"Bottling the Air"

[NW Mailing List]

Bruce,
 
I am not familiar with Bluefield, so I can not speak directly to that situation.
 
There is ground air in Roanoke. When a train is completely made up, it is turned over to the car department for inspection (trakcs locked so no other craft can enter the track). The car inspector(s) working the train will couple a specially made apparatus between the ground air hose and the first car in the train. Then they walk the entire train, coupling all air hoses, and inspecting each car for defects. 
 
Once that is complete, they let the air charge the trainline completely, as noted by the gage on the ground air connector and the gage, or EOTD, on the opposite end of the train.
 
The inspector must walk the brakes "on" after which the brakes are released. The brakes must then be walked "off" to ensure that they are applying and releasing on every car.
 
The train is then left coupled to the ground air until the outbound engines are coupled, thus taking over the job.

I'm not certain how to answer the question about the train being pumped on both ends. But it makes sense to me that if that is being done, whatever pressure (or the least amount showing on one of the gages) you would have a minimum of that amount of pressure through the entire trainline. 
 
But the bottom line is, that once the entire train is together, at the minimum, an "on and off" of the brakes must be made from the road engine, to ensure the brakes are applying and releasing on the whole train before it can depart.
 
Hope I'm not confusing the issue!
 
Jefff Sanders
 

--- On Tue, 10/26/10, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:


From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: Re: "Bottling the Air"
To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Date: Tuesday, October 26, 2010, 10:52 AM






    









Didn't they add (and still have?) yard air in Bluefield? Once the train was made up and the power was on the east end, then an air line from a stationary compressor in the yard would be attached to the brake line at the west end, charging the system from both ends at a faster rate. Or was that done just before the train was made up? How would you tell the system was fully charged in a made-up train -- have someone on the yard crew wait for the brake to release in the middle of the train? Someone with the knowledge please explain how this works.


Bruce in Blacksburg
Bruce:
The East Yard at Bluefield MAY have had yard air.  In Nov. '70, I was sent to the
East Yard because the Safety Department had received many complaints from
the Radford Div. train crews about the safety habits of the Bluefield yard crews.
The Safety Dept. was also concerned about train orders for eastbound trains --
there was no operator at East Yard and the conductor was responsible for 
selecting the applicable orders.  What happened if the orders ran out ?  So
I didn't do much yard-wandering and can't recall if there was yard air.
As far as charging the brake system -- air brakes weren't exactly my forte'. I
once asked the  Mechanical Department's Air Brake Instructor if he could give
me an abbreviated course in Air Brake 101.  He said, "Psssst, it's on; psssst, it's
off" and I've had to live with that ever since.    Harry Bundy     
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