Re: Doubleheading

The air brakes are cut through the entire train from front to rear. The lead locomotive operates the air brakes through the entire train. The trailing locomotives have thier automatic brake valves cut out and do nothing to charge the brake pipe through the train. With the brake valve cut out the brakes on the trailing locomotive and tender can be set from the locomotive with control of the air brakes with the automatic brake, or the brakes on the individual locomotives can be set an released with the Independent Brake valves of the individual engines.
When stopping for water it was common for the train to be broken apart to ease spotting the locomotives - on some roads this was manadory. In that case the trailing locomotives would take control of the brakes of the section they were still coupled to. When assembling the train again, the trailing locomotives would make a 20 lb brake reduction, cut out thier brake valves, open the angle cocks to the rest of the train, and the lead engine with air brake control would pump up the brakes. That way the air brakes would be pressurized equally through the train.
This was the practice we used on the C&TS when I was there. I recall once being on a helper. After cutting the engines at Lobato, we took off. About 2 miles later the train began to slow and pull harder. At first I didn't know what was up as I had been gone from the C&TS for a year or so. Then the big light bulb went off in my head. I made a 15 set on the automatic brake (which drug the train down even further), then released the brakes. Everything came free and away we went. It turned out the road engine had stopped at east side of Lobato Trestle and instead of drawing the brake pipe down 20 lbs, released the brakes and cut out his brake valve. The air hoses were connected up between the locomotives, and away we went. Problem was, the brake pipe feed (regulating) valve on the road engine was set 2-3 lbs higher than one one on my engine. In a few minutes, the brake pipe pressure leaked down to the setting that my engine maintained. It was enough to get the brakes to set lightly in the forward part of the train.
When the RR's ran mid-train and rear helpers, the brake pipe pressure was the signal to the rear engines to start shoving. They would open thier throttles, and shove up as much as they could. With thier throttles still open they would whistle 2 longs blasts to the head end. The lead engine would open its throttle and away they would go.
Like anything to do with steam locomotives, doubleheading is an inexact science and an artform. Some guys were REALLY good at, some guys could'nt ever get the hang of it. Some trips the engines settled in together and all went well. Some guys always seemed to be trying to shove you up the hill, or it seemed like you were pulling them along.
Last story. A long doubleheaded freight was headed east from Durango. The engineers were two guys who always seemed to get paired up together, which was too bad because they really hated each other. The engineer on the second engine was loafing along while the lead engine was beating its brains out trying to make time. The train stopped at Gato for water. While the lead engine was getting water, its engineer went back to discuss the matter with the second engineer while the head end brakeman stood by:
(said to the head end brakie) "Hey!! Send Lyons (the conductor) up here, we need to sell someone a ticket!"
(brakeman) "Who?!?, Why!!?"
"That damned hoghead here isn't doing any work, he'd better be paying to ride this thing!!!"
Story was told to me by Jim Pearce who was firing the lead locomotive and watched the the whole thing from the top of the tender.