Re: Air brake diameters

CharlieMcCandless Wrote:
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> That's what I was looking for. Now another
> question before the test. How did the old time
> engineers now their brakes were fully charged
> before making the next set. The modern guys have
> air flow meters.

Practice.....

Actually you really don't need to get the reservoirs to fully recharge to make this work. Eventually the whole thing settles into a rhythm in which the cylinder pressure varies between a certain amount, and the brake sets - even with the res's not fully charged vary within a certain range and don't change.

When you get in trouble, is when you have to make a big set, release, then don't get enough time to recharge things before you have to reset. Then the res. pressure starts to drop, reducing your effective brake power, you have to make deeper sets to get the same result, then shortly after that, the world comes to an end.

The hardest part for many students is believing something is going to happen. Sometimes it is 15 seconds before a set takes hold. You have to have lots of faith in old George Westinghouse that his invention is going to work. If you take more of a set than you need to, the reservoirs become that much more depleted, You now have to set more air to get the same results. That can get you in trouble.