It’d be easy enough to cut the car off when the train is stopped and has the slack neutral or more bunched than stretched. All that would be needed would be to close the angle cock on the equipment that’s leaving, lift the pin, and bye-bye standing car, without the crew ever knowing. That’s how yard switching with standard equipment works; handbrake on what you’re leaving, close the angle on your side, lift the pin, and POP! You still have all the air on your side – it’s the standing car that goes into emergency because the angle cock wasn’t closed.
Side note: The wreck of train 173, the Federal Express, was caused by a poorly-designed relationship between the angle cock and the car body of the third car – normal bouncing around would knock the angle cock closed, leaving the rear 13 coaches’ brakes in whatever position they were in when the angle closed. The father of a fellow railroad retiree was the one who in the course of the investigation discovered why the angle cock on the third car closed by itself and resulted in the Federal only having air on the engine and the first three coaches, which wasn’t nearly enough to keep the train from crashing through and winding up with the engine in the basement of Washington DC Union Station. Maybe there was something deliberately bent to knock the car ahead of the gold car’s angle cock closed, making it that much easier to cut that car off undetected?
Good morning, group!
It’d be easy enough to cut the car off when the train is stopped and has the slack neutral or more bunched than stretched. All that would be needed would be to close the angle cock on the equipment that’s leaving, lift the pin, and bye-bye standing car, without the crew ever knowing. That’s how yard switching with standard equipment works; handbrake on what you’re leaving, close the angle on your side, lift the pin, and POP! You still have all the air on your side – it’s the standing car that goes into emergency because the angle cock wasn’t closed.
Side note: The wreck of train 173, the Federal Express, was caused by a poorly-designed relationship between the angle cock and the car body of the third car – normal bouncing around would knock the angle cock closed, leaving the rear 13 coaches’ brakes in whatever position they were in when the angle closed. The father of a fellow railroad retiree was the one who in the course of the investigation discovered why the angle cock on the third car closed by itself and resulted in the Federal only having air on the engine and the first three coaches, which wasn’t nearly enough to keep the train from crashing through and winding up with the engine in the basement of Washington DC Union Station. Maybe there was something deliberately bent to knock the car ahead of the gold car’s angle cock closed, making it that much easier to cut that car off undetected?