a few days ago I was at a crossing as a NS train passed there was one car in the middle of train, i am thinking a covered hopper, that caught my attention. What caught my eye was a white hose running along the length of the car attached (tied off) in numerous places. It was connected to the air hoses of the car in front of & behind it. Is this temporary means of by-passing a car that might have a leak or bad piping and keeping the rest of the air system intact?
Would anyone happen to have a photo of one in use?
Yes, its is used if the car has an inoperative or damaged brake system. Normally the railroad has to get an FRA waiver to move the car in a train, because the rules require 100% of the brakes to be working out of the initial terminal (or wherever the car was added to the train) and obviously that car won’t have working air brakes.
There is a YouTube video of one of the modern hoses being installed – it is posted in the counterpart thread on the Trains forums.
The current version of this hose is interesting. It is flat and thin, a bit like those roll-up-and-stow garden hoses, and the whole kit – 100’ hose, aluminum gladhands, various ties, and hose reel with bungee retainers – weighs under 20lb!
If modeling this, the white hose will be cylindrical under pressure, and flat & wavy if the car is set out.
I thought the number was below 100%. I have been told that there are isolation valves on the freight cars to isolate the “working” portion of the system. I thought something like 1 in 20 could have the valve in the inoperative position.
The bypass hose described would be needed in case of a leak in the main air line.
Guys, If I may? While working on the Chessie(C&O) we had a ragged looking gon to give us fits because of a faulty air hose.We had to stop several times to deal with this gon.
IIRC the car was around 30-40 cars from the caboose. What the conductor did at Maysville is to switch the car out and place it behind our caboose with the air drained off. I placed a red flag n the coupler hole and we continued on our way to Russell.
From my umderstanding the conductor would have left it at Maysville and scrapped it in place.
I figured that with the way they have ruled railroading completely out of railroading… I’m surprise we got by with doing that although I suspect that moved raised a few eyebrows.
That rule makes sense, though. Both for the reasons of emergency application* from a EOT, and from a “what if” the last car becomes uncoupled from your train.
*- also similar reasoning for not having a car with inoperative airbrakes being first, or more than one coupled together anywhere.
I was in my 18th month of employment and I was worried about that move and even though I knew better to question a conductor I asked my conductor if anything would be said…
His reply was it was still in listed in the consist except it was moved to the rear of the train as a B/O. Besides if I set that car out in Maysville a carman would need to drive from Russell or maybe Queensgate to fix it. A easy 8 hours pay for one hour work.
I figured a peeking tommy would nail us before we reached Limeville. The reason I as worried a peeking tommy nailed me for improperly dismounting a locomotive. I came down the steps forward instead of turning and backing down the steps. I knew better and it was a dumb thing to do.
I recieved a rule infraction letter with a warning and of course a copy went into my records.