1908 - The Progress of the Master Car Builders - 100 Types of Couplers

Coupler equipment photographed in Canada is included.

More pieces on railcar design evolution can be found by pressing the Railway Technology & Systems 04 'radio button' above ... and then scrolling down to the Railway Cars heading on that page.

This 1908 edition of Kirkman's Science of Railways shows technical drawings of some of the one hundred or so different variants of Janney-style couplers produced by different manufacturers. 

Figure 5 appears above. It is difficult to make it attractive as the left margin disappears into the 700-page book's deep gutter. However, you get the idea: The Master Car Builders are working through the painstaking process of achieving an initial universal standard which US railroads should follow. With longstanding cross-border operations, large Canadian railways interchanging with, or operating in, the US are affected by these decisions as well.

In the 1890 Congressional hearings, some railroads seemed particularly inflexible. The Pennsylvania Railroad representative spoke of the corporate standardizing mission of the legendary Altoona Shops pertaining to the wide range of products which the railroad purchased. He didn't seem particularly amenable to the idea of compromising on ... coupler designs to reach a national standard ... or the rate at which couplers would be converted on the PRR. In 1890, I think he said the Pennsy was 10% converted to Janney-type. (It seemed to me he was not a nuts and bolts operating person who was empowered to publicly commit to any particular course of action - unlike some of the other witnesses.)

Most of the text and diagrams which follow in the book (and which are not included here) are exhaustively technical and devoted to presenting to the professionals who bought this series of books, the exact testing procedures of the Master Car Builders for coupler standards testing: minimum batch size, number of samples from a batch to submit for testing, types of standardized tests (including repeated drop testing in a special device) to determine strength, drawbar rigidity, etc.

I am just presenting the diagrams showing the wide variety of designs. 

Imagine, if you were running a railway's spare part inventory ... the absolute impossibility of keeping replacement parts in stock for 100 different types of automatic couplers!

from: Van Horne's Road; Lavallee; 1974; Railfare.

On the CPR at Laggan (later Lake Louise) circa 1884, we see the expected link and pin couplers in use.

As previously discussed, end doors were used to load/unload 'full length' products, such as lumber.

A multi-storey boarding car can be seen at the left.

After the black bar in the image below (see Figure 114), we see two processes for making a coupling when knuckles are missing, or broken and removed.

As you will have noticed, all of the couplers above are notched in the middle of the knuckle, with vertical holes formed at the knuckles' outer end. A link could be inserted into the notch and it could be held in place using a standard coupling pin. The first image of Figure 114 shows 'the old way' of coupling by hand when faced with automatic coupler problems ... by using two pins and a link.

So that a brakeman does not have to stand in front of a moving car when both cars were previously equipped with functioning automatic couplers, the Hinson Emergency Knuckle can (theoretically) be used to make the coupling 'automatically'. 

This process involves first attaching the emergency knuckle into the defective coupler using a pin. Then the cars can be moved together to complete the coupling. The undamaged knuckle-equipped automatic coupler closes and locks onto the emergency knuckle. 

Again, this preserves the key safety feature of automatic couplers - that the brakeman does not have to stand in front of an approaching car with a link and pin in his hands to complete a coupling.

*  *  *

Above, is detail taken from the exhaustively-labelled car diagram below. 

In particular, the name 'deadwood' (item 57) was indeed an official part name. You may recall brakemen coupling link and pin cars generally had to ensure they were not crushed by the two protruding deadwoods as the cars came together. 

*  *  *

from: A Way to the West; Allan Bell; 1991; Privately published.

Above: Detail from the Canada Atlantic yard at Bridge Street in Ottawa, undated. In the few Canadian photos available in my books which show car ends for this era, people are often posing right in front of the coupling system!

The lumber car at the left shows a link and pin coupler pocket. It has a brake handwheel located to the left of the coupler pocket. The handwheel assembly is therefore one more crush hazard the brakeman has to watch for as the cars come together. 

The boxcar 2443 at the right has a link pinned in place. The draft horses have been by (watch your step) and, in fact, you can see a wagon with a draft horse being loaded at the right of the photo. A person seems to be taking a stroll along the roof walks on the next track over. 

A phenomenon I hadn't noticed before are the streaks of car oil on the ends of the 8944 and the 2443. The oil has leaked out of the journal wells onto the wheels and has been 'spun off' while the cars were in motion. 

If you return to the CPR Laggan photo, you'll see this phenomenon on the CPR car as well. 

*  *  *

from: Over the Hills to Georgian Bay; Niall MacKay: 1981; Boston Mills.

Above: The Canada Atlantic station in Ottawa in 1895. At the left, you can see a Maine Central car which has arrived in interchange, still with a link and pin coupler and (it appears) without an air brake hose. Cars were usually shopped for conversion to air brakes and automatic couplers at the same time.

Generally, during the transition period, air brake-equipped cars would be marshaled immediately behind the engine so the engineer had the maximum control over the train using all available automatic brakes.

*  *  *

from: Van Horne's Road; Lavallee; 1974; Railfare.

This beautiful photo shows a stock car which was probably retrofitted with Janney-style couplers and air brakes. Built as a stock car by the Perth Car Shops in 1883, the car is shown in 1901. Other cars with similar modern equipment can be seen in the background.

