When was the last time you saw barrels of water periodically placed on the freeway/highway in mountain passes?
Posted by NW_Forester@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 38 comments
Was just thinking about this. As a kid all the tall mountain passes had like 50 gallon buckets of water placed at mile or half mile increments. I don't think I've seen any of those in the 21st century and it seemed like even in the 90s a lot of them were disappearing.
thagrrrl79@reddit
https://i.redd.it/rbiifz7t6e5f1.gif
Found one via Google Street View! Couldn't find any more recent than 2015 & this was the only barrel in the turn off when there used to be 2-3 per turn off, so suspect they were already phasing them out by then.
NW_Forester@reddit (OP)
IIRC Pendleton is around the Blue Mountains? Those are the exact type of mountains that had them, not necessarily the steepest or the highest, but the climbs that just lasted forever.
thagrrrl79@reddit
Yup! Westbound has the truck ramps for out-of-control vehicles (primarily semis); eastbound had the barrels.
Brilliant-Jaguar-784@reddit
I've never seen this before. Where are you from? What were the water barrels for?
NW_Forester@reddit (OP)
They were for overheating vehicles. As you get higher altitude you have less power so the engine needs to work harder. Not a big deal with 300 HP engines but with 88 HP engines, it mattered.
I live(d) in Washington. We had a few in the passes but our main passes on major highways or interstates were relatively low, most are under 5000'. I remember seeing them all over the place in passes in the Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and California where the passes were much higher.
ptero_smack_dyl@reddit
Ohhhhh wait do you mean the barriers? They aren’t always filled with water, they can be filled with anything heavy to keep them from falling over. I still see barriers and other roadway stuff full of water occasionally on the road, mostly in areas with construction. The areas you’re talking about may have gotten permanent barriers or paint and did away with the barrels.
NW_Forester@reddit (OP)
No, not barriers. Barriers are placed at exits or places for safety. These were water used for overheating vehicles in areas where there would be a long climb at a high grade. Like if there was 5 miles at 6* grade, you'd see either barrels or a whole bunch of gallons of water about every mile, sometimes less on really bad roads. It may have only been done in the summer, I wasn't regularly going through passes in the winter as a kid.
woohoo789@reddit
What were you supposed to do with the water? Throw it on your hot engine and get steam burns? This doesn’t make sense
3ntropy303@reddit
The 8 West has them up the mountain pass out, of the Imperial County desert, headed to San Diego
Throw-away17465@reddit
I live(d) in Washington my whole life (Snoqualmie pass) and I’ve worked for WSDOT and transportation contractors.
I’ve literally never seen the barrels you’re talking about. I’m not saying you’re making it up, but I’m saying that I’ve never seen or heard of these before.
Do you have a picture? It’s plausible that I’ve passed by them and not known what I’m looking at. Unlikely, but plausible .
thagrrrl79@reddit
https://i.redd.it/t8t09l466e5f1.gif
You will see here a water barrel on the side of eastbound I-84 as recently as July 2015. I wasn't able to see any in more recent street views, so suspect they have fully gone away. This was the only barrel in the pull off, when there used to be two or three per turn out, so I suspect they were already phasing them out by this point.
Throw-away17465@reddit
Thanks for this! I don’t recognize barrels, and I was working in transportation after 2015 so yeah, I probably just never saw them.
thagrrrl79@reddit
No pictures but can confirm them being all along the eastbound side of I-84 while going over Cabbage Hill, along with sizeable turnouts for folks to park safely while their cars cooled off. I even had to use one once when coming back from a trip as a teen. Almost had an entire Army National Guard envoy stop for our trio of teen girls to make sure we were good.
I'm fairly certain most of the passes through Eastern Oregon & Washington had/have them. Very odd you never encountered them.
NW_Forester@reddit (OP)
I was looking for pictures online but couldn't find any. Quora agrees with me they existed and the purpose of them.
And not all of them were like 55 gallon containers, those seemed more like California, Colorado. Sometimes it would be like a bundle of gallon jugs of water sitting together. From what I can remember when they were the large containers 50/55 gallons, they were painted blue.
And I am not sure if all places were done by someone official. I think some of them were done by like the local community.
