Railroad industry kick-back track

Years ago some industries used elevated dump facilities to dump their product.  This was mostly used by coal handling businesses, though some other businesses such as grain elevators used the kick-back process.  Sometimes the empty rail cars rolled down a ramp after being unloaded, and then rolled up a high "kick-back" ramp which was designed to cause the car to stop rolling and reverse,  rolling back down the ramp being diverted to a storage track for later removal by a locomotive.  The ramp displayed below served a grain elevator operated by the Reading Railroad at  Philadelphia, PA.

Sometimes a brakeman would ride the top of the cars to provide some control over the process - not a very safe job.  The tracks on the kick-back were laid on reinforced concrete buttresses to support the weight and thrust of the cars.  The empty cars rolled off of the kick-back and were automatically diverted to empty storage tracks.

The photo above shows the track arrangement at the base of the kick-back, which appear in the distance.  One track was the feeder from the dump, the rest were for storage of dumped cars.

Years ago I visited a club model railroad that had an operating coal dumping facility with a kick-back.