Thanks, Wayne. That’s really helpful. Given that my Bowser PRR H-22a hopper had a built date of “6-39”, would it be safe to say that it is possible that it might have been outfitted with an Ajax brake handle - i.e. vs. a vertical stemwinder?
The assembly instructions that came with the kit are for both H21& H22 4-bay hoppers. There were extra “unused” parts with the kit, which seems to indicate to me that Bowser was trying to cover all bases/years with just one set of parts. Therefore, there were both types of break wheels included to span the dates of the cars Bowser was offering.
Tom, given that it was a Pennsy car, neither choice of brake wheel type would be a surprise. [swg]
AB brakes would be mandatory on that car, but I couldn’t find anything specifically saying that the stemwinder wasn’t permitted. Railroads seldom threw away serviceable equipment and I think a lot, if not all, of those cars were built in Pennsy’s own shops.
The H-22A was a re-build of the H-22, which was a coke car. The main change in appearance was to the car sides: The original H-22s had slatted sides above the ribbed area. The other major change was to the hoppers, which were originally of the clamshell type.
According to the Bowser instruction sheet, 3,671 H-22s were converted between 1923 and 1930, but after that, the remaining H-22s were scrapped.
It’s interesting to note that this conversion work did not affect the car’s frame, so these cars couldn’t be considered as either “NEW” or “REBUILT” in the accepted sense of those words, so your car’s BLT date of 6-39 seems fanciful. These cars (H-21s and H-22s) were originally built between 1909 and 1930, and a date within that range would be more likely, if such things concern you. [swg] It would be relatively easy to make the BLT date 6-30 or 6-29.
According to Teichmoeller the power brakes were applied to the H21’s in the 1940’s.
Your model is a H22 coke car. By 1949 ther were only 186 of them left out of an original 9000 car fleet. The rest were converted to H21’s or scrapped. They were pretty much gone by 1955. Based on that. If you are modeling an H22-H22a, it probably had an vertical brake wheel, and not a power brake.
Once again, Wayne and Dave, thanks for your helpful info. Wayne, I spoke incorrectly earlier. The actual BLT date for my particular H22a (and seen in this link) is “2-14”. The rebuilt date I am presuming is just to the right of “P57” and identified as “6 39”. Would either you or Dave draw the same conclusion? Wayne, would you also draw the same conclusion about it possibly being a vertical brake?
The P57 is the symbol for a Pennsy re-weigh station (East Altoona) and 6-39 is the date of that car’s most recent re-weighing. This was an operation to ensure that a car’s weight hadn’t change since the last required re-weighing, as it affects the car’s LD LMT (load limit). Re-weighing had to be performed every 48 months for most cars, and every 30 months prior to 1948.
As for the vertical brake, I’ll defer to Dave on that one: I’m a late arrival to the camp of Pennsy fans, and have quite a few Pennsy cars, but I don’t model the road itself. [swg]
Handbraking was also used in switching. When the first humpyards were built, a yardman would ride on the car and operate the brakewheel to slow the car to the right speed. This was before retarders were invented. Handbrakes could also be used when “kicking” a car into a facing-point spur track.
