40 foot boxcar rebuild

[doctorwayne]

I'm sure that at some point though, a long, heavy train would have to rely on the car brakes to help stop.

Considering a heavily loaded freight, I wonder if the brakes were locked up on the locomotive, but the cars were left free rolling, if that could actually cause a derailment with the cars slamming into each other....

Yes, a train relies on the car brakes for stopping, as well as the locos' dynamic brakes: after all, not all locos are equipped with dynamic brakes.

Slack run-in can be a source of problems, including derailments - there's about a foot of slack (or more) in the draught gear of most freight cars. Part of the problem is that the brakes on the cars don't all apply at the same time - the signal from the locomotive is via a pressure reduction in the brake pipe, which can take some time to make its way to the end of a 100 car train. There are electro-pneumatic systems in use which send the signal electronically, while the air pressure, already available on each car in the train, is used only to apply the cars' brakes. Response is almost immediate. However, as far as I know, this system is not in use in North America, at least for freight trains.

I am guilty of going on a siding with the brake wheel thing. I am sorry, I agree with Puddle jumper, nice work. I do have a question. It appears to be humped up in the middle, it could be an illusion or I might be seeing things,
Les

These little side trips can often add a lot of useful information to the main topic and/or to viewers' general knowledge.

I think that the "hump" is due to the camera's lense. The 36' boxcar shown below was photographed using the camera's "close-up" setting, and was shot through the lense of my Optivisor, too. (I'm pretty sure, though, that the prototype was equipped with Camel door hardware, a perfect excuse for that "hump".)


Wayne