ccityplanner12
Member
- Joined
- 17 Feb 2016
- Messages
- 93
No-where on-line have I been able to find a key to the lettered codes displayed at left (cropped screenshot from Hellfire gensheet). I have managed to work out that the capital letters are stabling codes (45134 operates in the East Midlands, so TO would be Toton; EH is possibly Eastleigh), but I cannot suss the lower-case codes. I have worked out that the first letter is what type of brakes the train has (a is air, v is vacuum) & the second letter is the heating (e is electric, b is boiler). x may denote that a train can work both air-brake pipes & vacuum-brake pipes (which is theoretically possible, you could have an air compressor that generates a positive pressure for air brakes or a negative pressure for vacuum).
On a tangent, I am curious as to what apparent difference the brake type makes. In my stomping ground in the Southern Region, some of the older trains still have their noisy WABCOs, while you also get that Bombardier compressor that sounds like a drill (quite an ugly noise i.m.h.o.) or the Vossloh system with a quiet, low-pitched hissing noise that blends into the background rather well. The largest system I know of where vacuum brakes are still widespread (although being phased out) is the Cape-gauge network of South Africa, particularly the plebeian suburban trains in Johannesburg. Not many videos of this exist, presumably because what railfans there are that use it tend not to take a camera for fear that it will get stolen (it is the only system in the world to have been given a security rating of 0 on Seat61.com).
On a tangent, I am curious as to what apparent difference the brake type makes. In my stomping ground in the Southern Region, some of the older trains still have their noisy WABCOs, while you also get that Bombardier compressor that sounds like a drill (quite an ugly noise i.m.h.o.) or the Vossloh system with a quiet, low-pitched hissing noise that blends into the background rather well. The largest system I know of where vacuum brakes are still widespread (although being phased out) is the Cape-gauge network of South Africa, particularly the plebeian suburban trains in Johannesburg. Not many videos of this exist, presumably because what railfans there are that use it tend not to take a camera for fear that it will get stolen (it is the only system in the world to have been given a security rating of 0 on Seat61.com).