Need Help adapting a miniature golf course for the blind using harmonic tone variation guardrails

[JoshuaT]

I am in the organizing process of attempting to give a small business in the redwood national forest ( a peewee golf course ) the option to offer the course to the visually impaired and their families opening up the outdoors to tens of thousands while having peace of mind and enjoying our countries national parks. I have a few different ideas on how to complete this project BUT as I am not a millionaire and will be working with grant money need to find the most frugal accomplishment of this project. I would love the option of recycling train tracks to create the sound bars ( since the course would be in northern California and there are unused and paved over train tracks in abundance ) but is this more costly in labor than to forge brand new?

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Welcome from the Ozark Mountains.

One possibility would be to contact your local Highway Dept and see if they have highway guard rails that have been removed for one reason or another. I know that ARDOT has them all the time and will donate them for a good cause. I would say your project will fit that category.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

[George N. M.]

Welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming.  Glad to have you.

I am not sure what a "sound bar" is but I would think that using railroad rails to construct one or more would be a problem because of the weight.  Track is HEAVY and unless you have equipment like cranes, trucks, and large fork lifts/back hoes to move them you are going to have an issue.  And you need folk experienced in rigging and moving heavy loads safely.  Also, they have significant scrap value (about 25 cents per pound in the Rocky Mountains the last time I looked).

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Frosty]

American rail weighs between 115 and 147 lbs/yd. and in lengths between 39' to 82'. This means that the shortest length of the lightest rail weighs, 115lbs x 13 yards = 1,495lbs. Each. 

I don't understand what you mean by "sound bar" all I see searching the web are the speaker type sound bars. 

Of course that lets me speculate which is an enjoyable past time of mine.

Soooo, is a sound bar something that makes a clear sound when tapped by a cane?

Or maybe, they can be sensed by certain hearing aids that emit a tone when close? 

Or? 

If it's the second and hearing aids detect them then you could bury baling wire and provide the boundary tone. Hmmmm?

If on the other hand it is a physical barrier found directly with a cane then virtually anything will do. Being a GVT funded operation in the redwoods talk to forestry, they frequently thin young redwoods planted after fires or in re-forestration projects. You should be able to acquire more saplings than you'll ever need by asking. I'd bet they'll deliver them off gratis.

Frosty The Lucky.

[George N. M.]

Logging railroads and mines used lighter rails but if they are abandoned in place you would have the issue of extracting them and transporting them to your project.  Even if they have been pulled up and are sitting in a scrap yard the transportation issue would be significant.

There are lots of worthy projects that are good and worthy things to do that have been defeated by logistics issues like transportation.  I was once involved in the idea of placing an aircraft in a park as a veteran's memorial but the cost of transporting the plane from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in southern Arizona to Colorado caused the idea to be shelved.

GNM