Chris Walker Wrote:
=======================================================
> And one other thing, just how long did the Ames
> Vaccuum Brake last on the DSP&P? probably by the
> time this picture was taken, the whole lot were
> Westinghouse.
From:
[
www.midcontinent.org]
The South Park was one of the foremost users of the Eames brake, as was the Union Pacific. Sometime during 1880, the South Park purchased Eames Vacuum Brake apparatus for 700 cars. A year later, the Union Pacific purchased 300 sets.
But within three years, the South Park was switching to the new Westinghouse automatic brake. These brakes not only worked under compressed air provided by a pump on the locomotive, but through the magic of the “triple valve,” applied the brakes automatically if the system failed for any reason. It appears that the winter of 1883/84 was the period of the changeover.
The Chicago Railway Review of 15 September 1883 noted the Westinghouse air brake was being put on all U.P. freight cars, beginning with the DSP&P. The 4 December issue of the Rocky Mountain News said, “The automatic air brake has been put into use on the Denver, South Park & Pacific in place of the vacuum brake, which was formerly employed.” (31) (Since passenger cars were not only hauled by the same locomotives but were often used in “mixed” trains, we presume they were similarly equipped.)
George Sebastion-Coleman points out that “the Cooke Moguls and Consolidations arrived factory equipped with automatic air (not even straight air) starting in the fall of '83.”
Bruce