Howdy All I have a question about uncoupling wagons and loco’s, and not meaning models. The mob I work for has new management. They have introduced what is called mechanical separation - the knuckles between wagons are released but the air hose is left connected, and when the wagons are pulled apart by the loco the hose disconects hopefully at the hose couplers due to their design. While this works, it also result’s in hose damage. Is this used in many other places? The idea is it is safer as the person on the ground stands clear when the hose uncouples. What we do have is customers wagons doing brake hoses a lot more often. GMS
If you want to manually uncouple air hoses that have anywhere from 75 lb to 90 lb air pressure…even where the anglecocks have been closed…you must not value your extremities or your face…charged air hoses have more power than you can control.
Anglecocks we use have between on and off have a drain valve. By closing both taps the hose will have no pressure in the hose. However the driver can do a full application, but you still have 50 pounds in the line. The requirement is to shut the loco end and leave the train tap open so the air dumps from the wagons. I’m just not lazy and don’t want to change hoses if I don’t have to. Maybe that’s just me. GMS
Leaving the air hoses connected but pulling the cars apart is standard practice here…the hose end, called glad hands for their design, (imagine two human hand clasping in a hand shake) slide apart or un clasp.
Un doing the hoses by hand is not common here at all, in fact, because of the danger from the air pressure, it is considered dangerous to do…we simply close the anglecocks or “air valves” and un couple the cars.
Rarely are the hoses we use damaged, they are designed to seperate in this manner.
http://www.nyab.com/products/airhose.htm
the photo in this link shows the type of hose fitting or hose ends that are standard on American freight cars.
Maybe if you posted a photo of the design the hoses you use we could comment in more depth and detail.
That pretty much describes what happens every day on American railroads. The gladhands are designed to separate without damage.
I’ve intentionally dumped a train (4 pax cars) by opening the anglecock - and I’ve always had the gladhand firmly in hand when I’ve done it, as they will fly. It’s not something we do on a regular basis, and I’m glad of it.
Here’s some videos of uncouplings:
I never have uncoupled glad hands manually unless the gaskwt was bad and the air bleed off other wise its lift the cut leaver and highball. any other way is not railroading and the hoses are rubber they give and even dry rotted they do thier job. come to think of it i have never pulled a MU hoses off the engine and only replaced 1 due to glad hand that was damaged.
How do Gladhands get damaged enough to be taken apart manually? I’m sort of trying to understand that procedure here in those cases—
The hose hanger breaks, and the glad hand gets dragged all over the place, over crossing pads, the ballast, ties and turnouts…it can bet and bend the small edges that help hold the hands together, so when you try to lace the hose up, it will not stap hooked together with another one…I also have only had to change one hose, and for the same reason, it got the glad hand all chewed up.
The only time I have ever taken a coupled hose apart from another was also the same, to replace a leaking gasket.
As I understand the Australian system, they use conventional knuckle couplers like we have in North America as opposed to the links and buffers system found throughout Europe. Secondly, Australia uses the failsafe air brake system pioneered by George Westinghouse whereby after fully charging a train’s air brake system with compressed air, any brake pipe air pressure reductions will cause the brakes to setup. I also understand that the Australians affix “glad-hand” castings to the ends of their brake hoses just like we have in North America.
That said, I assume the old Australian practice was to manually uncouple air hoses before uncoupling cars. Following that practice seems to be less stressful to the hoses, and so Australia may have been able to use a lighter grade of material for its air brake hoses. Or the hoses lasted longer and a tolerance for hose brittleness that would be unacceptable to North American railroading may have worked among the Aussies. But with the implementation of the let-the-hoses-uncouple-themselves practice, hose brittleness is now taking its toll.
Going into the new practice of having an engine pull the cars apart and letting the hoses uncouple by themselves likely will result in accelerated wear and greater hose tears. The replacement of older, more brittle hoses and subsituting ones made of more robust material should ameliorate the problem over time.
More likely some lazy conductor didn’t want to bother to hang the hose. That always bugged me in road service. Takes an extra 3 seconds to hang all the hoses so the gladhands don’t get chewed up but a LOT of crews are incapable of doing it. The most damage is done when going over crossings as the gladhands get drug across the asphalt and the metal part gets shaved down. So when you go to attach it to another gladhand, it just drops right though and won’t connect. And they can sometimes be a real pain to replace, too. In conclusion: hang your damn hoses, people!! And tree, I hope you are just doing more than simply holding the gladhand when you dump the air. I was taught by old heads you always hold the air hose tight against your thigh before cracking it open.
if he aint holding it close to his thigh it soon will be there and then he be hoding something besides a air hose. i was reading the injury reports one morning and the injury that got my attention was a new conductor taken to hospital because he busted air on car by opening the angle cock on the car but was not holding the air hose the hose slug up ( now at this point railroaders know how much pressure is in these hoses but for others the hose can swing so violent to put a dent in the plow) and at the angle he was standing it got him dead square in the groin. Never heard anymore about him/her or what ever.
SOP in the US since 1906. Happens tens of thousands of times a day all over N America. Damage only occurs when the hose or glad hand is defective.
Yep. They’ll catch a six-footer in the head, too…
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Kootenay, you’ve missed your calling. You should be chalkin’ these gems to Kalmbach and gettin’ some dough. These items sure remind of those spun by Ed Blysard.
Art
Thanks to all that replied, it seems I am the odd one out. Don’t worry, I am aware how much pressure and volume is in the line. It’s just we started using the manual separation, you uncouple them and make sure you hold the line and slowly open the tap to dump the air. Then you hang up the hose so it doesn’t drag and damage the gladhand. We have exactly the same hose fittings here. I just bought this up because while doing this the other day a brand new hose busted. The hose was new, the gladhand was new, but the loco hose was not, but the gladhand pulled out of the new hose on the wagon. This meant a gladhand was hanging off the loco pipe and flinging around while the air dumped. I was driving but could imagine the glad hand being flung like a sling shot. It might be rare, but I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end. There is also the ballast and dust that is stirred up with the sudden discharge of air. I’ll take all of your information on board, and thanks to Kootenay for the interesting story. I work in Queensland Australia on 3’6" gauge, but our trains are still quite heavy. We have Dash 8’s that are painfully slow to load, as opposed to GM’s that pick up at in an instant. GMS
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+1 !
One technical question, from the first story: When the engineer Dave used the hose wrench to tighten the gladhands - how could he have tightened the connection so much that they wouldn’t disengage and come apart as normal when the locomotive pulled away from the idlers and they went into tension ? Did the brake pipe extension on the unit have something to do with that - changed the angle of the hoses to each other ?
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Second on the F’s being a pain to switch with. We were stuck with two F’s (back-to-back) at the beginning of the season. Normal operation has us doing a run-around at each end of the trip. You want to make sure you’re on the firemen’s side for the hitch, unless you want to walk a lot, climb through the cab, or have a helper to open the valve on the locomotive. Give me a roadswitcher for that duty any day.
Usually we do have someone taking care of the anglecocks on the consist while we run the locomotive around.