Since the dawn of railroading until somewhere in the middle of the 20th century, brakeman have walked atop moving trains to set the wheel brakes on each car.
At some point, that changed.
Roofwalks disappeared, brakewheels moved from a verticle position to the side or end of the car, and with this, the brakeman took his last stroll.
But when did all of this start happening?
I know that cars with roofwalks and upright brakewheels were in use long after the last stroll, but when did it all start changing? Was it a regulations change, or was it just no longer necessary due to advances in equipment (airbrakes)?
You’re talking about two different things, really. The straight upright-staff hand brake with no mechanical advantage began to be replaced by so-called “power hand brakes” in the late 1920s. These involved no source of power other than the brakeman, but they used gear trains to give him some help in applying brakes. A few of these still had vertical shafts (horizontal brake wheels), but most used a horizontal shaft with the wheel in a vertical plane. Running boards (the prototype’s name for “roof walks”) remained very much in fashion, and the hand brakes were located at the top of the B end on “house” cars (boxcars and other types with full-height enclosed bodies).
In 1964, Hy-cube boxcars approximately 17 feet high were introduced for automobile parts traffic. Because of their extreme height, these were among the first to be exempted from the requirement that boxcars have rooftop running boards. By 1970, running boards were on the way out, for safety reasons. By this year no new house cars were being built with running boards. Handbrakes were relocated or first installed in a low position on the B end of the car. 1974 was the target date for removal of running boards from all existing house cars. Railroads generally complied, but a few old house cars could still be seen with running boards years later.
Running boards continue to be used for access to rooftop hatches on bulk-loading cars, primarily covered hoppers.
Not all modern cars have their wheels horizontal (mounted closer to the ground instead of the roof). I remember seeing some newer flatcars that had Vertical hand brakes, and I think it may have had to do with something they were designed to haul. I could be wrong here, but thats what I saw, anyone else?
It took about a hundred years between the development of air brakes to the final removal of running boards and the lowering of hand brakes. Even at the end of the steam era, all freight cars were required to permit passage of the brakemen over the car to set brakes. Having said that, the “stroll” you mention would have disappeared long before that.
The Master Car Builders’ Association had appointed a comittee in 1885 to look at the feasibility of fitting air brakes to freight cars. The following year tests were carried out on the CB&Q, which led to the development of the quick-acting H type triple valve in 1887. In the US, continuous automatic air brakes were mandated by the Safety Appliance Act of 1893.
I’ve seen pics and video from the 40’s that shows brakemen walking the roof and setting the brakes. If airbrakes were on the cars in the 1890’s then were they not using them to their fullest?
Once the locomotive is uncoupled, control of the air brake system ceases. At that point, it becomes necessary to set hand brakes in order to convince cars from wandering off downgrade if they aren’t standing on dead level rails.
Chuck is exctly right about the need for hand brakes when cars are set out on sidings or left in yard tracks. There was a lot of other work for brakemen too.
Before descending steep grades, especially in the days before diesel power with dynamic (regenerative) braking, brakemen often had to set retainer valves located next to the handbrakes. The retainer valve is in the end of the exhaust pipe from the brake cylinder, and in its up position it maintains some pressure in the cylinder even when the engineer releases the brakes. This makes it easier to control a train going down a steep hill. Usually the easiest way for the brakemen to do this was to walk along the running boards (I know, I know, but that is what they were called). When the grade leveled off, brakemen had to turn down the retainer valves, requiring another trip over the tops.
On the Santa Fe’s 3 percent descent on the west side of Cajon Pass, brakemen were required to ride the tops of the cars in case of trouble as the trains descended, and extra “swing” brakemen were added to the crews for the most mountainous part of the trip.
Today’s cars still have retainer valves, but they are usually along the side sill of a car or next to the low-mounted hand brake.
Speaking of hand brakes, many hump yards were built before the development of remote-controlled car retarders. In those yards cars were braked by hump riders who rode the cars and tightened up the hand brakes. So there used to be a lot more reasons for people to be on top of freight cars than there are today.
As I know nothing about this footage, I wouldn’t like to comment. What railroad is it? What is the location? Under what circumstances was the footage shot? Are they in fact applying handbrakes? Or are they setting up retainers? Were they bad-order cars with the brakes cut out? There variables that make it difficult to give a definitive answer.
