What is a blocked frog?

I'm reading a book, Death Rode the Rails, by Mark Aldrich. It's an academic book about railroad safety. One thing it talks about is blocking (switch) frogs as a safety measure. As far as I can tell, however switches were built in the late nineteenth century, it was easy for a switchman to catch his foot in the frog. The solution was a blocked frog. I even found some court cases that held railroads negligent when workers got hurt and the frogs hadn't been blocked. Apparently it was something of a cause celebre at the end of the 19th century; there was even a Frank Spearman novel where someone getting killed by getting his foot caught in an unblocked frog was an important part of the story.

My problem is, I have no idea what a blocked or unblocked frog looked like. Can anyone explain this to me? A diagram would probably be the clearest way to explain it.

From : http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/g ... 85#Scene_1

May 25, 1896. [163 U.S. 485, 486] On April 12, 1890, defendant in error filed his petition in the district court of Pottawattamie county, Iowa, to recover of plaintiff in error $20,000 for personal injuries. From the petition it appears that he was a brakeman in the employ of the railway company; that the injury occurred at the town of North Bend, in the state of Nebraska; and that it was caused by reason of his catching his foot in the narrow angle or frog made by the junction of the main and side tracks at that place, from which frog he was unable to extricate himself until an engine had passed over him. It was alleged that the blocking of such frog is the proper duty of every railway company, upon the performance of which every employ e has a right to rely; and, further, 'that, in fact, said angle or frog was not then, and had not been, blocked or filled, but was in a very dangerous and hazardous condition by reason of not being blocked or filled, all of which the said defendant then and there knew, but of which said plaintiff had no knowledge whatever.'
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Does a pretty good job of explaining what a Blocked Frog is i think.

Frogs for the most part now.


(Guessing here anyways from seeing old pictures) Must have had problems back in the day when they were made of hunks of rail fabricated into frogs.

Thanks, UP Engineer! Your photo made it clear. In modern switches the frog is a solid block of metal, while in the nineteenth century it was make by rail pieces and you could catch your foot in the angle. I guess railroads put wood in the angle to block the frog.

Hi All,

From the view of the frog..............(Edited for MY safety by UPRR).............

Welcome there Joe.

Crossovers a hairy enough at full speed there Alan.

Cant find a pic of an old frog on the net.

Yo Joe,

Discretion is always the better part of valor.

Unfortunately, the incident I cited is a matter of public record.

Easy there bro, not much of a need to post it on here is there? Thanks for sharing it, but the more i thought about it, should have left some of those good details out. Know what i mean?

The sides of that frog are also raised as you can see. You will find that frog off of main lines on branches and in yards. With the raised sides like that, it eliminates the need for the guard rails on the outside rail.

If you look at a normal main line, or high speed frog ... you will see it doesn't have the raised sides and has the guard rails.

A Self-Guarding Frog is what there called. In alot of industries you can see switches that have a frog like the one i posted plus the guard rails in place.

Correct, a self guarding frog. Frankly they are dangerous. Only good in yards etc. not for the mainline. Last one I saw was on the LIRR, Inwood station, end of the line. Lots of scars on the ties where derailments had taken place. You cannot enter such a switch at high speed. Strictly good for a few miles per hour. In the case of the Inwood switches, they also were spring switches. Another problem. But then that is the LIRR.

A blocked frog is a frog that is not allowed to hop around? No?