Notice the interesting tracked door on the end. Its travel could be limited to admit only a stock attendant and to prevent livestock egress. Half of this door is barred like the main doors.

Below the coupler, you can see the old-style outside brake beam which was sometimes a source of injury for brakemen as they worked to complete a link and pin coupling with an approaching car of this design. Bonus detail: On this occasion, this car is loaded with car wheels. 

I may well be wrong, but the little cylinder near the roofline ... atop the pipe rising behind the ladder ... may be a hard-to-read item 195 on the MCB standard boxcar diagram: 'pressure retaining valve'. Of course, modern practice is to locate retainer valve handles under the carbody. However, in 1900 and for decades to come - even with air brake-equipped cars ... brakemen often travelled along the roofwalks to relay hand signals during switching and to apply the handbrakes on kicked cars. 

... During a Canadian winter with snow heavily drifted along the tracks, the car roofwalks would be relatively free of deep snow ... and hopefully free from ice! When a train required retainers to be turned up or down, one could argue that time was always saved in winter by following the traditional route of the car roofwalks and adjusting the retainers from that location. Trudging through the deep snow along the roadbed can take a great deal of time and energy.

"To Strike Is No Remedy ...

To quit is starvation, and to continue is death; not immediately perhaps, but inevitable if he remains long enough in the service."

EF O'Shea, Brotherhood of Railroad Brakemen. 

A fraternal-financial organization with 15,000 members in 1890.

*  *  *

This post gives a short sample of the testimony given to the US Senate's Interstate Commerce Committee in 1890. It follows my earlier look at railcar construction in the late 1800s. During that period, the obvious necessity of developing consistent safety standards for North American railways was receiving widespread attention. 

In 1863, Ezra Miller had patented the Miller Hook to help prevent passenger car telescoping during a collision or derailment. It was reviewed in a previous post.

Ezra Miller Saved Lives

In 1873, EH Janney had received a patent for his most recent coupler innovation. This patent introduced the movable 'knuckle'. 

Just reading the testimony before the Committee provides a vivid image of the deplorable safety conditions for railroad employees. 

The shocking loss of life in passenger train accidents was easily presented in the newspapers so it would receive the attention it deserved from the politicians and railroad officials. However, the lethal working conditions for running trades employees in freight service - with most citizens being unable to imagine or identify with their plight - was a more persistent area of regulatory neglect. 

In testimony, it was estimated that 1 in 5 brakemen and conductors would survive their careers to 'die a natural death'. 

*  *  *

It would take the efforts of a social reformer who served as Iowa's Railroad Commissioner from 1883 to 1888 to focus the attention and action of the US Congress on the issue. While the early, relatively short railroad lines had come under state jurisdiction, the growth of railroad company systems far beyond state lines required the oversight of people seeing the 'big picture' of railroading. 

from: History of Railroads in America; Oliver Jensen; 1975; Random House.

Lorenzo Coffin (1823-1915) was one of the people responsible for the eventual development of the Railroad Safety Appliance Act.

Appropriately, Coffin is the first witness as the testimony begins.

The 'power brake' is differentiated from the manual train brake then in use which was applied by brakemen running along the tops of cars to apply handbrakes. One witness takes care to distinguish between a power brake and an automatic brake. Today, we would expect an automatic air brake system to create an Emergency application in the event the train line was broken in some way - without it being initiated by the engineer. 

In some of the testimony regarding the formal testing of early air (and other) brake systems, a witness speaks of riding in one of the 50 boxcars travelling down the 1% grade used by the test train. The violent run-in of slack caused the riders to be thrown against the leading end of the boxcar. Some riders had taken the precaution of surrounding themselves with pillows ... but pillows and all still made the sudden trip forward. It seems likely that experimental straight air systems were also being tested ... and the slow propagation of the straight air through the train line would be a very effective way of creating such violent slack action.

The 'automatic coupler' in its simplest terms meant that a brakeman did not have to stand between cars during coupling - that the coupler 'dropped the pin' automatically as the brakeman stood safely outside the rails and watched.

*  *  *

Here are some of the defects in the design of railroad freight cars identified in the testimony.

In searching through my books, I have seen hundreds of triangular 'cowcatcher' pilots from the late 1800s with their hinged link and pin coupling bar in the centre. The 3/4 front view of trains has always been extremely popular. However, photos showing the rear of a tender, or the end of freight cars are relatively rare. 

from: The Central Pacific & Southern Pacific Railroads; Lucius Beebe; 1963; Howell-North.

Above, at Promontory, Utah in 1869 is an example showing many of the design shortcomings of freight cars. You can see a coupler pocket into which a link has been inserted, with the pin dropped to hold the end of the link in the coupler pocket. A brakeman coupling another car would insert that link into the approaching pocket and drop another pin to secure it there.

Braking system: You can see the narrow roofwalk and the handwheel at the roof to apply the 'train brakes' when they are called for by the engineer's whistle signal. At the very bottom of the handbrake shaft is a chain which will wrap around the shaft as it is turned. The chain is connected to links/levers which will draw the brake shoes into contact with the treads of the wheels. The large transverse wooden bar below the coupler is the brake beam. At the left end of the brake beam, thanks to the sunlight, you can see the left brake shoe which will be applied to the left wheel tread.

