Re: Glad Hands--Actually folks.....

My friend W.George Cook sent me an email with a few more tid bits that I can post. He says that the left hand location for glad hands on the front of engines goes back to the days of straight air. He indicates that cars equipped for both straight and auto air had the auto air placed to the right and straight air on the left side of the coupler. Engines seemingly retained the left hand location on the pilot perhaps because the piping was already there and was only changed as shopings occurred and as it was convenient. Based on George's comment and WABCo literature I have there are left and right glad hands so the lines cannot be mixed up. I was aware that there are right and left glad hands on modern diesel locomotives for the auto air line and a line to connect main reservoir air when units are MU'd. I take note that in Wabco Instruction pamphlet #5027 dated may 1931 titled Combined Automatic and Straight Air Brake equipment right and left glad hands are shown in the steam era with type FP4 for auto air and HP4 for straight. This booklet covers combined auto and straight air for locomotive and tender sometimes called an A1 system this being a system prior to 6ET, ie. without a distributing valve. It also covers the application of combined straight and auto air on freight cars which I assume is the scheme that D&S uses today. As to right and left glad hands, never say never as the air brake evolution has taken many turns. George found an old glad hand on the Pagosa Lbr. Co. line which appears to be the type that had a check valve built into the glad hand. This would have been for straight air on cars presumably and would allow the air system to remain functional for at least the portion of a train that was coupled to an engine in the event of a break into. What is interesting about this glad hand is that it does connect to a "modern" style glad hand that is for auto air. I sent him an old glad hand off of the DRGW Outfit car that is just like we use today, though it had been on the car when it was set out years ago as a MOW shed. The evolution of the air brake is quite a fascinating topic! Here are photos of the straigt air glad hand with check valve and it coupled to an automatic air glad hand photos courtesy of George Cook.