There are still bowling alleys around, but it seems to have fallen off in popularity at some point. The idea of the bumper rails is to keep the ball out of the gutter. The rails are literally rails on the side of the lane you throw the ball down. This caused a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the youngsters. They did manage to make it through the game with only minimal long term emotional damage I think. But as soon as the first game was done they made sure the rails got put up by the nice people who run the bowling alley. They apparently had enough danger for one day.”]
Source: https://www.csoonline.com/article/3245309/awareness-training-has-failed-us.html