly by the mid thirties ladders with a safety cage were starting
  to appear. perhaps even earlier. Plant I worked in, orginally built in 1952  had  way to many, must have  climbed miles of them in my 30 years there<G>.

  Flipping through "A History of Royal Dutch Shell" show them in the
mid to late 1930s on towers. Certainly would be found on railway
structure's around the same time.

  Ken Clark

[Atlantic Central]

Gene,

In my days as an electrician and project manager any open ladder of length had them. And many of the plants we worked in easily dated back to the 40's and 50's if not before.

Sheldon

[SteamGene]

Now, that brings up the question as to why the Walthers coaling tower DOESN'T have them.  It has a very similar ladder arrangement and is, of course, much taller. 
Gene

[Atlantic Central]

Gene,

That is a good question but maybe one with a simple answer. Before the 1970's, before OSHA and the like, before Federalism run amuck, things like that where left to state or local regulation or to self regulation by the industries themselves and maybe even their insurance companies.

So what was required on the NYC in Albany and what was allowed on the B&O in Baltimore in say 1953, might be worlds apart.

On the insurance company thing, even in the seventies, I can remember working in plants where the insurance company put much tougher rules on their client than any government regulators. - Loss Prevention!

Sheldon

[rogertra]

Two of the theatres I work in have vertical ladders from the deck to the grid.

60 or so feet straight up.  It wasn't until about five years or so ago that a Fall Arrest system was installed.

[SteamGene]

I'm being very specific here.  I have a 150 ton concrete coaling tower and a maybe 30 ton concrete sanding tower that will be in the same yard.  In fact, they will share a service track.  So why would one have a safety cage and one wouldn't?  I guess I can find safety cage material to put on the ladders of the coaling tower. 
Unfortunately my LHS just closed!
Gene

[ebtnut]

As much as anything, it likely depended on when each structure was built, what the insurance company had to say at a particular time, what the head of the railroad's civil engineering office had to say, any changes in union agreements, etc.  If the coal dock and the sand tower were built together, then it would be likely that they would either both have cages, or not have cages.  If they were built a couple of years apart, then one might have them and the other not. 

[r.cprmier]

Gene and others;
If you are looking for good resolution in parts like caged ladders, go to Tichy's site.  Their parts are on the same level as Grandt's.  As a matter of course, I think that what Grandt doesn't have, Don TIchy does; made with the same care and high quality.  My personal opinion of Walthers parts is that they are definitely not as good-with no offense intended toward Walthers or anyone else; just my opinion.

At any rate, I have used Tichy's fire escape systems, ladders, etc, for a lot of projects and am pretty happy.  The windows in a lot of kits have oversized muntins, sash, stiles and rails; which has made me lean more toward scratchbuilding again, and the "upper shelf" models; hence, again going with Tichy and Grandt for parts.  I guess my philosophical approach is that I want what I put the effort into to make me satisfied and happy.  THis is also a reason why I switched to Central Valley turnout kits, etc.

Again, I say I am not knocking anyone's plastic etc, kit; there are many reasons that they are a legitimate option; I just have found my level of satisfaction.

Rich

[SteamGene]

I'm fairly sure that the plastic parts of the sand tower are Tichy parts.  They are very finely made.  I'm going to check with an old C&O engineer tomorrow, but I'm thinking that Virginia might not have had safety cages as early as other states might have.  I seem to remember that the chemical plants in Waynesboro in the late 50's, early '60s had ladders without safety cages, and the amount of dangerous activity my military school not only allowed, but required, would give a modern school administrator a heart attack (imagine a 14 year old standing on a window sill - on the outside, four stories above the ground, cleaning the outside of the windows every week! )
Gene