Brake rigging
#1
I have built my share of Athearn BB, Accurail, Branchline (now Atlas), Intermountain, Tichy and Proto 2000 kits.  More recently I experienced with resin kits and became proficient at assembling decent brake rigging on the under frames.

A few weeks ago, while planing a new project, I had a look at the under frame of a Athearn BB Boxcar kit.  I was surprised to see that while the brake cylinder is facing the brake (B) end, it is not on the same side of the brake wheel.  Same is true with Athearn BB Reefer kits.

Is this a prototypical setup that I didn’t know of or a mistake from Athearn « engineers ».  In the last instance, why this was not corrected before.

I like to build brake riggings.  But I never tip my cars upside down to have a look at them so the answer is not so important after all.  But I am curious.
Guy from Southern Quebec.
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#2
Yeah, it was an error by Athearn, as the diagram of the prototype brake rigging which they used, showed the parts and pipe layout as it would be if viewed from above - probably a mechanical drawing from a real car-builder. 

The Athearn crew assumed that it was a view as seen from below, (I guess because it's no big operation to flip an HO scale boxcar on its roof) which explains why the components are not in the prototypically-correct places. 

For years, I never even thought about it until I began adding some of the brake piping and rigging on a few select models, and when I decided to do the same on an Athearn boxcar, it suddenly occurred to me that those cars were incorrect, at least in that regard.

Wayne
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#3
Big Grin 
So we really need to put the floors into our boxcars upside down?
David
Moderato ma non troppo
Perth & Exeter Railway Company
Esquesing & Chinguacousy Radial Railway
In model railroading, there are between six and two hundred ways of performing a given task.
Most modellers can get two of them to work.
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#4
Thanks for the reply Wayne.
Guy from Southern Quebec.
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