Above the coupler pocket, and bolted to it, is a heavy 'deadwood' (probably a slang term). The deadwood is a sturdy piece of wood providing a strong connection between the coupler pocket and the car frame. 

Why automatic couplers are needed: An identical car is approaching the (imaginary) brakeman, standing beside the coupler pocket of the car above. With a pin in hand, he is ready to insert that link and drop the pin into the approaching pocket. Assume the momentum of the movement approaching the car above will push the standing car back two or three feet ...

1. You (you have become the brakeman) stand beside the stationary coupler pocket, align and skilfully insert the link into the approaching pocket and quickly drop the pin.
2. Avoid getting your hands or fingers crushed between the link, the two coupler pockets and the pin.
3. As the cars move two or three feet, walk with them, so the approaching brake beam does not catch your ankle and break it, or cause your legs to become trapped under the approaching car.
4. Keep your torso back so it is not crushed between the deadwoods as they approach each other.
5. You may prefer to keep one foot outside the rail so you can quickly shift away from the cars if something goes wrong. However, if you adopt this position and fall, your body and limbs will land on the rail in front of the approaching wheel.
6. Become proficient at this act so you can perform it at night, in the rain, by the light of a dim coal oil lantern.

*  *  *

from: Railroad Album; John O'Connell; 1954; Popular Mechanics.

The lovely illustration above shows two different designs of car end appurtenances. The upper design shows deadwoods (or perhaps metal 'bumpers', in this case) which are almost flush (if viewed in a side profile) with the contact face of the coupler pocket. A brakeman would have to be particularly skilful to perform a coupling pin drop and extract his arm so it was not caught if the second car had identical deadwoods/bumpers.

On the lower image, you can see a brakeman walking with the approaching movement. The link is raised, ready for insertion into the stationary car. Then the pin will be dropped into the stationary car's coupler pocket. At least in this case, the deadwoods pose less of a crushing hazard than those in the upper design.

*  *  *

from: History of Railroads in America; Oliver Jensen; 1975; Random House.

Again, here is detail from a photo taken during the construction of the Union Pacific as a stone bridge is being constructed by masons. Beneath the straddling man, you can see the link and pin couplers and the two pins inserted into them. This image shows that the faces of the two coupler pockets are in direct contact with each other. This illustrates the crushing hazard between the coupler faces ... the brakeman's hand must occupy that space between those faces as he inserts the link.

*  *  *

I will likely continue with this topic in the future. 

Below is the correct name and link to the archive.org document I have found so interesting. 

One could analyze it for years ... but I probably won't go that far.

Automatic couplers and power brakes

US Congress, Senate, Committee on Interstate Commerce

https://archive.org/details/automaticcouple00commgoog/page/n7/mode/1up

*  *  *

As you'll notice, the data below (Page 6 of testimony) has been compiled by Lorenzo Coffin.

The Master Car Builders origin and elaboration below is interesting. The term appears in the Science of Railways (circa 1900 - a decade after this testimony) as an entire 400+ page volume is dedicated to standard car design based on the standards of the Master Car Builders.

It was funny to discover that MCB is a term of solemn significance in railroad history. In the 1980s, I was privileged to visit a local 'dream' layout - lots of brass steam locomotives, etc. The owner was referred to with appropriate awe because he had completed the necessary peer-reviewed exercises to be formally recognized (I presume in HO) as a 'Master Car Builder'.

All the different types of Janney couplers will be illustrated in a future post. 

In testimony, railroad officials generally pointed out that air brakes were not practical to use with 50-car trains unless there were Janney-type couplers because of the significant slack action created by long consists of link and pin. Their opinions for Janney-type implementation ran the gamut from continued laissez-faire to immediate federal regulation. 

A problem I had not considered was the 'supply chain' issue and the need to avoid rushing out and buying just any Janney-style couplers. The railroads wanted and needed good quality, durable Janney-style couplers (estimated conversion cost per car: close to $100 in 1890 dollars) and the skilled labour to complete the changeover in a reasonable period ... of YEARS. There were more than one million freight cars in service in the US in 1890. 

Another problem involved our poor brakemen again. Testimony stated that it was significantly more dangerous for a less-experienced brakeman to step in between two freight cars when one car had the usual non-standardized link and pin appliance, and the other had a non-standardized Janney-type. This more dangerous condition would persist for years during the conversion period. (In old photos, you'll notice that early Janneys often had a notch in the knuckle. The link would go into that notch and the pin was dropped down the hole in the knuckle to secure it.)

One of the officials was asked if he knew about the state of affairs concerning brakes and couplers in Canada and he had no idea.

Abilene, Texas - The Texas & Pacific Railway - Illustrations of Classic Railroad Technology

My virtual vacation in Abilene, Texas continues. Abilene is 1700 miles away from here as the Google drives, and the temperature easily tops 100 degrees F on many days during the summer. While we've only been reaching 88 degrees F here this week, our heat pump is working harder than normal in sympathy with its distant Lennox cousins.

In my previous piece on the Texas & Pacific Railway, I presented what I could find here in the way of photos, maps, published schedules and an employee timetable. This was done to depict some of the history of the railroad which gave birth to the city of Abilene in its first iteration as a railroad shipping centre for cattle.

