Two questions about braking: One specific and one rudimentary
Thanks for the help and the education…
Tom
Question 1: Not sure, maybe someone else can chime in.
Question 2: Yes, and they still are today. Basically a mechanical method to apply the brakes, since air pressure can (and usually does) leak away.
Brad
Maybe you’ll get a better answer than when the same question was asked here in 2008: http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/136195.aspx?sort=ASC&pi314=1
“Hand brakes” have never been phased out. Every car still has a hand brake. Vertical brake staffs started being phased out in the 1920’s.
Orignally before there were air brakes, hand brakes were the only method of stopping trains (that’s why the guy that helps the conductor on a train is called a BRAKEman). Brakeman would walk along the tops of the cars setting or releasing the hand brakes. By 1906 air brakes were required on interchanged cars.
After that, the handbrake is pretty much exclusively used to hold cars stationary when detached from a train. Not so much an “emergency brake” as a “parking brake”.
Tom,
I, too am having the same problem finding an accurate answer. What I have been led to believe is that the ICC mandated that all cars used in interchange service with other railroads have the hand brakes replaced with power brakes. When on home roads, the hand brake was acceptable. If memory serves me, this was around 1949.
Also, around this time period, wooden roofwalks had to be replaced with metal roofwalks on all cars. This held true to about 1966. This is another gray area in my research.
As I model 1956, all of my cars have power handbrakes.
Normally a change such as what you are discussing is mandated, then the railroads are given years to comply, there are often extensions and there may be cars that are grandfathered. So its very difficult to determine “exact” dates.
In 1956 vertical staff brakes would be very common on flat cars (they were still in use into the 1980’s). Cars in company service would still have them into the 1970’s.
The handbrakes with the vertical shaft and a horizontal were often called stemwinders, but there were actually two kinds of vertical-shaft brakes. The 'real" stemwinders had the chain to the rigging wind directly around the bottom of the vertical shaft (not much braking without a brake club). The later type looked like a stemwinder but had a reduction gear (usually at the bottom of the shaft) that multiplied the braking force applied to the chain. The vertical wheels (like the Ajax) were a lot easier and safer to use than the horizontal wheels and you really didn’t need a brake club.
A brake club was sort of a cross between a baseball bat and a pick handle about three feet long. It could be stuck in the spokes of the brake wheel for greater leverage.
You used to see the horizontal wheels up on high cars into about the early 1950s I guess. Of course, they could have been on non-interchange cars into the 1970s or maybe even now? Don’t know when the vertical wheels started to come in.
In addition to holding standing cars, handbrakes were used to stop moving cars, especially when shifting. Sometimes when kicking cars or making a “flying switch” or “drop of cars” a man would ride the cars and stop them with the handbrake. Some hump yards were “rider humps” where each cut of cars going over the hump would have a rider to apply a handbrake (or two) to control the speed and keep the cars from rolling out the other end of the track.
Hi, Tom
I’ve had this Penn-Central book in my collection for years and I found a link to a .pdf of it here…
http://www.unlikelypcrr.com/page4/page4.html
Scroll down a little to the “PC handbrakes guide.” Lots of other neat stuff here, too!
“Also, around this time period, wooden roofwalks had to be replaced with metal roofwalks on all cars. This held true to about 1966. This is another gray area in my research.”
actually new cars built after a certain date had metal running boards instead of wood. there were still a lot of cars around with wooden running boards in the early 60’s. the wooden ones were not replaced with metal but were repaired as needed until they were no longer required at all. i forgot what year that was but in the early 60’s i was working on the rip track and wooden running board repair was a large percentage of our work.
Charlie
Thank you for that information, Charlie. I’ll be able to keep my wooden roofwalks.
Glenn
Thanks for the info, fellas. I’m still curious to know when the Ajax brake wheels began to be installed on the ends of cars. Would they have been around in the late 30s? I have a Bowser PRR 4-bay hopper with the option of a either vertical brake wheel or side Ajax brake wheel. Thanks.
Tom
There’s an article about essential freight cars in the February, 2013, RMC. Looking at the pictures and the car descriptions, I’m wondering if the vertical brake wheels were used with type KC brakes, and the end mounted Ajax-style brake wheels used when the cars got converted to AB brakes.
Hi, Tom
One of my great reference sources is the 1940 Car Builders Cyclopedia. In sections 13 and 14 of this weighty tome is considerable information concerning the application of “Safety Appliances.”
There are no less than seven manufacturers of hand brake mechanisms:
Wine; Ajax; Royal; Equipto; Klasing; Miner and Superior.