There’s no if about it. The Safety Appliances Act was law, enforced by the ICC. If you look at photos of many freight cars of the period, you’ll see thay have lettering that specifically describes the cars as having air brakes. The wording and requirements of the Act were amended at different times, but the basic aim remained unchanged. In the initial period, trains would run with a mixture of braked and non-braked cars. The braked cars would normally be coupled to the engine, the non-braked cars to the rear of those. As more cars were fitted with air, this practice declined, since there were minimum requirements for train braking power that had to be met. Without knowing a lot more about the footage you mention, I wouldn’t care to speculate about what was going on in that instance.
It appeared to be a regular train in the summer that was on a video I have called Steam in New England. If memory serves, the road was MEC. Perhaps I was mistaken about what was going on in the shot. I haven’t seen it in a couple of years. Looks like I’ll be digging that out this weekend, huh?
I put the question mark on the end of my comment because I wasn’t sure if that would be correct or not. Your answer clears that up a bit. Thanks for taking the time to help explain it
Another reason a trainman might ride the top of a freight car would be to pass hand signals. Hand held radios are a relatively recent developement. Before them, engine crews would have had to be able to see signals from the trainman directing moves, or another trainman relaying hand signals.
I think that was another reason for the swing man in mountainous territory. To help relay signals when the train might be strung out around curves.
Seeing a brakeman (or brakemen) walking along a moving trains setting brakes by using the vertical brakewheels was very very common in steam days. (That’s why they’re called brakemen!) I have a video taken from a 1946 GN training film used to teach them how to do it correctly. When descending a grade, brakes would need to be set as mentioned earlier - and released after the grade levels off of course!! They would also have to ride cars or cuts of cars being humped in a yard, to control the brakes on at least one car and use it to slow the cars to a smooth coupling with the cars already on that track.
BTW I believe it was a 1966 law that required all new cars to be built without roofwalks and have lower mounted brakewheels etc., and requiring old cars have the roofwalks removed, but that second part about the old cars didn’t go into full effect until c. 1970 - and even then I think railroads could get waivers to extend the time.
Intesting that we are discussing this topic in the wintertime. I can’t imgaine what it must have been like to walk the cars in the middle of winter with snow and ice etc. Makes surfing appear easy.
Surfing is probably a lot less dangerous too!!! You can’t fall under the wheels of a moving car on a surfboard (at least not without trying really hard.)
The worst that might happen is mere drowning or being attacked by sharks.
-Ed
PS It’s probably possible to surf in Rhode Island, although colder than Texas.
There was a pretty long lag time between the invention of airbrakes and it’s being accepted and required on cars - at least 20 years. Many railroads and private car owners thought it would be too expensive, was unproven technology etc. In the U.K. (where the majority of freight cars were privately owned) it never became standard (or at least not until relatively recently). In the US the final selling point wasn’t safety but economy - if you had a better braking system, you could run longer trains, which meant you could run fewer trains and move the same amount of freight.
BTW the fact that railroads in the 1890’s put “AIR BRAKE” on their cars (like Northern Pacific did) does show some cars had airbrakes then, but also that it was fairly rare at that time - if all the cars had it, they wouldn’t put it on the cars so that switchcrews and brakemen knew that the car had airbrakes.
Slightly off topic, but relating to early airbrakes…It’s interesting that the Casey Jones wreck in 1900 could only have happened when it did. The problem was that a freight train heading into a siding to let Casey’s train go by had the brakes on an airbrake equipped car lock up, leaving 3-4 cars at the end of the train sticking out on the mainline, and Casey plowed into them (although he was able to reduce his speed considerably before the impact). In 1885 say, the cars didn’t have airbrakes - so the freight train wouldn’t have gotten stuck and would have been in the clear. In say 1915, automatic block signalling was around, so it’s likely Casey would have gotten signal indications that the track ahead wasn’t clear, and would have been stopped or at least slowed down by a ‘caution’ signal enough to have stopped in time.[:)]
An interesting comment - which is neither relevant or true. The majority of goods wagons in the UK were not privately owned, in the sense that you mean. Some railway companies/operators did standardise on Westinghouse air brake for particular applications. Even now there is stock in service that is either vacuum braked or dual fitted.
The final “selling point” was that the use of air brake was mandated by the ICC. Recall the mention of the “Safety Appliance Act”?
The railroads lettered cars with “Air Brake” because:
A: The MCB published a standard that specified it,
and
B: An amendment to the “Safety Appliance Act” required it.
