Canadian Railroads > Mechanical Brakes

What exactly is involved with setting mechanical brakes? How long does the procedure take per car? How much effort is required?

Thanks,

Fritz in HSV, AL

Depends on the car, some involve climbing the car on a ladder and applying a brake at the top of the car, which is physically demanding after the first half dozen or so cars (depending on your physical condition). Other cars such as intermodal cars can have the handbrake set without your feet ever leaving the ground and can be done in 15 seconds or less. Automobile carriers have a ratchet brake which can take about a minute per car (about 25 to 30 cranks to get them tight). Tank cars have the handbrakes just high enough that they really shouldn't be set while on the ground (unless you are really tall, and even then is a rules violation), so require each car to be climbed, hand wheel tightened and then disembark the car, again can be physical if you are not in shape. I secured a 15,000 ton oil train in 20 minutes, but that is a lot of handbrakes, a lot of climbing and a lot of walking.

Posted from iPhone

Wouldn't it have made sense for there to be a standardized location and height for hand brake levers and wheels? To me, having people climbing on equipment to set and release hand brakes is just slowing everybody down and inviting injuries....

At one time pretty much all handbrakes were high mounted as brakemen would walk across the roof walks to apply them. Why some handbrakes, especially on high sided gondolas are still mounted up there escapes me. Newer coil steel cars have them mounted near the corner of the car within easy reach of application, which makes the job much easier. Nothing more fun than climbing ice encrusted cars in the winter trying to apply handbrakes while trying not to break your neck in the process.

Posted from iPhone

I like the system on some European cars where the brake apparatus is mounted on the center sill and a long square rod goes from side to side through the take up. There is a large wheel on both sides at chest level so you can apply or release from either side without climbing or crossing over any cars.

I guess North American railroads are too smart to fall for something so safe and convenient for employees.

Posted from Windows Phone OS 7

Labiche Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do a web search and you will learn that the
> federal regulations require the hand brake to be
> operable while the car is in motion, and located
> on one end of the car. This requirement makes a
> side-mounted ground-level hand brake illegal and
> impossible to design or install. The only
> exception is for certain cars like auto racks.
> Part 231 in Section 49 of the Code of Federal
> Regulations.

If this placement is so important, why is there an exception?

Ray

fbe wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I like the system on some European cars where the brake apparatus is mounted on the center sill and a long square rod
> goes from side to side through the take up. There is a large wheel on both sides at chest level so you can apply or
> release from either side without climbing or crossing over any cars.
>
>I guess North American railroads are too smart to fall for something so safe and convenient for employees.

Labiche Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do a web search and you will learn that the federal regulations require the hand brake to be
> operable while the car is in motion, and located on one end of the car. This requirement makes a
> side-mounted ground-level hand brake illegal and impossible to design or install. The only
> exception is for certain cars like auto racks. Part 231 in Section 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

Given changes in railroad operations since the federal rules were adopted, perhaps the regulators should re-evaluate the tradeoffs involved in using the "European" versus the "North American" handbrake arrangements. It seems to me that the number of rollaways caused by failure to apply a sufficient number of handbrakes, and the consequences thereof, outweigh the inconvenience of doing away with the ability to ride a loose car and brake it to a stop. But I would like to know the opinion of those with actual, present-day road and yard experience in the field before proceeding any further.

Related to this topic, vendors have developed handbrakes that are self-applying using residual air in the brake reservoirs after cars are set out from a train. The railroad industry has shown little enthusiasm for applying this innovation, besides using the usual "best is enemy of the good" strategy against it. The issue of car leasing company pays, railroad company benefits will also affect this issue, similar to the situation with ECP braking. Perhaps our legislators with no practical experience of railroading and no financial responsibility for their actions could be persuaded to mandate them anyway. First step: Get the NTSB and their Canadian counterparts to put it on their "most wanted" list.

Thanks to all who've answered.

Looks like it's a rather straightforward procedure with some diverse complicating factors that can make it confusing in the execution.

In the case of the Lac Megantic disaster it wasn't done enough.

Fritz in HSV, AL

North American railcar handbrakes have gone through many design changes over the years to make them more effective and easier and safer to apply.

That said, there are several different types out there made by different manufacturers, and some work better than others.

To me it seemed as a working railroader that the crank style handbrakes used on flat cars and auto racks and some locomotives were less effective than the wheel style handbrake.

Another issue relates to styles of air brakes attached to different types of freight car. On some styles of car, the air brakes cylinders are mounted on the body of the car and connected to the trucks by rods and levers, while on many others the air brake cylinders are mounted between the side frames of the truck, with minimal rods and levers. Seemingly, the body mounted style of cylinder had more potential for failure due to the amount of joints and angles required to connect the cylinder to the brake shoes on the car. The railroad industry recognises this issue, and have added "slack adjusters", a mechanism designed to automatically compensate for the slack which develops in this style of air brakes mechanism over time.

CN had an incident in the 1980's where three persons were killed in a collision between a westbound freight train and several runaway grain cars east of Edson AB.

In this instance, a previous westbound train had set off a cut of cylindrical grain hoppers loaded with peas in the railyard at Edson AB. on the main line between Edmonton and Jasper AB.

The conductor on the train that set off the cars did all the required procedures to set off loaded freight cars at a location without carmen. As luck would have it, the two cars that he applied the handbrakes had a similar fault in the rodding that connected the handbrakes to the brakes shoes. Although he full applied the handbrakes, the brakes shoes were barely touching the wheels.

In time, the air brake system on the cars bled off, and the wind started them rolling eastward out onto the main track to collide with a westbound freight.

The "fates" were definitely against the crew of that westbound freight, which included an "unauthorised rider" (a railfan buddy of the conductor). This incident took place in CTC territory. The power switch at the east end of Edson yard had been suffering an intermittent fault causing an "occupancy" (false indication that there was a train in the block) and a signal maintainer had spent most of the day trying to track down the fault. Every time he thought he had solved the problem, the "occupancy" would happen again, causing the signals in the area to go to "stop". Finally, by the end of shift, the problem appeared to be fixed. Just as he pulled into his driveway at home, the RTC contacted him by radio that the occupancy had come on again at Edson East. In fact, the occupancy was caused by the runaway cars, but the RTC wrongly concluded that it was the persistent fault and told the crew of the approaching westbound to expect to have to stop at Edson East and work the power switch manually. They had several miles to go before that event. Almost instantly the runaway cars struck them on a curve, killing all three in the locomotive cab.

Following that incident, all cars with that style of brake rodding were inspected and a significant number had the same fault.
The cars were quickly repaired and crew members are required to ensure that the brake shoes are against the wheels after applying handbrakes. This single incident caused many railroads to pay greater attention to the application of handbrakes by train crews, and to further refine the instructions requiring their use. The best practice in rules instruction is to provide examples of what can happen if the rules are not followed.

I'm pretty sure the MM&A engineer involved in the Megantic incident had the same rules instructor as myself and I well recall the graphic images of the aftermath of the Edson collision that we were shown in rules class. This was part of the "handbrake module" in the rules class which we all wrote an exam on.

good post e_g;

I knew the Conductor killed at Yates on the CN w/b as he was a Co. Officer when I hired out in the late 1980s; a good man, RIP Ken...

p.s. there is now also a DTMF-controlled derail on the lead at the east end of the yard in Edson.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/14 13:35 by xcnsnake.