Included also are drawings of the preferred mounting methods and about 25 pages concerning the “Safety Appliance Act of Congress approved April 14, 1910” and the dozens, perhaps hundreds of revisions of this act hence.
The original 1893 act was entitled, An Act to Promote the Safety of Employees and Travelers upon Railroads by Compelling Common Carriers Engaged in Interstate Commerce to Equip Their Cars with Automatic Couplers and Continuous Brakes and Their Locomotives with Driving-wheel Brakes, and for Other Purposes.
This act was to be enforced beginning in 1900 so railroads had seven years to comply and adapt their equipment with automatic air brakes and, accordingly, a hand brake to override the brake cylinder.
Is there a particular car you are researching? This was an ever evolving industry and many options were available to the railroad purchasing agents. Often it was the preference of a particular railroad’s engineering department as to which manufacturer or style of equipment was specified for a particular car order.
Sometimes appliances from several manufacturers were used across say a two hundred car order so any combination of equipment may show up. Then there are the numerous shoppings and rebuildings to contend with which adds even more randomness to the mix.
As far as the Ajax brake gear, I’ll quote from this 1940 document:
Over 350,000 Ajax Hand Brakes are in service on over 200 railroads and private car lines and many of these have been providing safe, efficient and economical hand brake operations on
Tiechmoeller’s book on PRR hopper cars or Karig’s Coal Cars: the first 300 years would probably have answers to your questions, since you are trying to figure out when power brakes were applied to PRR H21 hoppers.
Thanks, Ed and Dave for the resources! [:D] Yea, this particular PRR hopper is an H22a 70-ton 4-bay
[!(http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Bowser-HO-56832-Pennsylvania-Cir-Key-Rd-924927-H-22a-4-Bay-Hopper-/00/s/NzY4WDEwMjQ=/$(KGrHqZ,!l!FBKrIqJg5BQcuWjt+uw~~60_57.JPG)](http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Bowser-HO-56832-Pennsylvania-Cir-Key-Rd-924927-H-22a-4-Bay-Hopper-/00/s/NzY4WDEwMjQ=/$(KGrHqZ,!l!FBKrIqJg5BQcuWjt+uw~~60_57.JPG)
Tom
Pffffttt…
I almost spit out my coffee! YOU are buying Pennsy equipment! You’re crossing over to the dark side[:D]
Here’s a link to an H21a end photo showing an Ajax. Not an h22 but we’re gettin close…
http://www.billspennsyphotos.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=132209370
(edit) Hey! This car was built in 1912 and clearly shows an Ajax brake mechanism so my previous post quoting the Ajax text must have been made before 1940!
Are you familiar with TKM? The Keystone Modeler… a great pdf magazine for fans of DGLC (do you recognize that acronym?)
http://www.prrths.com/newprr_files/newPRRKeystoneModeler.htm
These take a minute or two to load but they are a great e-mag and an excellent modelling resource.
I’ll have to take a look at some of my PRR documentation and maybe come up with a better photo for you.
Have fun… ED
Only rolling stock, Ed. No PRR locomotives on my layout. If I ever do it will only be a threw through train. [:D]
Thanks for that info. Yes, I am familiar with The Keystone Model and it is indeed a great resource. Hopefully, the NYCSHS can get somewhat closer to what the PRR has done with their data to help the modeler. They are making strides. DGLC I don’t recognize though.
Tom
That’s Pennsyspeak for Dark Green Locomotive Color. To the rest of us its Brunswick Green!
I’m bemused by all the names for the colors we use on our railroad equipment. NYC never refered to Jade Green but called it Safety Green or Century Green.
Then theres Armor Yellow, Morency orange, Harbor Mist Grey… to name a few
Just the other day I discovered Penn Central Green is “Deepwater Green” according to the company.
Take care, ED
Ah, makes sense now. Thanks for clearing that up, Ed. I tried using an acronym finder early for “DGLC” but the choices weren’t very plausible RR candidates.
Tom
After a little hunting (be vewy, vewy quiet - I’m hunting wabbits) I found this:
Note that the company claimed to have started in 1922 (or 1929 or 1925) but it appears that their geared handbrake didn’t make an appearance until 1926.
I doubt that there was any regulation mandating power handbrakes, as I recall seeing stemwinders still in interchange service in the mid-to-late '50s. More likely, the cars equipped with them eventually reached the end of their service life and went either into company service or were scrapped. New cars, of course, would get whatever equipment was current at the time they were built.
Here’s some more info on geared handbrakes.
Note the comment “10 most popular used after 1930”
Wayne
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