full brake coaches

[rodent279]

1970s West Coast Formations usually had the 1st Class coaches at the London End. Although there were Mark 1 and early Mark 2 BFKs the formations of later Mark 2d/e and Mark 3s usually had a full brake at the London end. This, apart from Mails and Parcels, was a requirement when the stock was moved out of the station. Although some ECS went to Willesden a good number were worked to the Downside Carriage Shed at Camden. The trains were hauled through the Carriage Washer at Camden, and then were propelled back into the Carriage Shed. This move required a Brake vehicle that the Shunter had to ride in. Trains from the Downside shed to the station were hauled out of the shed, then propelled back into the station, the Shunter riding in the Brake Van at the station end.

The 1970s was before widespread 'push-pull' came into common usage, so propelling moves requiring a brake van at the London end of the train was the norm. At the other end of the train it was more likely to be a late Mark 2 BSO.

In the early 1970s when there were several Barrow/Carlisle workings which split at Preston sometimes a Full Brake would be found in the middle of the formation, although it usually tended to be a Mark 1 or early Mark 2 BSK/BSO.

 

Andy.

I remember seeing trains backing into Euston many times. Were they allowed to back in with a Mk1/Mk2 BSO/BSK?

[MJI]

I have noticed that almost all Mark 2a and on sets with BGs had air brake only BGs, NEA with B4s.

 

I remove the vacuum cylinders and fit air cylinders and air tanks.

 

NAVs and NDVs I think were on mark 1 sets with BR1s, but often Mark 1 sets had BSKs anyway

[anroar53]

If the brake on the outer end was a safety issue why were 1950s DMUs and EMUs built with them in the middle of the train?

It's a very valid point. I think that it boils down to the fact that it was recognised that while a Brake vehicle at the outer ends would provide a modicum of protection in a collision it wasn't always possible to do so in everyday operation. The 1948 Instruction to all Regions on the marshalling of Brake vehicles at the outer ends on trains had the key words 'where practicable' inserted instead of 'must always'.

High speed collisions can be extremely destructive even when brake vehicles are at the outer end. If you take the 1952 Harrow Accident as an example the Local train of nine coaches had the Brake Compartment at the inner end of the seventh vehicle but was destroyed anyway. The train that ran into the rear of it had two Full Brake/Vans at the front, which saved a lot of the rear of the train from damage. The third train from Euston that ran into the other two had a Brake Compartment at the front, but had no less than four Full Brakes on the rear, which were of little use as protection in this case.

[jwealleans]

My recollection (probably based on Red for Danger) is that the instruction about brake ends was issued after the Welwyn accident of 1935. Whether it was just on the LNER or countrywide I can't say. If I have time and no-one beats me to it I'll look though the accident report and see whether that was one of the recommendations.

[anroar53]

I remember seeing trains backing into Euston many times. Were they allowed to back in with a Mk1/Mk2 BSO/BSK?

That would be okay. The Instruction was that the propelling move should have a Brake Vehicle at the leading end in which the Shunter should ride and be able to apply the brakes if required. A lot of the WCML formations were fairly uniform in consist at this time, the early Mark 2s and even the Mark 1s with a BFK one end and a BSO/BSK at the other, and Catering vehicle in the middle dividing the 1st and 2nd class portions. Inclusion of a Mark 1 CK in these could dent the uniformity somewhat.

A good example of this is captured in this picture, showing that the Brake End was frequently formed at the Inner not Outer end.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/deepgreen2009/7542927900/in/faves-8888017@N08/

 

However, the Local Instructions did have a slight modification which permitted two vehicles outside the Brake Van to be propelled. This was mainly for Van trains when there might be vehicles without a Brake compartment at the London end. (GUVs and Siphons normally!) The 0350 Watford/Bletchley was a beneficiary of this (mentioned in this post earlier) which ran round on the Backing Out Roads before propelling into the station. Then there was the final instruction that none of this applied in a situation where a defective vehicle was required to be 'knocked out' of a train in the station. I have watched these movements and the defective coach was usually shunted into one of the 'short docks' 21/22. It required a couple of people on the ground to relay hand signals to the driver because of the restricted view.

[Chimer]

If the brake on the outer end was a safety issue why were 1950s DMUs and EMUs built with them in the middle of the train?

 

Because the driving cabs provided the necessary "crumple zone" maybe?

[Coryton]

Because the driving cabs provided the necessary "crumple zone" maybe?

 

I'm not sure a 1950's design would have much in the way of useful crumple zones in the cab area. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

That would be okay. The Instruction was that the propelling move should have a Brake Vehicle at the leading end in which the Shunter should ride and be able to apply the brakes if required. 

 

The approach in the US seems to be for whoever is standing at the leading end to stand in the gangway holding a valve connected to the brake pipe. This way every coach can be a brake coach.