That piece was atrociously long because I found so much material. This is an attempt to supplement the wordiness of the first piece with illustrations ... and still ... more words to interpret the images.

These images are presented in roughly the same order as the subjects appear in the previous Texas & Pacific piece.

Abilene, Texas - The Texas & Pacific Railway

from: Railroad & Photo Annual; 1953; Trains & Travel; Kalmbach.

Texas & Pacific locomotive 706 was built by Baldwin in 1919. It's Pacific-type - used in passenger service.

*  *  *

Elesco Feedwater Heater

These were often used to maximize efficiency on later Texas & Pacific freight locomotives.

from: Locomotive Boiler-Feeding Devices; JW Harding; 1937; International Textbook Company.

from: Locomotive Boiler-Feeding Devices; JW Harding; 1937; International Textbook Company.

from: Locomotive Boiler-Feeding Devices; JW Harding; 1937; International Textbook Company.

Elesco (and other brands of) feedwater heaters provided greater thermal efficiency - particularly for cold-climate railroads. But there was a lot of equipment needed beyond the heat exchanging tank at the front of the locomotive (13). 

At (8) you'll notice a powerful 2-phase, steam powered pump to run water through the whole system and to force the warmed feedwater into the boiler through the pipe at (11). 

*  *  *

A Conceptual Steam Locomotive Diagram

This diagram represents an 'intermediate' locomotive design ... when considering the full sweep of steam locomotive technology.

from: The Steam Locomotive, Part 1; JW Harding; 1934; International Textbook Company.

Fire and Smoke

Unlike many Texas & Pacific steam locomotives, this engine is burning coal, which sits on 'shakeable' grates, which allow the ashes to fall below for later disposal. 

Air for combustion enters the firebox (a) by coming up through the grates ... and it can also enter through the firebox door at the left. 

A brick arch over (a) causes the combustion gases to swirl, thus ensuring more complete combustion within the firebox. The 'roof' of the firebox is the crown sheet. Covering the crown sheet is a layer of water, with steam above that. 

Bituminous coal burns at 1200-1600 degrees Fahrenheit, so the crown sheet must always be covered by water to avoid metal failure and a boiler explosion.

The hot combustion gases pass through the flue pipes (b) and (i). I'm using simplified terminology throughout this piece.

At the extreme right, the smoke from the flues enters the smokebox, where it is forced out through the stack (c) by the discharge of exhaust steam coming from the piston (q). This force also does a good job of providing a draft for the fire.

Water and Steam

The boiler is a sealed vessel so it can accumulate energy up to a certain limit. As it heats up, and water is boiled into steam, the pressure inside it builds. At a design limit of 200 pounds per square inch, water boils at about 388 degrees Fahrenheit. 

A safety valve system (not shown) is designed to automatically vent excess pressure. When the main safety valve opens, the sound of escaping steam is thunderous and deafening. 

When the engineer opens the throttle lever (d), the throttle valve (e) opens and the resulting movement of steam will (with the correct setting of the reverser - not shown) cause the locomotive to turn its wheels.

Steam ... contrasted with condensed steam or water vapour ... is an invisible gas. It passes from (g) as saturated steam, goes back into the boiler area, and exits at (j) as superheated steam. This whole assembly is called a superheater. It will generally increase the temperature of the resulting dry steam by at least 250 degrees Fahrenheit, but the pressure will remain about the same.

So now our steam has reached a temperature of over 600 degrees Fahrenheit ... or higher if we want to brag about it. This dry superheated steam contains an awful lot of extra energy. This is excellent news because it saves us from repeating the energy-intensive work of taking cold water from the tender ... heating it up to the boiling point ... and adding the latent heat needed to turn it into saturated steam. 

Our superheated steam has tremendous expansive power, so only a small quantity needs to be used in the cylinder to keep a train moving.

It seems counter-intuitive that one superheats the steam, but its pressure stays the same. The explanation for this requires discussion of molecular structure, and how it relates to a substance's vapour pressure/temperature curve. But we're just here for the pictures!

The superheated steam travels down the branch pipe (k) to the cylinder valve (l) which is connected by driving rods and links to the piston inside the cylinder (q)

As the cylinder valve oscillates, it admits steam to one side of the piston, then the other. This provides power for both directions of piston travel. When you add the 'both directions' from the other side of the locomotive, you end up with four, alternating power strokes for every single turn of the driving wheels.

Without a reverser, our engine as shown will only travel forward. A reverser is an important tool of steam economy because it allows the engineer to taper the steam cutoff. 

For example: Steam would be admitted for the full travel of the piston when starting a heavy train. In contrast, if a light passenger train was travelling fast, only a short tick of steam would be needed to maintain momentum. (Short tick is not a legitimate mechanical engineering term.)

Finally, through the helpful work of the cylinder valve (l), the exhaust steam and smokebox smoke is pushed out through the stack (c).

*  *  *

The feedwater heater and the superheater were two of the most important refinements made to improve the fuel efficiency of steam locomotives.

*  *  *

A coat of paint, and it'll be as good as new!

from: A Locomotive Engineer's Album; George B Abdill; 1965; Bonanza Books.

Above and below. I have guessed that these photos are from around 1920. An older Union Pacific 2-8-0 type Compound experienced a boiler explosion in Wyoming. 

