"Bottling the Air"

[NW Mailing List]

I have wonderful  memories of the Bluefield Yd:  As a kid I always loved it when we went shopping in Bluefield during the 50's.  I can vividly remember cars rolling eastward down the yard for classification with brakemen standing on the small end platforms, manning the brake wheel to control the car's rolling decent.  The yard shifters were wonderful to watch and if I remember correctly were often Y's of Z's?  West bound hopper trains or time freights were a real show of sound and fury fighting upgrade to Mercer St.  My poor Mom always had difficulty getting her shopping done while downtown (when walking between stores you could always hear the railroad activity) due to my constant harassment wanting to go back and watch more railroading.  She deserved an award for putting up with me.   How different downtown Bluefield is now.

Ed Painter;  Currently living in Russellville, AR  - but home will always be Narrows, VA.

From: nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org [mailto:nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org] On Behalf Of NW Mailing List
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 8:13 AM
To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Subject: "Bottling the Air"

Ken;

Bluefield had a natural grade in both the East and West yard with the high point being in the area of the Round House. I remember as a young fellow in the East End of Bluefield, watching the "yard shifters" sorting the cars. There would be a number of cars released to freely roll to an appointed switch to make up trains. The Yard brakeman with his brake stick would control the speed until making couple with the other cars. I remember watching the men try to time the coupling just right and jump up in the air so as to miss the coming jolt of the sudden stop. I assume that free roll had to be done by "bottling the air", which was a common practice even in the late 50's. Also I remember watching "road shifters" push cars up to a speed and then stopping the locomotive allowing the cars to run freely though a switch, either coming to a stop on their own, or making couple with other cars.

Gene Arnold


"Bottling the air" which I think, is now prohibited by most rule
books, means to close the angle cock (air line) on both ends of the
car or cut of cars before separating them from the train. That way,
air stays in the system, and does not dump the air to emergency on
that car or cut of cars. It is, among other things, made to speed up
operations, as with air already in the train line of those cars, it
means that the locomotive air compressor, does not have to run as long
to pump air back into the system, which can be a considerable amount
of time, meaning the crew can get underway sooner.

If the air is dumped from the car or cars, it sets those brake systems
into emergency, and to release those brakes, the air system has to be
pumped up again from the locomotive. By bottling the air, it means
that only hand brakes, or chocks may be holding the cut of cars in
place, which can lead to a drift off, or runaway, or difficulty
coupling if the brakes are not holding well.

Ken Miller
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