In some cases, catch points and trap points direct vehicles into a sand drag or safety siding, also sometimes called an arrestor bed. This may be a siding simply leading to a mound of sand, gravel or other granular material, or a siding where the rails are within sand-filled troughs. This method of stopping a vehicle travelling at speed is preferred over a buffer stop as there is less shock to the vehicle involved.
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Famous quotes containing the words sand and/or drag:
“This sand seemed to us the connecting link between land and water. It was a kind of water on which you could walk, and you could see the ripple-marks on its surface, produced by the winds, precisely like those at the bottom of a brook or lake. We had read that Mussulmans are permitted by the Koran to perform their ablutions in sand when they cannot get water, a necessary indulgence in Arabia, and we now understand the propriety of this provision.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.”
—Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)