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Devices known as Rat Tails were erected to protect the brakesmen of gravity trains from the dangers of bridges, footbridges and tunnels. Brakesmen worked their trains brakes by walking along the tops of the loaded waggons to adjust the brakes and, while so doing, they could be foul of the FR's restricted loading gauge. To give them warning that they were approaching a hazard gantries were erected from which hung knotted ropes at a level that would strike a standing brakesman and cause him to sit down. The success of the system, however crude, is borne out by a complete lack of any records of brakesmen suffering injury from bridges or tunnel portals. The use of ropes ensured that other rolling stock was not damaged. The limited photographic evidence suggests that the passage of other stock and the effects of locomotive exhausts made the central ropes pretty tatty! This photo, taken some time after closure in 1946, shows the gantry at Buarth Melyn. The ropes are no longer in situ. Photo credit: FR Archives Recently featured: Carriage 2042 – Minffordd bypass – Publications – Van 4