[jim.snowdon]

That would be okay. The Instruction was that the propelling move should have a Brake Vehicle at the leading end in which the Shunter should ride and be able to apply the brakes if required. A lot of the WCML formations were fairly uniform in consist at this time, the early Mark 2s and even the Mark 1s with a BFK one end and a BSO/BSK at the other, and Catering vehicle in the middle dividing the 1st and 2nd class portions. Inclusion of a Mark 1 CK in these could dent the uniformity somewhat.

A good example of this is captured in this picture, showing that the Brake End was frequently formed at the Inner not Outer end.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/deepgreen2009/7542927900/in/faves-8888017@N08/

 

However, the Local Instructions did have a slight modification which permitted two vehicles outside the Brake Van to be propelled. This was mainly for Van trains when there might be vehicles without a Brake compartment at the London end. (GUVs and Siphons normally!) The 0350 Watford/Bletchley was a beneficiary of this (mentioned in this post earlier) which ran round on the Backing Out Roads before propelling into the station. Then there was the final instruction that none of this applied in a situation where a defective vehicle was required to be 'knocked out' of a train in the station. I have watched these movements and the defective coach was usually shunted into one of the 'short docks' 21/22. It required a couple of people on the ground to relay hand signals to the driver because of the restricted view.

My understanding was that, at least in the 1970s, when propelling there should be a person on the leading end with the means to apply the train brake in emergency. I can certainly recall watching the Liverpool and Manchester portions of Anglo-Scottish trains being combined at Preston, when the rule was observed by placing the Shunter in the vestibule of the leading carriage (which was not a Brake), leaning out of the door droplight and with one hand ready to operate the passenger alarm butterfly.

 

I can also recall seeing reference to an instruction that might have originated on the LNER whereby up to two vehicles could be coupled outside the brake van, provided that they had operative automatic brakes and that the brake pipe was continuous to the rearmost vehicle. I think it was done to facilitate dropping off vehicles en route with the minimum of shunting, and the restrictin on the number of vehicles behind the brake van was simply to ensure that the guard was reasonable near the rear of the train.

 

Jim

[Edwin_m]

I may have introduced the term "half brake" to this thread, but it is only a conversational convenience and not a generally used term as far as I know - the alternative of "brake first, second, third, standard, composite or tri-composite" being rather clumsy. 

 

Another reason to put the brake at the rear of the train is so the guard could watch the train leaving the station while facing forwards, since watching backwards is more dangerous.  Neither tends to happen these days although I've seen guards on Transpennine leaning from the rear cab window.  With the gradual increase in structural strength and the gradual reduction in collisions, the safety need to have a non-passenger area at the end of the train has reduced over time with the last vestige probably being the layout of 125mph Voyagers and Pendolinos with crew areas behind each cab.  But as Mike notes it hasn't been mandatory for lower-speed formations for a long time. 

 

Since the requirement was reduced to one brake section per train it was usually at one end, but routes with short platforms often had it in the middle.  Hence the van section would be platformed whichever direction the train was going, including if it pulled up twice as was often the case. 

[Coryton]

Another reason to put the brake at the rear of the train is so the guard could watch the train leaving the station while facing forwards, since watching backwards is more dangerous.  Neither tends to happen these days although I've seen guards on Transpennine leaning from the rear cab window.  With the gradual increase in structural strength and the gradual reduction in collisions, the safety need to have a non-passenger area at the end of the train has reduced over time with the last vestige probably being the layout of 125mph Voyagers and Pendolinos with crew areas behind each cab.  But as Mike notes it hasn't been mandatory for lower-speed formations for a long time. 

 

I'm not sure "last vestige" is quite right.

 

The APT was built to carry passengers behind the cab at 125 mph (and higher?)

 

I believe the rule about keeping passengers out of the leading vehicle at 125 mph came later - after Polmont?

 

This was then relaxed to the front part of the leading vehicle.

[Fat Controller]

I'm not sure "last vestige" is quite right.

 

The APT was built to carry passengers behind the cab at 125 mph (and higher?)

 

I believe the rule about keeping passengers out of the leading vehicle at 125 mph came later - after Polmont?

 

This was then relaxed to the front part of the leading vehicle.

It was 100 mph and over, not 125 mph, and I'm pretty certain it was after Polmont.

[Coryton]

It was 100 mph and over, not 125 mph, and I'm pretty certain it was after Polmont.

 

Thanks. I couldn't remember what the lower limit was, but I knew I was on safe ground saying it applied at 125 mph.

