WhereWhere when and if..Where do they add Alcohol to the Air Brake System ? Do they still do that? How much do they use?

I saw a tank of Alcohol near a major railroad yard trackside in New Jersey. I was told it was used for air brakes. I have not seen these people year in about a few years so I assume the idea is to keep the water out of the air brake system in the first place using a decessit system. My local gas station though has had there air pumps shut down though during really cold weather. Also how much would you use for a train that is a 3/4 of a mile long?

Back in the day, alcohol was routinely added to the air compressor on the locomotive in an attempt to keep the water vapor in the train line air from freezing. This stopped being the case in the 1970’s as the first generation of road diesels where being phased out and the air brake valves on the cars were being upgraded.

In the present day most carriers have train handling rules that outlaw adding alcohol to the brake system. See the thread in the Locomotive section about the so called ‘Spitters’. The present day air compressors are designed to eliminate water vapor from the end product they produce for the braking trainline. My understanding is that alcohol has a deteriorating effect on rubber products, of which there are many in the air brake system used by the railroads.

Classic street automobiles don’t like the 10 to 15% alcohol in today’s gasoline for what it does to the rubber parts in their fuel systems.

Chessie locomotives had an alcohol reservoir in the engine compartment that fed a small amount of alcohol into the air piping between the compressor and the air reservoirs to absorb water before it could get into the air brake system and freeze in cold weather.

I’ve seen car inspectors break apart the air hose connections between cars and pour alcohol directly into the hoses when having air flow problems when making up trains.

As BaltACD mentioned this has been banned for some time now.

I also have seen both passenger cars expecily those with steam lines be a frozen mess with in the winter after a ice storm A lot could happen when a mile long train sits between the engine and the Fred

About 40 years ago we had a runaway that was caused by substandard antifreeze. The train originated a at a site where the customer loads it themselves with their own air system, they roll the train downhill one car length at a time to spot each car under the loading chute. The train eventually travelled into an area with much colder air which gelled the ‘antifreeze’, causing the car control valves to become stuck in the released position. The train ran away down a 2% grade and piled up on a tight curve. The engines, the first car and the caboose stayed on, everything else piled up. No one was killed but the caboose crew were thrown around pretty hard.

I believe the antifreeze in question was a type of glycol, not the methanol which is more commonly used as air brake antifreeze. We don’t use any today for the aforementioned reasons, the locomotives all have big air dryers and ‘spitters’ or blowdowns on the main reservoirs to remove as much moisture as possible before it gets into the brake system.

Even if the locomotives are 21 years old or older?

Sorry, couldn’t resist! [:$]

You realize that that includes the first generation of AC traction engines that entered service in 1996 and are about 27 years old.

As I recall from my youth, you could legally get 3.2% beer in Ohio at 18.

When I was growing up in NJ the drinking age for everything was 21. However in 1973 they lowered it to 18. (I turned 21 in August of that year.) It stayed there for a few years then bowing to Federal pressure they raised it back to 21. It was “Raise the drinking age or you’ll lose the Federal highway money!” Didn’t bother me at that point!