The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-10-14

emergency FalNes WHicns poEhoi Dhch by the pressure, allows added power to enter the brake cylinders from the train line in conjunction with the oth- CT pressure from the car reservoirs and produces a most powerful brake. "sometimes the emergency brake gets beyond control and causes lot of trouble. If the sliding valve on q certain car of train becomes closged' with dirt 1t won't respond to the en- gineer's reduction of say. i've pounds pressure and maybe even ten-pound reduction won't have any effect upon it. As Q result the brakes on all the rest of the cars are partly down and not on that particular car. Then when the engineer prakes still another re. duction the high pressure from this one tank forces the valve suddenly back with a jam. causing the brakes to go to emergency not only on tnaf car, but on every car on the train, With the result that the train will come to an abrupt standstili maybe 6 couple of hundred feet from station
 .That kind of a brake we call a. kicker and there are times when the engineer of passenger train has thiss thing happen to him a half dozen times during a single run. An emergency applied while a train is moving at hfty or sixty miles an hour has no bad ef- feet, owing to the great momentum. put
 
 twelve miles an hour and there will be a shaking up that will break every thing in the dining cars and make ev- erybody on board uncomfortable.
 .one odd thing about the application of an airbrake Is that If an engineer of freight train has slowed down his train to six or eight miles on account of n signal against him. and that sig nal then clears, instead of pulling out his throttle and trying to regain hls headway the wisest thing for him lo do Is to bring his train to standstLn and then start afresh. The chances are very much in favor of the train De- inc hroken in two if the ngineer under these circumstances tries to starr mn from slow speed. The brakes, on account of the length of the train. pe- ing released slowly on the rear cars. if the engineer. puts on power oncs .s more the heavy engine with a Jerk takes up all the slack m me cars run which the brakes have been releases and soon finds itself in tug or wsr with fine hind cars, on which the brakes ara atili down. There was a case the cther day where a heavy engine under these conditions actually pulled an empty flat car into two parts.
 Tn applying the air on long freight .-.ir tha rreatest care must be taken for If tho brakes on the forward cars so down too quickly they will come to e.,Sda,, ston ail the rest of the cars, take uu the slack with rush: ana coming against the solid resistahee In front, are very apt to buckle & car on the track and maybe In the way VI another train 4h.1 tba passenger engineer knows Is likeiy to happen, and he always Keeps most careful lookout on passing ireight train. sas. nss- senger train from Springfield 10 New York. when saw the tall hgnts on tue calboose of a freight train on the west hound track. travelling in the same di- rSctIon as my train. had no sooner canoht sight of the lights when, Witn inc utmost audiences every one or them went out. ana
 "f knew something was wrong, anu stopped my train in the quickest pos- sibie fashion. thinking that some oD- struction might have been forced over on rav track. A few moments later we had slowly moved up under con- .vci to a flagnan who had been sen! hanir He said that the freight nao broken in two and when the ar nose between the parted cars had prohen inc brakes had gone down auich %hN hard and the ears had stopped "a'n Jerk that jarred every light out,
 ..Tt is inst as easycfor the condncter to mi down. the brakes as the engineer, and he can either bring train to q gradual stop or, by throwing back tne lever all the way, cause an emergency application. The conductors on some of the roads. who are little nervous. have been known to make use Of thls opportunity in more ways than one. Sye engineer on a New York road com plains that he can never nakef up tune when he has a certain conductor pe btnfI him. The latter is a scary sort or fellow. and when the train gets late inc engineer turns loose his engine ana tr,as to make up some Of the time sending the train along faster than tns conductor cares to travel Lne las.es then goes to the emergency lever ana makes a service application of the brakes by causing q small reduction ;ot the alr in the train line. or course inc train fs held dowp to q certain speed. nos matter how wtde open sthe' xNa !.