Canadian Railroads > CN #00016- Distributed Braking Car

Was in town today (Carbondale, IL) and got this NB CN intermodal, with a boxcar on the tail end. Not any ordinary boxcar, but a CN "Distributed  Braking Car", complete with flashing red strobes on either end. Never saw anything like this before. Takes the place of a DPU? 

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Rest of the car.

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bodkin6071 Wrote:
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> Was in town today (Carbondale, IL) and got this NB
> CN intermodal, with a boxcar on the tail end. Not
> any ordinary boxcar, but a CN "Distributed 
> Braking Car", complete with flashing red strobes
> on either end. Never saw anything like this
> before. Takes the place of a DPU? 

Short answer is 'yes'. Serves the same purpose as a DPU, but without the additional HP of one.

Michael

Does the Distibuted Braking car just continuously charge the brake line, or can it also apply the brakes in tandem with the controlling unit?  It apparently still needs an SBU, so it doesn't do the emergency braking function (or could it)?

Apparently idling locomotives have been used for this function in the past, and they had no communication to and from the head end.

GTD

Saw that the other day here in Toronto. Don't know what number it was, but was wondering why it was tacked on the end.  Didn't get a good look at it.  Interesting.

Ken

These things can also be cut in mid-train; way back on 4/21/17 I posted up some shots of CN 00013 at https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?15,4277354,4277354#msg-4277354. Replies to that post include some of the details of their origins and such. That post also has a link to a previous one with a container on flat serving the same function. They'd be neat modelling projects.
Fred

I just had one of these this week on a Q train out of Canada. They act just like a DPU in regards to air brakes and do not need an EOT applied, hence the marker lights on both ends. I liked it, until we were yarding the train and had to keep setting it over and picking back up a couple times. Not sure of exactly how many we have, but the one I had was CN 0022.

CN_Hogger