Is it appropriate to create vertical scale bars?

The only reasons I can see why it would not be appropriate to use a vertical scale bar would be:

• The audience does not want it or does not understand it
• The audience associates the vertical scale with elevation

For a simple way to make a vertical scale bar (tested in ArcGIS) - create a horizontal scale bar, convert it to graphics, and rotate +-90 degrees.

UPDATE: More info

How to create a vertical scale bar in ArcMap?

This article talks about vertical scalebars, but it's for maritime charts.

This book has some information about using vertical scalebars.

https://geonet.esri.com/ideas/6699

One reason would be (I think it is mentioned in one of the comments) is that the vertical scale bar may not accurately represent the distance of the railway track. This would be due to the likelyhood of curves within the track itself.

A possible alternative to a vertical scale bar is to label the aggregated distance at each specific point of the track, especially between each station. However, this approach would require a bit more work than simply adding a vertical scale bar to the map:

Following on @jbalk's answer, the rotated text helps diminish the vertical scale "feel". Posted as an answer here since I couldn't put an image in comments on @jbalk's post.