Above: The engine is rolled over on its right side for shipment. The hole at the front lower-left of the wreck is where the smokestack was. The big pipe you see is the branch pipe which would have carried steam down to the top of the right-side cylinder - the cylinder end of that open pipe is by that person's right hand. Just in front of the intact locomotive, the black perforated plate which appears out of the bottom of the firebox is probably the failed crown sheet. The author commented that most boiler failures were caused by a sudden flow of cold water onto an overheated crown sheet. Being of an older design, we are probably correct in noting that there are no superheater units or large-diameter superheater flues on this engine.

Below: That is the relatively intact running gear of the same locomotive. 

It seems very unlikely that anyone in the cab survived the explosion. An exploding boiler was often propelled hundreds of feet because most of the potential energy of tons of boiler water suddenly flashed into steam. 

In looking for historical boiler references, I found a 'boiler insurance' company's periodical preserved at archive.org . They published monthly listings of all of the railroad and stationary boiler explosions all over the US. Between problems with metallurgy, problems with rivets and staybolts, problems with keeping the crown sheet covered, and lack of preventative maintenance ... boilers were always blowing up all over the place!

from: A Locomotive Engineer's Album; George B Abdill; 1965; Bonanza Books.

*  *  *

from: History of Railroads in America; Oliver Jensen; 1975; American Heritage.

A map showing the status of the network at the end of the first major phase of railroad building in the US.

The strategic position of the Texas & Pacific line through Abilene is visible.

 *  *  *

Link and Pin Couplers

from: Yonder Comes the Train; Lance Phillips; 1965; AC Barnes & Co.

With a locomotive tender at our left and a freight car at our right, the brakeman is working to couple the locomotive to a car using the link and pin system. The locomotive pocket can accommodate rolling stock with three different coupler heights. The link was previously inserted into the locomotive pocket and the pin has been dropped to secure it ... so half of the coupling has been done.

The brakeman has signalled the engineer to back up so he can complete the coupling. The engineer must guess about when to stop and the brakeman must be quick and skillful to avoid injury or death if something goes wrong.

Imagine the brakeman coupling under more difficult conditions: Ten cars from the headend  ... at night ... in the rain.

*  *  *

Janney-style Couplers

from: Advertisement; American Association of Railroads; June 1948; Trains.

Apparently, Janney was inspired by the human hand when he came up with this major improvement in safety. The left coupler is 'open' with the knuckle rotating on a heavy pin (seen with an 'A' on its top). 

A brakeman simply opens the knuckle and gets out of the way before the cars come together. With just one coupler open, when the cars come together, the knuckle will close and lock automatically. 

To open a coupler (see the one at the right) a brakeman stands at the car's side, actuates the cut lever (that rod), and the attached pin is lifted, allowing the knuckle to open.

Coupler knuckles are designed to be the weakest link in a train to prevent costly damage to car underframes. If there is bad slack action in a train, the 80 lb knuckle part will break and a brakeman would be assigned the job of replacing it.

*  *  *

Why they were called brakemen ...

from: A Locomotive Engineer's Album; George B Abdill; 1965; Bonanza Books.

Upon hearing the whistle signal from the engineer to 'down brakes' ... brakemen from the engine and caboose would run along the roofwalks and turn the brake wheels to set mechanical brakes on each car.

In this undated photo on the Boston, Hartford and Erie Railroad, you can see the engine has a link and pin coupling rod lying in the centre of its pointed cowcatcher (pilot). The locomotive was built in 1868. 

The author reports this is a 10-car train - the caboose didn't quite make it into the book. In addition to the two brakeman, the conductor is standing on the roadbed, the fireman is standing in the gangway and the engineer is sitting in the cab with his arm on the window ledge. 

*  *  *

from: The Central Pacific & Southern Pacific Railroads; Lucius Beebe; 1963; Howell-North Books.

This photo was taken on the Central Pacific in the Sierra Nevada in 1865. There are not many photos showing brakemen serving as the primary method of train control. 

When a train was running too fast down a grade, the handbrakes would have little likelihood of bringing the train under control. If a train broke in two, it was up to the brakemen to try to stop the cars separated from the engine.

The train is posed for the photo. You can see a brake wheel rising above the roof of each car. The brake shoes can be seen pressing on the treads of the wheels.

*  *  *

Corporations are often resistant to regulatory changes to improve safety.

from: Statistics of Railways in the United States; 1909; Interstate Commerce Commission.

After the invention of knuckle couplers and automatic train air brakes (a break in the train air line applies the brakes in 'emergency' on every car) it took decades for the railroads to settle on standards and to implement the changes. Other statistics in this book include deaths and injuries and how they occurred.

*  *  *

Breaking the Ice

Refrigerator Cars

from: Right-hand Man in the Cab, article; Howard W Bull; May 1948; Trains, Kalmbach.

This photo shows an intermediate icing station at Roseville, California in the 1940s.

These cars were probably carrying fresh produce from southern California terminals. There, sophisticated mechanical equipment would have been used because every car would need to be loaded with ice. Money would be saved if cars could be loaded as quickly as possible with produce and ice during a peak harvesting rush at a busy terminal.

This location was where a steam helper locomotive (for mountain grades) was added to the train consist, so it was a convenient point to top up cars designated for checking and re-icing. The worker at the right with the fork is 'optimizing' the block of ice to provide an increased ice surface area. 

