I am with the Boulder County Railway Historical Society and we are involved in the restoration of D&RGW coach 280. As the restoration nears completion, we have become curious as to why the coach has two sets of air brake hoses.
From tracing the piping, it appears that one air hose feeds a line that runs through the car and is not connected to the car's brake system (or anything else) at all, while the other feeds the brake system. Our theory is that the line running through the car was for straight air while the other line is for automatic air. (thus cars with both types of brakes could be used in a train, provided the locomotive was set up to accomodate both types).
Any way, can anyone out there shed light on this? Is our theory correct or are we way off? If we are right, why would a straight air set up still be on a car that ran into the 1950's?
Thanks
Jason Midyette