[PRCo] Re: Braking Systems

[Fred Schneider]

I don't remember a signal light on the 1700s.   The Philly 2700s do  
have a "shaft brake" indicator light.   I think this was one of those  
customer options.    If the car was drifting with the pedal latched  
down, the shoes were worn or the drum brakes were not applied.   Who  
needed a light...

Same deal with the air-PCCs.   Baltimore installed brake pipe  
gauges ... huge mothers, 4 inch gauges.   Told you that the brake  
shoes were applied.   Those were the only air-PCC cars I ever saw  
with brake pipe or brake cylinder gauges.   Every other one I rode or  
ran simply had a reservoir gauge.    Again a customer option.

Most older U. S. streetcars also only had reservoir gauges but a few  
had double hand gauges, with one hand showing the brake pipe and the  
other the brake reservoir.    The Baltimore Peter Witt (and I'm sure  
some other safety cars but I have no clue how many) mounted the air  
gauge on a separate emergency reservoir instead of the main  
reservoir.   The logic was that the main reservoir charged first and  
then the emergency reservoir, so if the ER gauge showed enough air,  
both tanks were charged.

Digression applies only to straight air and not train air (or  
automatic air) systems which required separate gauges for both  
reservoir and brake pipe because they were independent of each other.

I am not competent to talk about the more recent electro-pneumatic  
schemes after the 1960s.    Wish I was.   Newest locomotive I ran was  
a 1948 GE 44 ton diesel.   Oldest was a 1905 Juniata Shops built  
4-4-0.   So you know my range of knowledge.   And triple valves from  
P up to UC.

On Oct 19, 2005, at 2:53 PM, Boris Cefer wrote:

> Didn't the 1700s have a drum brake signal light? The motorman had  
> to notice
> that. What was the practice of motorman training?
>
> B
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 8:16 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Braking Systems
>
>
>
>> Yes.   Broken motor lead so the dynamic brakes failed.   Because they
>> failed, all the motorman had was drum brakes.   He was young,
>> inadequately trained, and didn't understand why he was sliding
>> through all the stops on the way in that morning.   And the problem
>> was compounded because PAT removed the timed derail at South Hills
>> Junction .... had it been there, the car would probably have been on
>> the ground at the top of the hill instead of slamming into the P&LE
>> station.   But if memories are short and we can't remember that we
>> had two previous runaways in the tunnel, well, you get the picture.
>>
>> On Oct 19, 2005, at 12:37 PM, Boris Cefer wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Perhaps the most tragic story of a streetcar which lost its brakes
>>> (well, in
>>> the PCC era) was an accident of 1727 at Station square on 28th
>>> October 1987.
>>>
>
>
>