Motoring with brakes applied

[Deleted]

Back in the good old days before the 'one armed bandit' was invented, was it technically possible to apply the brakes with the master controller in a motoring position?

ISTR reading stories about this being deliberately employed to remove leaf mulch from the wheels on suitably-braked stock. But is it still possible on the A stock, and if so, would it do any good?

[Phil]

Technically possible, yes.

[Deleted]

It was also a technique used on NR's slammers when the EPs were going to bring you up short - they applied power against the brakes. With quite impressive results if it was done right!

Sam

[agoodcuppa]

If stopping on the Westinghouse and realising that your were going to stop short, I'm told that powering up against the brake was a common practice.

[Phil]

agoodcuppa said:

If stopping on the Westinghouse and realising that your were going to stop short, I'm told that powering up against the brake was a common practice.

Aha - that's how the problem of no partial release was solved on the road! Also why the 'cheat' is used with the one-armed bandits.

[tubeprune]

agoodcuppa said:

If stopping on the Westinghouse and realising that your were going to stop short, I'm told that powering up against the brake was a common practice.

Yup. It was about the only way you could get an 8-car Vickers into No4 at Baker Street.

[trainopd78]

I always wondered if the drivers used to do that before the days of EP.
With the C's as long as the train line air doesn't drop below 55lb then the train could technically motor with the brakes on, although it can be done on a c stock from my point of view. I take it A stock is still 55lb as were the 59's.

[Colin D]

It definitely help if you locked up to put some power to the wheels with brakes applied, helped a couple of times on Epping/Ongar shuttles with the 62ts early mornings with a heavy dew. I think North Weald was bad for that IIR

[Colin D]

With the Master controller once you got to full power you could bring the handle back to series postion and would remain in parallel until you shut off or went over a gap/points, with the CTBC does that still work the same way?

[trainopd78]

colindunkley said:

With the Master controller once you got to full power you could bring the handle back to series postion and would remain in parallel until you shut off or went over a gap/points, with the CTBC does that still work the same way?

On rpa fitted stock (everything up to the D stock on todays railway) we can do just that. It's bad practice but it is achievable. You can also still handwind on these units too.

As more modern stocks don't have shunt, series, parallel I couldn't say.

[Deleted]

Seeing this thread reminded me of an incident during my training. The LU staff will know this, but Guards also had to act as emergency drivers in the event of the real one becoming incapacitated for whatever reason. That meant we had to be familiarised with driving the stocks on the line we'd requested to be stationed on.

Burnt Oak, being the last one before Edgware, was generally where the Westinghouse brake was tested to ensure it was working correctly and I was applying it as the train I was driving descended the bank into the station. The Westinghouse wasn't one of my strong points, as regards brakes, but both the instructor and myself were happy with how well I was doing.

It wasn't until near the bottom of the bank that I realised why. I'd had the master controller in Parallel the whole way down!

[Deleted]

So, you had to drop the handle then? Hmmm, nice flats on those wheels!

[Deleted]

tubeoperator92 said:

So, you had to drop the handle then? Hmmm, nice flats on those wheels!

To be honest, it's that long ago (Summer/Autumn 1990) that I can't actually remember ;D