Gravel piles at terminating stations

I spotted something interesting (to me) while exploring the main rail station in Hakodate, Japan using Google Maps street view.

The city is built on a peninsula so the tracks terminate at the station. In addition to the usual bumpers, they have dumped large piles of gravel to insure an out-of-control train does not overrun the bumper.

Any comments on how wide-spread this practice is?

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.774....81783-ro-1.4957352-fo100!7i5376!8i2688?hl=en
 
I guess they have tested this in practice, but my intuition is that the gravel pile could de-rail the train, or launch it upwards before it hits the buffer. I’m no expert and intuition is often wrong, but I would have put the gravel on the other side of the buffer.
 
I am wondering if that is to slow speed, kind of like a runaway truck ramp, before it hits the buffer stop. But I agree with Dinorius.
 
I spotted something interesting (to me) while exploring the main rail station in Hakodate, Japan using Google Maps street view.

The city is built on a peninsula so the tracks terminate at the station. In addition to the usual bumpers, they have dumped large piles of gravel to insure an out-of-control train does not overrun the bumper.

Any comments on how wide-spread this practice is?

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.774....81783-ro-1.4957352-fo100!7i5376!8i2688?hl=en

AFAIK this practice depends on the location itself, like the ones in Mojiko Station (Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture) does not have large piles of ballast located before the bumper:

https://goo.gl/maps/BpeAA8Rxx2MZTXvg9

And another one at Shuzenji Station (Izu City, Shizuoka Prefekture), which of course is the same with Mojiko ones:

https://goo.gl/maps/W8VpyMNNpsZqVEjs5

Even in Indonesia there are no large piles of ballast before bumper, as shown in the following example (the example is Surabaya Kota station, located at Surabaya City in East Java Province):

https://goo.gl/maps/zveUtvf5GQoZX3cPA
 
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