Steam & Excursion > Hand brakes

Given the current rules about tying handbrakes on every unit in the consist every time you get off, it got me to wondering? I think early steamers had hand brakes on the tenders to help with braking the train.

But did any later steam era locos have hand brakes or did they just open the cylinder cocks and chock the wheels or chain the drivers to the rail?

Was it common practice to leave steam locos sitting around in yards or on service tracks with nothing but the air brakes holding it there?

One thing to take in consideration is that steam locomotives were rarely left unattended as diesels are today. Today a crew can pull a train into a yard track and tie it down and know the diesel should just keep running. In the steam days, any locomotive with a fire in it had to be attended to or the fire could go out or the water could drop below the crown sheet (resulting in a boiler explosion). I imagine that in large yards and roundhouses there were jobs where a junior fireman or hoslters would just walk around to the various engines in the servicing areas to make sure this would not happen.

I would guess that while a locomotive was in the roundhouse they would chock or chain it when they dumped the fire since the engine would no longer have it's own brakes.

I would also guess that each railroad had it's own operating practices and rules for when to chain/chock a locomotive.

Lastly, railroads were not quite as saftey orienated then as they are today. You can pick up rule books from the 30s/40s and they are half the size of today's rule books. I think railroads figured the railroaders had something called "common sense" back in those days and didn't need a rule on how to properly sit in a locomotive. (See Norfolk Southern's rulebook as that is a real rule)

In the 19th Century, all steam locomotives had hand brakes on the tender. Most engines had no separate independent brake. (When kicking cars, the hand brake was set and the engine worked against it, so when steam was shut off the engine would stop more quickly than the cars being kicked.)

After the introduction of the A-1 brake in 1896, which had a straight air independent, the tender handbrake fell out of general use on most roads, though some continued to have them on their engines right up until the end of steam.

Conrary to Tuckers post, steam engines were often left unattended, with the fire banked, drivers chained, throttle pinned or chained and perhaps locked, valves centered, and cylinder cocks open. Many engines also had house cocks which were also left open. All appliances, including the air pump, were shut off, except that in cold weather frost cocks were opened and every valve was left cracked open just enough to keep pipes from freezing. An engine could be left for 10 to 12 hours like this, unattended. At a larger facility where there may be quite a few engines sitting around an engine wiper would make the rounds of the stable of engines every hour or so, making sure none of 'em had broken a water glass or somthing, and perhaps throwing a few scoops of coal on the bank.

I can appreciate throwing some coal in the firebox to bank the fire, but what would the oil fired roads have done? SP, and ATSF come to mind here.

john1082 Wrote:
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> I can appreciate throwing some coal in the firebox
> to bank the fire,

Actually, not banking the fire, but rather maintaining the bank.

> but what would the oil fired
> roads have done? SP, and ATSF come to mind here.

Beats me. Never fired one - real firemen burn coal.

Maybe some of our Southwestern specialists know??????

MTMEngineer Wrote:
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> >
> >
> Beats me. Never fired one - real firemen burn
> coal.
>
> Maybe some of our Southwestern specialists
> know??????

I don't know, I'll bet it's pretty tough to scoop up oil off the deck and keep it on the shovel while you try to throw it in the firebox.
I'll bet that takes some real skill! (!)

While in a roundhouse or other location where the engine would be left unattended for a while, the hostler, fireman, or whoever, would turn the firing valve down and add more than enough water to the boiler to be sure the water level would be at a safe level even though nobody may check the engine for a certain amount of time. This is what was known as a spot fire. It wasn't big enough to lift the pops but it was enough to keep the boiler at a prescribed pressure while being left unattended.

JDE

Most roundhouses in the later days of steam had a house steam connection to the locomotive boiler. This would keep the locomotive hot without the danger of low water and a possible explosion.

Just shut the oil valve and the fire goes out. Relighting was a simple matter of attaching a "house" steam pipe to provide steam for the tank heater and burner atomizer. After sufficient pressure built up, the house steam would be disconnected.