*  *  *

from: Yonder Comes the Train; Lance Phillips; 1965; AC Barnes & Co.

Gustavus Franklin Swift (1839-1903) was a Massachusetts-born butcher who saw the business potential of changing consumers' meat-buying habits in the eastern US. There, people were accustomed to freshly-butchered local meat. 

Swift developed the idea of locating his business at the meat-packing centre of Chicago and transporting dressed meat by rail. The invention of the refrigerator car came from his efforts to develop the most effective way to provide refrigeration for a journey halfway across the country.

The image above is a depiction of a typical ice refrigerator car. It has ice bunkers at each end, and it is designed so cold air can circulate throughout the car, including under the floor on which the shipment was placed.

You'll also notice that the car features air brakes and Janney-type couplers!

*  *  *

Freight House

from: PE's Bustling Freight, article; no author; photo from: Pacific Electric Magazine; Trains June 1948; Kalmbach.

A mention was made in the previous piece about a freight house - a railroad facility used by the many shippers whose business did not require their own siding. Draft-horse-drawn wagons or trucks would be used for transportation between a shipper's facility and the freight house.

An interesting technique which is shown here is the aligning of multiple 40-foot boxcar doors with a single freight house door. Multiple boxcars could be loaded or unloaded at once. As many of the interior surfaces of boxcars were 'nailable' ... gaps between the boxcars could be spanned safely using metal plates nailed to the door thresholds. 

*  *  *

The Considerations Behind Block Signaling in ABS and CTC

from: The Railroad - What It Is, What It Does; John H Armstrong; 1978; Simmons-Boardman.

At the time of publishing: Medium Speed was 30 mph and Limited Speed was 45 mph.

Telegraphs were first used by railroads in the mid-1800s to make temporary modifications to the paper timetables used by employees ... to deal with unforeseen traffic circumstances on a given day. Since that time, railroads have divided their busiest lines into 'blocks'. Typically, these blocks were several miles in length.

On single track railroads, before electric signals, a key safety feature of train separation rules was that trains must enter sidings ... to clear for opposing or following trains ... respecting a rules-specified time interval. 

Similarly, a train following another from a particular point on the line must wait for a prescribed amount of time before departing. 

... To give you some idea ... depending on the railroad ... this time interval might be 10 or 20 minutes. In the event of a train breakdown, this period of time gave the tailend brakeman time to run back with a flagging kit ... to protect the back of his train. One could argue this was probably the most important reason why cabooses were invented in the first place - to have someone back there, ready to protect the train.

As railroad technology improved, and trains became faster and heavier, it became even more important to ensure trains had adequate warning when it was time to slow down and/or stop. Steel wheels on steel rails are nearly frictionless.

In the previous piece, looking at the Texas & Pacific employee timetable from 1974, I referred to ABS (automatic block signal) and CTC (centralized traffic control) systems. 

The nice, clear diagram above, shows how automatic block signals are used to protect trains. 

Above, at the left side, the signal indications are shown from most restrictive (stop) to least restrictive (clear). 

To the right are shown sample sections of track which are divided into blocks ... each block having its own electrically-isolated track circuit. The track circuits are connected to trackside signals. For very basic protection, a railroad could use just three indications (i.e. green, yellow, red). If a train was stopped, its entire block would be protected because a red signal would prevent a following train (or an opposing train) from entering into its block without proper authority.

For high traffic lines where maximum capacity must be provided along with maximum safety, more signal indications (combinations of more lights of changeable colours on the same signal mast) need to be used.

He was present when the CTC system was implemented at Schreiber, Ontario on the Canadian Pacific Railway and Rolly Martin told me a few times that CTC on single track could safely carry the same traffic load as non-CTC double track.

Imagine a single track line which enables a Dispatcher (Rail Traffic Controller) to use electric switches and signals to remotely control every train's movements ... while train separation is automatically taken care of in all cases by the block signals. 

In setting up a CTC traffic control system, the civil and electrical engineers of the system vendor would work together with the railroad's own professional engineers to plan the optimal placement of signals and the design of the logic to operate the track switches and coloured light signals. 

They'd consider typical train tonnage, train speeds, significant grades on the track profile, typical stopping distances at different points, signal visibility from the locomotive - any variable which should be considered to run trains as safely as possible ... while also running them as close to each other as reasonably possible.

While the Four-Block, Five Indication system at the bottom of the diagram will be more expensive to install, it is designed to maximize the capacity of the railroad line.

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from: Popular Mechanics Railroad Album; John O'Connell; 1954; Popular Mechanics.

In doing the research to find Texas & Pacific items, I found this curiosity. It was probably tested near large population centres - where it could be near to rescue locomotives (it has standard couplers). I've included this in case ardent fans of the Texas & Pacific find the reference interesting, or in case they collect mentions of this unusual trainset. 

The locomotive section also includes a mail hook for picking up mailbags 'on the fly' (first door) and a baggage and express section (second larger door).

Early self-propelled railcars had problems with dependably getting from Point A to Point B. Passengers often received a rough, jarring ride at high speed on fast streamlined trainset prototypes. 

At least in this experimental vehicle, they enjoyed rubber-tired comfort!

