"Bottling the Air"

[NW Mailing List]

Actually, if you did not have a gauge, you could tell they were finished charging because the brake valves stopped singing!!


Walt Gay
ex-Car Knocker
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: NW Mailing List 
  To: NW Mailing List 
  Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 9:25 AM
  Subject: Re: "Bottling the Air"




  On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 11:02 PM, Jeff wrote:

          Jimmy & Bruce,

          To clarify just a bit for Bruce, the way to check the pressure on the rear of the train (as Jimmy has indicated must be done), there was an air gage on the cabs (in the good ole days), and today conductors have a hand held air gage which is coupled to the rear car for a pressure reading. Of course, if the train has an EOTD, it has a gage to read the pressure, and some can send the pressure reading to the engineer via radio signal. 



  I understand checking pressure at the end of the train with the air gauge in a cab or an EOTD/FRED, which is fine if you have one of those on the end of the train. My question was if a train was being charged with yard air, how did the train and/or yard crew know when they were done if they were pumping both end against the middle? Or was a cut of cars charged just before making up a train, to speed up the process, so when the power was coupled on it was just a matter of releasing hand brakes, pumping up to the final pressure and doing the air test, and making up the rest of the train? Or am I just confused about what the yard air was for in Bluefield, since it's been about 20 years since the boys from Blacksburg (one of whom is on the list) terrorized the Pokey Division with our old-fashioned railfannin' ways. :-)


  Bruce in Blacksburg



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