Throw-away17465@reddit
If nothing else, if we don’t have them, they seem like a good idea!
thagrrrl79@reddit
Can confirm seeing them on the eastbound side of I-84 when going over Cabbage Hill all growing up & I'm pretty sure I still see them up there when I go back to visit.
TyeMoreBinding@reddit
I believe what you are thinking of aren’t for cars that overheat - they can still easily pull over and shut down to cool off.
What I believe you are remembering would be in mountains, they were for semis. On the downhill drive, a fully loaded semi could overheat the brakes and the brakes then fail. Take all that wait and going downhill, they have to stop somehow or it’s gonna plow through a station wagon of kids on their way to Yellowstone.
So to address this, they made these lanes that the trucker could turn onto, slope upwards, and on a loose pavement that helped it stop.
Sometimes, it just wasn’t possible to have enough runway, so there’d be a stack of these giant water jugs to absorb the impact.
Similar concept as when you see them on highways to protect someone that veers of the road, but yeah, I remember seeing them as a kid when we were traveling through the mountains and being impressed and curious.
NW_Forester@reddit (OP)
Nope, runaway truck stops were on downhill portions, I am talking about water being available on uphill portions.
Ex-PFC_WintergreenV4@reddit
I have seen this in Mexico
Colossus-of-Roads@reddit
These were absolutely a thing in Australia, even on hills that weren't that large. They were gone by my childhood years but there are plenty of photos of them in the 1960s - at the time, Australians were buying a lot of small British cars and air-cooled Volkswagens, both of which were a serious problem going up hills in the Australian summer.
BrashPop@reddit
I live thousands of kilometres away from any sort of hill. So, no. I’ve never seen those.
someguyfromsk@reddit
I've never seen that, they would just be giant blocks of ice in the winter up here.
thagrrrl79@reddit
They're usually pulled/emptied for colder months because they'd freeze otherwise.
Transplanted_Cactus@reddit
Meanwhile they'd dry up in five hours down here
ptero_smack_dyl@reddit
Never seen this before. What area were they in? What color were the buckets? Open top or closed? I’m just trying yo remember if I’ve ever seen any
NW_Forester@reddit (OP)
It varied a lot. Some seemed to be locally maintained, others seemed more organized. The ones I seem to best remember were like 50-55 gallons, blue or white/clear, would have a cover and sometimes off the side there would be like a large cup or pan for scooping the water. I think the big ones were normally covered. Other times it would be like collections of milk gallon containers filled with water or 5 gallon water cooler containers every mile or so.
It was mostly big rigs that used them. I would say typically if on a downward slope you saw runaway truck pull outs, on the upward climb you would see the water containers.
Financial-Yak-4172@reddit
I don't know if it's still maintained but the Eastbound viewpoint on Cabbage Hill (Eastern Oregon) definitely had these.
mindsunwound@reddit
They still have water stations on the Grapevine. I think one on each side now.
NW_Forester@reddit (OP)
Nice! Glad I am not going crazy.
mindsunwound@reddit
You're not, they're not terribly useful these days, most modern coolant systems are pressurized, and using water instead of the specific coolant the engine needs will require at a minimum a coolant flush as soon as you are able to prevent permanent damage.
Putting water in is a kiss of death, but it might get you over the hill to a shop, and save you a tow.
NativePA@reddit
They do around me but it’s for the Amish horses
Nate8727@reddit
Those are still a thing and still everywhere.
It's so a car doesn't hit the bridge supports. If they have an accident the barrels of water stop the car.
snwbrdngtr@reddit
Colorado fills ours with sand, not water. It would be a major bummer to hit a barrel that was frozen solid
Nate8727@reddit
They probably put a liquid that doesn't freeze since I'm in IL.
snwbrdngtr@reddit
We also have a massive water shortage, maybe that adds to the decision
NW_Forester@reddit (OP)
Not those, those are like lots of barrels all together, these were singular barrels far apart, like a mile apart maybe.
Nate8727@reddit
Oh, never seen those before then.
Weird-Falcon-917@reddit
I've been noticing a lot fewer of the floaters on power lines to buoy them up during floods too...