Automatic Air Coupler

[Euclid]

I am not sure I understand your point about the bleed line and setting out cars. For that operation, the bleed line is unnecessary because no bleeding is involved.

The bleed line would be used for pulling cuts of cars delivered to yards to be switched out.

This is why I said you should do a little more homework to understand how things work so you can design something that fits the need.

Where do you think the cars that you are switching came from? They came from a train and they had air on them. They will have to be bled off to be switched. A train drives up to a yard. It has air on the train. The train sets out cars to be switched. It could be 1 car, it could be 20 cars, it could be 100 cars, it could be the entire train. All of the cars set out need to be bled off to be switched.

Dave,

I have done plenty of homework, but I fail to understand the problem you are describing. You say that a train is delivered to a yard, cuts off the power, and leaves the cars with air fully set. Then the air has to be bled off each car in order to switch them.

I understand that perfectly. That is precisely the point of this pneumatically powered, automatic air bleeder system air bleeder system that I have described. Instead of spending 20 minutes walking the cut and manipulating each bleeder rod, you simply cut in the bleeder line to the switch engine, and all the cars are bled by compressed air charging the bleeder line, activating the bleeder cylinders, and opening the bleeder valves on all the cars.

[dehusman]

I have done plenty of homework, but I fail to understand the problem you are describing. You say that a train is delivered to a yard, cuts off the power, and leaves the cars with air fully set. Then the air has to be bled off each car in order to switch them.

Correct.

I understand that perfectly. That is precisely the point of this pneumatically powered, automatic air bleeder system air bleeder system that I have described. Instead of spending 20 minutes walking the cut and manipulating each bleeder rod, you simply cut in the bleeder line to the switch engine, and all the cars are bled by compressed air charging the bleeder line, activating the bleeder cylinders, and opening the bleeder valves on all the cars.

My point is that major yards that do the most switching, the carmen still have to spend 20 minutes walking the cut to inspect the inbound train for defects. There was no saving in time. The same people are walking the same cut. They just wouldn’t be pulling the bleed rod as they walked by.

At locations where there aren’t carmen and no inbound inspection is done, then the auto-bleed would save the time it takes to bleed the cut. Those locations would be lower volume and typically smaller cuts.

Didn’t say it wouldn’t have any value, just that it would have reduced value.