[Andy W]

And one bizarre use for a BG - in the dying days of heritage DMUs based at Newton Heath availability was poor to say the least. Spare loco hauled stock was drafted in and took over some workings in and out of Manchester Victoria, hauled by 31s and 47s. Control seems to have been on top of getting the locos to depots for exams or maintenance. Unfortunately no similar arrangements seemed to be made for the stock, and what had arrived as 3 or 5 coach sets of Mk1s and early Mk2s gradually shrank as vehicles were red-carded without repairs or replacements. On one day I was at Manchester Victoria the bottom of the barrel was reached and an Oldham Circle train was formed of a Mk1 BG and absolutely no seated accommodation whatever. Everyone just got on and stood for their journey, and the 47 kept time (as you might hope, given the power to weight ratio).

The north side of Manchester did have a reputation for creative interpretation of the Rule Book. On the same day I watched a very Mancunian supervisor laying into a guard who had asked for a replacement DMU because the buzzer didn't work. "In that bag you're holding you've got a green flag and a whistle. When you want the driver to set off, you blow the whistle and wave the green flag, and he'll put the power on, unless the signal's against you. Now get off out of here, you're 10 down already." (that's the toned down version, I don't want Mr York to ban me from the forum).

[The Stationmaster]

If the brake on the outer end was a safety issue why were 1950s DMUs and EMUs built with them in the middle of the train?

 

Note the getout words I inserted Clive.  Even in steam days lots of shorter formation steam hauled trains didn't have brakevans at both ends.  Although the original Instructions never said so it seems to have really applied to longer formation long distance services rather than local trains.  interestingly Paragraph 89 of the Harrow Collision Report mentions the 1948 iInstruction about marshalling brakevans at the ends of trains and points out how such marshalling in the Perth Sleeper reduced the number of casualties on that train.

[The Stationmaster]

My recollection (probably based on Red for Danger) is that the instruction about brake ends was issued after the Welwyn accident of 1935. Whether it was just on the LNER or countrywide I can't say. If I have time and no-one beats me to it I'll look though the accident report and see whether that was one of the recommendations.

 

There was definitely an Instruction in place on the GWR from 1937 although originally it applied only to passenger trains of 96 wheels or more.

 

Interestingly a reminder letter issued in 1957 in respect of the Instructions referred to a recent collision at Welwyn Garden City.

[Coryton]

And one bizarre use for a BG - in the dying days of heritage DMUs based at Newton Heath availability was poor to say the least. Spare loco hauled stock was drafted in and took over some workings in and out of Manchester Victoria, hauled by 31s and 47s. Control seems to have been on top of getting the locos to depots for exams or maintenance. Unfortunately no similar arrangements seemed to be made for the stock, and what had arrived as 3 or 5 coach sets of Mk1s and early Mk2s gradually shrank as vehicles were red-carded without repairs or replacements. On one day I was at Manchester Victoria the bottom of the barrel was reached and an Oldham Circle train was formed of a Mk1 BG and absolutely no seated accommodation whatever. Everyone just got on and stood for their journey, and the 47 kept time (as you might hope, given the power to weight ratio).

 

There's one for the "prototype for everything" thread.

[Guy Rixon]

The energy-absorbtion specifications for trains have gone up dramatically in the last 25 years. I remember a column in Modern Railways discussing a procurement requirement to absorb 3GJ in a frontal collision (I think that was early in this century, but I can't remember the exact date or context). That's a horrendous amount of energy: enough to vaporise a human body if it were all dumped into one person. It's too much to absorb in a cab assembly and forces the leading vehicle to be a DVT.

[Coryton]

The energy-absorbtion specifications for trains have gone up dramatically in the last 25 years. I remember a column in Modern Railways discussing a procurement requirement to absorb 3GJ in a frontal collision (I think that was early in this century, but I can't remember the exact date or context). That's a horrendous amount of energy: enough to vaporise a human body if it were all dumped into one person. It's too much to absorb in a cab assembly and forces the leading vehicle to be a DVT.

 

Clearly the regulations from whenever the Voyagers, Pendolinos and 180's were specified up to the present day don't force the leading vehicle even on a 125 mph train to be a DVT.

[The Johnster]

A brake van 'crash barrier' was certainly supposed to be marshalled with the brake at the outer end to provide collision protection for passengers at both ends of trains, but as Mike says strict observance of this had become lax in BR days, and had probably not been particularly strenuously observed since the grouping and you will be able to find plenty of photographic evidence of this.  There were always probably exceptions allowed for in Regional Appendixes and the like, anyway.  Brake vans on some branch and secondary line services had been in the middle of trains for many years for convenience at stations, and it was, I think, considered that all-steel coaches, especially with buckeye couplers, gave sufficient protection anyway, which is largely true as 'telescoping' became rarer in accidents, to be replaced by 'concertina-ing', which, so long as the zig-zagging coaches did not hit obstructions such as bridge parapets, dissipates engergy more slowly*.  The Southern's emus and demus continued to have van space at the end, though only one end, as did some dmu stock such as Inter City sets.  Clive is right in that most 1st generation dmu stock had van accommodation towards the centre, being designed for branch and secondary services.  

