The kerb-guided bus (KGB) guidance mechanism is a development of the early flangeways, pre-dating railways. The Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad of 1809 therefore has a claim to be the earliest guided busway. Earlier flangeways existed, but were not for passenger carrying.
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Several of these kits are also available to the OO modeller who aims for more realistic track since most RTR track is actually scaled to HO and does not represent any British prototype, and the sleeper spacing is too close for scale. EM gauge has slightly overscale flanges and flangeways on point and crossing work; P4 is closer to scale but the smaller flanges and flangeways on P&C; work expose poor track construction.
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In an effort to regulate the depth of flangeways in a crossing frog, the US Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) created rules which, by definition, prohibited the use of flange-bearing frogs on track with speed limits greater than .Track Safety Standards Compliance Manual. Federal Railroad Administration, 2009. Print, Web.
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The railway has an excellent safety record, with only one recorded serious accident, which was deliberately caused by vandalism. On 2 September 2008 vandals blocked the flangeways of Barnard's crossing, near Walsingham and used a level crossing gate to derail locomotive No 3 Norfolk Hero. The passengers and train crew were not injured in this attack, and a diesel locomotive was sent from Wells to recover the stranded passenger train - although some passengers chose to ignore advice from the train crew and walked to Walsingham. Norfolk Hero was repaired and restored to service by the end of the month.
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On the evening of June 15, and into the next morning, violent thunderstorms hit the Hackettstown area. Around 10 p.m., lightning struck Williams and Hibler's lumber yard in Hackettstown, starting a fire that would eventually consume the yard, despite the efforts of the townspeople. Shortly after midnight, rain from another thunderstorm sent water cascading down Hazen Road and onto Rockport Crossing, where the road crossed the Lackawanna's Phillipsburg Branch.Railroad Wrecks by Edgar A. Haine, p100-4, publ 1993, The water washed dirt and gravel down a steep hill and onto the crossing, where this debris accumulated in the flangeways, metal pieces installed to allow trains to pass smoothly through the crossing.
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In spite of the accident, 110 of the train's passengers boarded the steamship bound for Germany the following morning. Several days after the accident, a jury convened in a coroner's inquest at the new opera house in Washington, New Jersey, heard testimony that pinpointed the cause of the derailment. Elmer Clayton, Mansfield Township's road supervisor, testified that the gutters on Hazen Road had been dug out recently near the area of the train accident and this material--dirt, gravel and stones--had been pushed to the center of the road to build up the crown in anticipation of laying macadam. He surmised that this loose debris had been washed down the steep slope during the rain storm and then onto the grade crossing where it clogged the flangeways, thus leading to the derailment.
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Also, as the vehicle does not place a significant portion of its weight on the guide wheel (most of it being supported by the rubber tyres), snow packed into the flangeways or atop the rail by road traffic could lift the guide wheel off the rail, leading the vehicle to go off course. Critics of the system also point out that, unlike a conventional tramway, GLT is a proprietary system, meaning that once having installed it, a city would face difficulties in purchasing vehicles from any manufacturer other than Bombardier. A standard tramway, by contrast, can easily accommodate vehicles from multiple suppliers; Nancy's neighbour Strasbourg, for example, has chosen the Alstom Citadis tram to supplement its existing Eurotram fleet. Because of the problems encountered by cities which have purchased the Bombardier Guided Bus (one of which has demanded compensation for the costs it has had to pay for the GLT) Bombardier will not sell any more GLT systems, at least until all the issues have been resolved.
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