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from: Photo Section, Rail Photo Service; May 1948; Trains, Kalmbach.

In this undated photo, the Sunshine Special is leaving Dallas. 

Of course, this train's history is recorded at Wikipedia. 

It operated south from St Louis, beginning in 1915. 

It is shown as Train 1 and Train 2 (along with its routing and equipment) in the 1916 Official Guide section of my previous piece on the Texas & Pacific.

Abilene, Texas - The Texas & Pacific Railway

CPR 1909 Brakes on the Big Hill, Part 2 - Freight Trains

Canadian Northern yard, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, mailed 1917.

The postcard view above was probably taken sometime shortly after 1900 and hand-coloured. A passenger train is arriving at the station. The railway is not the CPR, but the view shows the wooden construction used in freight cars and the varieties of equipment then in use.  Although the colouring process obscures them, the roof-mounted brake wheels can be seen in most cases. This is the type of freight equipment which would be transported up and down the Big Hill near Field, British Columbia.

Operating rules and technology on the Big Hill were focused on the critical mission of maintaining passenger train safety above all. However, most of the CPR's revenue through the area would come from the transport of freight. This post looks at the processes and technology used for the safe movement of freight before the opening of the Spiral Tunnels in late 1909.

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The card to which this print is glued states this is CPR 376 at Field in 1886. One source states that this wheel arrangement was so rare in its use at Field that it doesn't warrant being mentioned. This 'perfect' wheel arrangement of that era can be contrasted with the following power.

from: West of the Great Divide; Robert D Turner; 1987; Sono Nis Press.

A Baldwin-built locomotive which was purchased for Big Hill service is shown above. It was probably photographed around 1890. The oil headlight and the fact that the locomotive has two sand domes are interesting details. One source remarked that the wooden pilot was handy because if a rockfall was struck, any locomotive entanglement could be resolved with an axe - rather than causing a longer delay on the road with a bent metal pilot fouling the track.

This locomotive is fitted with air brakes, which came into use after traffic had started operating on the Big Hill. The steam-operated air pump is just in front of the cab, with the main reservoir located under the engineer's position in the cab.

Earlier in Big Hill history, individual car handbrakes (only) had been used to control train speed - in conjunction with any braking technology available on the locomotives ... such as manual tender brakes, straight air brakes on the drivers and/or using the locomotive reverser (steam cutoff). There is no definitive source which chronicles exactly when particular technological advances were made on the Hill, partly because it was a gradual process with the railway using its usual method of derating and downgrading older equipment for less demanding service as better equipment became available. 

On the theme of getting along with imperfect technology ... it was a normal practice of the time that cars with air brakes would be marshaled behind an air brake-equipped locomotive so a continuous trainline, operated by the engineer leading, could be established ... then the rearmost cars - lacking air brakes - would be controlled with handbrakes.

My interest is in this particular photo stems from the fact that it shows a link and pin coupler system with a link actually in place and ready for use. You can see that the pin has been inserted above and then through the link to hold it in place. To mate with a higher coupler, the other slot could be used. 

To couple to a car in front, a trainman would have to position himself between the locomotive and the car ... guide the link into the car's slot by hand, and drop the pin at the precise instant it could capture the link at the car's coupler. If something went wrong, fingers could be lost at the coupler or the trainman could be crushed between the equipment. 

... With old photos, we can keep in mind the fact that railway locomotives were used in all weather and lighting conditions - in contrast to the cameras of the age.

I believe that the device tipped back at a 45 degree angle above the pin is a pushing buffer which could be dropped forward to provide a pushing surface without the complication of coupling the locomotive to the rolling stock being pushed.

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Here are a couple of random discoveries to suggest why this route with its troublesome grades was selected over the easier grades of the Yellowhead Pass. Some writers of Canadian history have suggested that it is an enduring mystery why Van Horne et al selected this southern route - over the previously favoured 'Canada Pacific' route used later by the Canadian Northern, Grand Trunk Pacific, and ultimately Canadian National. It is probably not a mystery ...

from: Toledo Blade, May 21 1908.

After finding that curious article, I perhaps found the date of this event:

In Commercial Canada (published c1922), a lavishly illustrated hardcover book which promotes those provinces, cities, industries and companies willing to purchase their own advertorial sections, there is a chronicle of significant dates in Canadian history. For the date April 21, 1891 is the following entry:

The first of the new CPR steamers arrived at Vancouver from Yokohama, beating the record by over two days. The mails were landed in Montreal in three days and 17 hours from Vancouver.

... It seems possible a US railroad/Grand Trunk Railway combination may have had the previous mail contract.

The CPR Syndicate intended to fight for every bit of Empire business they could get, by forming a land and ocean bridge between the Far East and Britain using their own ships and rails. As well, building close to the border via Field tended to make it easier to beat back cross-border advances attempted by JJ Hill's Great Northern Railway or any other American line trying to siphon away Canadian traffic.

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Safety Appliances

While looking for early CPR records in an 1887 edition of the Official Guide, I found two interesting articles about the efforts to select and standardize key safety appliances for use on US railroads. 

