What kind of air brake and MU hose fittings are used on modern (i.e. 1975 - present day) locomotives? Is it brass or another material, like stainless steel? Thanks.
Tom
The appear to be silver colored.
http://espee.railfan.net/picindex/sd7-9_detail/rap_sd7007.html
http://espee.railfan.net/picindex/sd40m-2_walkaround/SP_SD40M-2_8700b.html
http://espee.railfan.net/picindex/sd40m-2_walkaround/SP_SD40M-2_8700l.html
http://espee.railfan.net/picindex/sd70m_walkaround/ck_sd70m-left-rear-end.html
http://espee.railfan.net/picindex/sd70m_walkaround/ck_sd70m-right-nose.html
Although the railway I work for is in Australia, we obtain most of our brake pipe, main res and MU hoses from a US supplier. The fittings on them are malleable iron castings. I’ve only ever seen brass fittings on some very old Eames vacuum brake hoses, and I can’t imagine anyone going to the trouble or expense of casting them in stainless. We paint ours white to make them visible at night, other operators here paint them silver. Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Mark.
Both hoses and cables are sheathed with a flexible rubber-like material that is durable. This can be painted, left as-is and usualy gets coated in plenty of dust at the least. It seems possible that the colour of thi sheathing could vary by era, manufacturere or RR’s requirement. The only real solution is to go by what you can see in pics.
Fittings are probably cast steel rather than an iron (to be fussy) but I could be wrong. They hurt if they hit you either way. Brass would be too friable. There is no need for them to be stainless.
For model purposes I would go with grey, oily grey, dark grey and dirty brown unless they are just out of the shops and have been painted. They could be any combination.
Both the glad hands on pipes and the plugs/recepticles on cables tend to get painted in RR specific (maybe Federaly mandated?) colours according to purpose. These colours tend to stay clean because these are the parts most handled (knocking off the crud) or go back to the original steel gray if the paint is worn off and not replaced.
Is this what you were looking for?
[8D]
Yea. Thanks, Dave. (And everyone else who’s chimed in. [:)])
From the prototype pics that I have, the hose fittings look “silvery” or shiny but I wasn’t sure. Most everything on a Norfolk Southern is black. I didn’t know if was just a reflection or a pigment of my imagination.
Again, thanks for the comments. Others are welcome to add any more to this conversation.
Tom
The MU and air hoses are rubber, with cast steel fittings. Most hoses are black, but some mfrs will put a colored stripe on them.
The MU cable is rubber coated. These can come in many colors. I have seen red, blue, yellow and what I think was red, but thoroughly covered in dirt it looks black. The plugs are cast metal, and usually left unpainted. The lid on the receptacle is often red, with dummy plugs a different color. Dummy plugs do not have any pins, just a place to store the cable so nothing gets into the pins.