You’re kinda comparing apples and oranges. The brakewheel didn’t control the car’s airbrake, that was done thru the brake air line when connected up to a train. Once the car was uncoupled and the car was no longer getting air, the air brake was off.
If you were humping cars for example, back before the sophisticated retarders and such came along, you’d have a man riding each car or cut of cars to operate the brakes. The brakewheel would also be used to “tie down” the car so it wouldn’t roll away on a grade. Ever notice that diesel locomotives have brakewheels too?? Same issue.
Also, there was no radio until the 1940’s for engine - caboose communications, and many railroads didn’t adapt it until the fifties or later. So sometimes a conductor or more likely the rear brakeman would have to walk up the train to the engine to convey a message. I believe the conductor or brakeman (or both) often would ‘walk the train’ to inspect the train to be sure everything was OK.
Well, Brakie and others have already informed me that air-braking wasn’t quite perfection-defined as I may have thought it was, and while the brakewheels didn’t control the air-brakes, I was thinking of pre-air brake days, like images from Botkins ‘A Treasury of Railroad Folklore’ with a number of brakeman on the roofwalks of cars, running to set the brakes when the train needed to stop. I figured when air-brakes had been around (by WWI, say), those guys would be dispensed with (and hence, no more need for roofwalks), but I guess I was mistaken.
Now, I don’t want to get into one of those long-winded diatribes that ruins forums. Too many always-righters on here now.
These stories are to inform, and, sometimes, amuse. Not all will agree with them and they generally relate to conditions Forty to Fifty years ago where I worked.
Conditions vary place to place and Company to Company.
There are many folks in the forums who never have/will work for a railway and will never experience what we went thru, nor how difficult things were before radio.
KC, I enjoyed reading about your experiences and insights into the job.
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A couple of years back, I posted a question about these end steps and the dates of both their origin and demise, but got no responses. It was my understanding that these steps were unique to Canadian railroads (I don’t recall ever seeing them in photos of U.S.-based cars) and I was puzzled as to why there was no uniform standard governing placement of these steps, similar to those applying to grab irons. It seemed to me to be an accident waiting to happen, especially where a Canucklehead brakeman is descend on an end ladder, expecting the bottom step to be there and not noticing that the car was an American one. [%-)]
We investigated a stationary PRR Cabin Car down in coal country, one of the 4-porthole ones, when we went chasing the NYC Sharks decades ago, and found it hard to board as the steps were vertical as on an A Unit.
Did not have the chance to get on whilst moving.
Those PRR cabins wasn’t to bad to swing on since it was like swinging onto the steps of a Trainmaster.The C&O hacks didn’t fare much better.
note the bolster location on the PRR cabins. the trucks are closer to the end of the car than on most other cabs and conventional stair steps would probably foul the swing of the trucks.
that being said, they were built like tanks. obviously to take the pressure of snappers pushing trains up the grades back east.
after the PC merger in 1968, big four crews referred to them as shin busters. by that time the NYC was using the modern bay window cabs on all road trains where i worked. outbound truck trains (TV-4, TV-6, and Mail Train #10) always got a former NYC cab if one was available. guess they rode better at high speed.
The brake wheel didn’t control the airbrake but the retainer valve was located near the hand brake. a brakeman could walk across the tops of cars setting the retainer valves prior to going down grade and then release them after hitting the bottom of the grade.The retainer valve controls how the air exhausts from the brake cylinder.
Richard looking at MP 242 while working for the FEC