I agree with you ,Earl .I didn't like the staight air ,for several reasons .It was not responsive , and you had to anticipate sets ,because it took 15 to 30 seconds to get the desired response . It also set cars in the reverse desired order ,from front to back ,which could give a very rough ride in the back car. There was no lap feature ,so you had to keep a close eye on the gauge . This as corrected somewhat as the shop applied some old-style independent brake valves for the straight air. There were several advantages .It used far less air . An engineer could still use automatic air ,and could use it on top of a straight air set ,compounding a slow-reacting straight air set.You had to kick all of the air off as quickly as posssible to avoid sliding wheels .
The reasoning in instituting straight air was that it was easier to use . The D&S always had a "revolving door" employment policy ,and at the time was going through a lot of engineers . It was felt by management that there would not be time to train engineers in the future on all the vagaries of #6 brake valves and K-triples . It ,IMHO,was ultimately a dangerous system in the hands of a sloppy engineer ,the train was going 3 or 30 mph. Even a concientous engienman had difficulty handling trains smoothly ,as air always had to be in the system . Ironically ,the bad engineer that prompted the switch to straight air did worse with straight air than he did with the K-triple .A lot of the problems the D&S had with training men to use K-triple system stemmed from the two mainliners' mistaken belief that the K-triple system could be "short-cycled" ,like with AB ("short-cycling" is a series of quick sets and releases.K-triples require at least 30 seconds to recharge between sets).A number of loaded trains reached equalization ,as the triple valves were not alloted any time to recharge . Amazingly ,they taught this nonsense to the next two engineers ! Frankly , When I returned to Chama in 1990 ,I was glad to be back working with the #6 brake valve and K-triples. It was railroading the way it should be .
The D&S was not the only road to use straight air and K-triples in tandem .West Side Lumber Company also implemented this system .