 

Collision resistance of vehicles was improving steadily, with the LNER and Southern being 'best practice'; BR mk1 design used the best features of both of these, including having vestibules at the ends of the passenger accommodation to provide further protection, which not all the LNER's coaches managed, but dmu practice was to place the vestibules part way along.  It is fair to say that much of the 1st generation dmu stock did not measure up to the best loco hauled stock in terms of accident survival design; IIRC only the Swindon Inter-City and Trans Pennine sets had buckeye couplers.  The situation has now been reached whereby loco-hauled mk1s on railtours have to have locomotives topping and tailing for crash protection; I wonder how their crews feel about that...

 

 

* not saying that concertina-ing is desirable, as of course crashes are highly undesirable in any situation, but it is less deadly than telescoping, which is thankfully rare with modern all steel/aluminium bodyshell stock and centre buffer/couplings.  As a sweeping generalisation, it can be said that the period prior to the First World War was concerned with eliminating the cause of accidents, and the period after to mitigating the effects of them.

[jim.snowdon]

Clearly the regulations from whenever the Voyagers, Pendolinos and 180's were specified up to the present day don't force the leading vehicle even on a 125 mph train to be a DVT.

It has to be remembered that any regulations would only have been those made by, as it was then, British Railways. The inquiry into the Polmont accident was held by HMRI, whose reports only make recommendations. The HMRI worked by gentle persuasion, not by instigating legal action, and only rarely did they press for anything to be enshrined in Law, the most well known example being the 1889 Regualtion of Railways Act and its making legal requirements for the interlocking of signals and points, the use of absolute block on passenger lines and the requirement for functioning automatic brakes on passenger trains. One benefit of that approach is that as knowledge improves and other circumstances change, the ongoing need for the recommendation can be reviewed.

 

Jim

[Coryton]

The situation has now been reached whereby loco-hauled mk1s on railtours have to have locomotives topping and tailing for crash protection; I wonder how their crews feel about that...

 

The same as the crew in the rear cab of a tail locomotive in a train that's top and tailed for any other purpose? Assuming the tail locomotive needs a crew anyway.

 

Is that really true that a Mk 1 rake must have a locomotive at the back? I thought a Mk 2 or 3 coach would also suffice.

[Edwin_m]

The energy-absorbtion specifications for trains have gone up dramatically in the last 25 years. I remember a column in Modern Railways discussing a procurement requirement to absorb 3GJ in a frontal collision (I think that was early in this century, but I can't remember the exact date or context). That's a horrendous amount of energy: enough to vaporise a human body if it were all dumped into one person. It's too much to absorb in a cab assembly and forces the leading vehicle to be a DVT.

I seem to remember some calculations suggesting that the energy dissipation in a high speed frontal impact would be way in excess of what was could be absorbed in a reasonable amount of space.  There's also the point that TPWS in particular has led to a significant reduction in head-on collisions in the past couple of decades.  However energy absorption could make a significant difference in something like hitting an HGV on a level crossing, which remains relatively common.  Increased energy absorption in front of the driver is the reason why the latest designs of multiple unit have highly sloped front ends. 

[rodent279]

The thing is, most accidents are not high energy, spectacular full-frontal head on collisions. An awful lot are low speed, low energy events, where energy can be absorbed, which can save lives and reduce life changing injuries.

Like wearing a bike helmet isn't going to help you if a car hits you at 70mph, crumple zones are not going to be much use in a full on collision with another train or a brick wall at 100mph, but may save lives in a low speed shunt.

[Coryton]

I seem to remember some calculations suggesting that the energy dissipation in a high speed frontal impact would be way in excess of what was could be absorbed in a reasonable amount of space.  There's also the point that TPWS in particular has led to a significant reduction in head-on collisions in the past couple of decades.  However energy absorption could make a significant difference in something like hitting an HGV on a level crossing, which remains relatively common.  Increased energy absorption in front of the driver is the reason why the latest designs of multiple unit have highly sloped front ends. 

 

Hence the way in which North American locomotives tend to be built like tanks - they have far more trouble with level crossings than we do.

 

However the regulations themselves do seem to permit push-pull cab cars on passenger trains with nothing like the same protection for the driver.

 

I've been on push-pull trains in the US where the front part of the cab coach is cordoned off when leading but that doesn't help the driver much.

[keefer]

Presumably leading to the 'safety cab' which I think refers to the big angular full width nose ends instead of the shorter switcher-style or E/F unit style nose ends?

Edited July 8, 2017 by keefer