Here in Australia, we were much like our friends over the ditch (New Zealand, seperated by the Tasman Sea), the driver and fireman rode in the locomotive and the gaurd had the gaurds van to himself.
Our early trains were without braking as well, and yes we had brake vans for that very purpose, they were very British with platforms at each end, one end had the hand brake wheel, on our hills line (1:45 gradient), 2 brake vans were coupled back to back (or is it front to front?) so the brake man could reach across and wind on the other brake van hand brake if needed.
Too add to our confusion, although they were all 'gaurds' vans, we also called them 'brake vans', even when trains were fully braked, in South Australia, we had 'goods brakes' and 'passenger brakes', 'goods brakes' had accommodation for passengers on goods trains (freights), 'passenger brakes' had no accommodation for any passengers and were used on passenger trains, they had more baggage space. The man W.A.Webb came to SA from USA in the 20's to modernise our then very British style railway, he introduced us to train order working, very big locomotives (much the same size as your light Pacifics and Mikados) and the caboose, which was forever called a Webb Caboose Car, they weren't popular, they rode very rough and they were the one thing that Webb introduced that was inferior to our local product.
We have points (switches) and railways (railroads), we don't have terms like 'high ball' but we do give someone the road.
South Australian Railways have always had a different style since Webb came along, we have been very American whereas the other Australian state railways have retained a much more British look, lucky us hey.
Wayne from bonza Oz, the land of true ockers!