These same technologies were quickly embraced on the CPR's route down the Big Hill.

from: Official Guide; December 1887; National Railway Publication Co. collection of LCGagnon

Apparently, during this era, there were many manufacturers of the Janney type of coupler. When cars were received through interchange in the US, the receiving railroads were having trouble maintaining the necessary stores of proprietary spare parts to repair Janney-type couplers which failed on these 'borrowed' cars. Eventually, it was expected that spare parts would be interchangeable.

Janney couplers (fundamentally the same as those used today) were not as much 'automatic' as they were 'remote control' ... there was no need to adjust them in any way while equipment was moving. With the link and pin type, an employee had to move between cars when cars were being coupled ... and to uncouple, an employee would often have to wait for slack to remove a pin.

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from: Official Guide; December 1887; National Railway Publication Co. collection of LCGagnon

This test data is interesting to read. In contrast with the non-automatic nature of so-called 'automatic couplers' ... Test 7 above reflects the valuable characteristics of the 'automatic air brake'. That is, if a coupler fails and the train separates, the brakes apply to all cars automatically as the train line pressure break initiates the emergency brake application on all cars.

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Getting Back to Field

from: Souvenir of My Trip through the Canadian Rockies on the CPR. No publisher, no date.

The scale of the country dwarfs the railway operations around Field. 

Today the Trans-Canada Highway and most of the traffic are to be found on the left side of this photograph - on the opposite side of the Kicking Horse River flats. When this photograph was taken, only the horse stables used to support local commercial travel and tourist excursions were found opposite the town site on the other side of the river.

from: Souvenir of My Trip through the Canadian Rockies on the CPR. No publisher, no date.

A dining hall for passengers was built near the small Field station during the first summer of passenger operations. Mount Stephen House (a CPR hotel) in its final version - seen above - was completed in 1901. 

In the photo above, Mount Stephen House is the large building at the left, with the Field station and its two gabled dormers between it and the camera. The dining hall is the 2 1/2 storey building mid-way between Mount Stephen House and the roundhouse. After the development of Mount Stephen house for tourists, the dining hall continued to serve meals to railway staff around the clock.

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I am repeating the timetable and footnotes section for the CPR 'Mountain Section' here as some details are referred to in the freight train rules which apply to the Big Hill.

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Here are the rules which apply to freight trains on the Big Hill

Rule 4 requires a unique 'running brake test'.
'Water brakes' are described in this supplementary posting: Water Brake - Used on the Big Hill

To summarize the rules for descending freight trains: ... When things were functioning normally, each (total: three) section of downhill track guarded by/ending with a (total: three) Safety Switch was a block which could be occupied by a train. But, with the key condition being that: the train ahead must have cleared the next Safety Switch ... before the train following it could pass the Safety Switch being viewed by its headend crew.

... Knowing that a preceding train had cleared the next safety switch downhill, was intended to ensure that any potential runaway was ALWAYS facing its own diverging Safety Switch, with no possibility of hitting the rear of another train.

from: Van Horne's Road; Omer Lavallee; 1971-1981; Railfare Enterprieses Ltd

After the Third Safety Switch, a fourth control point (for freights) was at the 'tunnel in the shoulder of Mount Stephen' (Rule 12: "tunnel 13.1") - the postcard image is repeated below. On the track section beyond the Third Safety Switch, the grade was reduced. It was here that the descending train would stop until its wheels were sufficiently cooled and the shack pictured below was perhaps the location from which the crew would advise the tender of Safety Switch Three that they were departing the area for Field.

Don't worry too much if you can't decipher this last page ...

It seems the actual physical characteristics of the staff system will remain a mystery for a while. It does not seem to resemble the staff system put into operation in the Ottawa-Hull area by the CPR around 1915 after a significant collision there (in which my grandfather and his siblings were passengers).

In books published about the Big Hill area - the authors of which having done much more research than I have - the text tends to just quote and/or rephrase the rules above without actually elaborating on how the staff system connected with any electrical receptacles and without providing further details on its operation. ... For workers at Field, the physical characteristics of the staff system would be seen before individual workers would require the necessary fluency with its rules above, and before they assumed responsibility for operating it. Working backwards from historical procedures with no artifact or diagram can lead to dead ends.

In Special Rule 5 above: Rule 91 in the Standard Code of 1902 requires 5 minutes between freight trains.

In Special Rule 18, the formal 'Kicking Horse Grade' of the title is obligingly referred to as the Big Hill.

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The following article, published in the 1920s, harkens back to events which occurred during the era of the 4.5% grade of the Big Hill.

from: Montreal Gazette; June 12, 1924.

The undated image above was printed by a Montreal postcard company. A couple of days after posting this, I was visiting a local bookstore. In a recently published 'coffee table book' I happened to find the original black and white image from which the postcard was painted. The unmatched road numbers on the number plate and tender don't match the actual number plate in the original photo.

In the Janney-type coupler knuckle on the engine's pilot, you'll notice an adaptation of new technology to accept the old. The slot in the coupler knuckle could receive an old-fashioned link and a pin could be dropped into the knuckle to secure it.

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While the coming and going of passenger train names, consists, technology and schedules was celebrated in advertising, postcards and newspaper articles, scant attention was paid to the scheduled freight trains running on the Big Hill: Number 71, the Coast Freight, and Number 72, the Seaboard Freight.

... So here, without even a Whymper, ends a partial interpretation of the technology and processes used in freight service on the Big Hill.