We discussed tricky orders and now it will be tricky air. As new brake valves on the engines and control valves on the cars came into use the train line leakage became less and in some cases was almost nill.This story is about the same problem at the same place . Coming west from Crestline,O. to Avon,IN. we were instructed to pick up at Marion,O. 4 cars making a total of 150 cars leaving Marion. After making the air test and every one on board we departed. The train went right along at 50 mph and any slow downs was made by reducing the throttle.After about 40 miles we started down the 3/4% grade into Bellefontaine,O.Running in # 8 throttle position and 50 mph I set the air at the normal spot and noticed that the train did not seem to be reacting to the brakes. Glancing at the air pressure on FRED at the rear of the train it looked good so I made another reduction and by the responce I knew we had a problem.Making another 10 lb. reduction FRED started showing a reduction and the brakes started taking affect.I knew the train would slow to the 30 mph through the curves ahead so I released the air and the train slowed to about 20 mph The air had to be applied again to keep the train to the 30 mph through the curve.After the final release the air came up on FRED and you could tell the brakes were released and away we go. Another 20 miles and we are bounding along at 50 mph and the train starts pulling down and a look at Fred shows a leak in the trainline.Notching the throttle down as the speed and pull of the train demands we come to a stop.The crew walked back and on the 17th the angle cock was turned closed.This was the problem with the air at Bellefontaine. The angle cock had been partly closed slowing down the movement of the air for the brakes. In the next 20 miles the valve had viberated shut cutting off the air supply.After wiring the angle cock open we did not have anymore trouble. I have had this trouble before but never had one to close . About 8 years latter an engineer coming down the same hill did the same thing but the brakes did not apply and the air was still normal on the rear end and going to dynamic which would not slow the train down he went to emergency which did not do much good and went around the 30 mph curve 60 mph.An angle cock 7 cars behind the engine had closed and he had no brakes on the rest of the train.What saved him was that he had a dispatcher riding with him or they would have blamed the engineer.Today the engineer can set the air from the rear end of the train from his station on the engine and now you know the whole story. LEW
LEW, very interesting. That could ruin your whole day. So when you found the bad angle cock on your train, there were only 17 cars where the brakes were working?
First that we picked up 40 cars instead of 4 to make the 150. The 17 cars were operating properly. The cars behind that were not because with the angle cock partly closed it was like reducing the train line in size. when I made a reduction the flow of air behind the 17 cars was restricted making for slow movement of the air to apply the brakes.That's why when I did not sense anything on the first reduction another reduction of ten lbs. was made.By watching the air gauge on FRED the hand did not fall at the proper speed,learned by watching these gauges for years,and then went after more air to get the trailine to fall on the rear end to a point that I knew would bring the train speed down to 30 mph and placed the brake handle in running position although the exhaust had not stopped blowing.Due to the slow release of the brakes due to the smaller amount of air to the train behind the 17th car I knew to start another reduction sooner than normal because of this slow movemant of air to maintain the 30 mph with the entire train. I asked the conductor who was on the second unit if he had started getting wormy and he said almost and then thought he has one more position, (emergency),and stopped worrying. The other engineer had only the 7 cars that had proper brakes.The only way those brakes could be applied behind the 7 cars was by trainline leakage and as I said earlier trainline leakage was sometimes nill and this was one of those times. LEW
