If a model railroader wants to mimic what is done in full size, on cars that have the hand brake wheel, where should the end with the wheel be closest to? Is closest to the locomotive or furthest from the locomotive? Or should 2 cars that have the brake wheel have the ends with the brake wheel end to end? Or does it make any difference?
Back when wooden box cars had hand brakes with vertical shafts and roof walks some attempt was made to line up two brake wheels close together for the convenience of the guy who had to set them when the engineer whistled for brakes. Then some cat named Westinghouse invented air brakes…
Modern hand brakes are parking brakes. I’ve been told that riding a moving car and cranking the hand brake to control speed is frowned on. Also, note that present-day hand brakes are positioned to be operated from close to the ground - or standing on it. Given that, the brake wheel ends up where it ends up. Nobody turns or juggles cars to position brake wheels opposite one another, or in any specific orientation.
Unit train cars will have the brake wheel in the same relationship to each other because of the arrangement of rotary couplers, not because the brake wheel position is critical.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with single-ended brake vans)
There is no consideration given to which way the brakewheel end of the car is facing in a train.
If a car needs to be turned it will be for other factors (rotary couplers, end doors, “unload from this side only”)
I don’t think that’s a very accurate statement. Based on the many photographs and movies I have dating back to the Civil War period in the U.S., the brake wheel was at whichever end it happened to be pointing when they coupled to it.
Well, they don’t normally turn cars unless they are in a unit train that goes around a loop to get unloaded. So a car headed east with its brakewheel on the east end will have it toward the engine, and it will be on the end opposite the engine on the return trip.
In case you wanted to know, a car does have an A end and a B end. The brakewheel is located on the B end. A car also has a right side and a left side, and I believe that the sides are determined by facing the B end. I seem to think that the right side is on the right when facing the B end, but I’m probably wrong. Hopefully someone will chime in with a correction if necessary.
You are correct the Be end is where the brake is and you do find the right and left side of a car by looking at the B end . now some intermodal cars have a hand brake on both the A and B end , then you look to see where the A and B wells are located .
The B end is also the front of the car , the axel closest to the Hand brake is the #1 axel .
Hope this helps
Beg pahdon!!
When a unit coal train does its balloon loop thing the brake wheel orientation doesn’t change relative to the locomotive. If the brake wheels are all on the east ends of the cars when running loaded eastbound, they will be on the west ends of the same cars returning empty westbound. The control locomotive will be on the east end of the loads and the west end of the empties - same as the brake wheels.
Actually, in my modeling I don’t have this problem. Most Japanese freight cars didn’t have brake wheels. They were braked by the brakeman putting foot weight on a long lever extending from the car center to the stirrup step at the right end of the car side.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Ummm, I believe that’s what I said. A car headed east with the brakewheel on the east end will have it toward the engine. The same car headed west will have the brakewheel on the end opposite the engine, since “they don’t normally turn cars unless they are in a unit train that goes around a loop to get unloaded”.
Cars will also naturally turn around from time to time without any concious though into turning it one way or the other simply based on the routes they end up taking in service. (e.g. a yard accessed via a wye)
Except for unit train cars, cars will naturally end up oriented completely randomly.