Electric Brake

[High Hood]

Hi there, I don't think I've ever seen an electric brake in N Scale or even talked about.  Modern rebuilds often have the standard ratchet brake or brake wheel replaced with an electric brake, which does look similar to a ratchet brake.  Here is the best pic I could find of one. http://www.nsdash9.com/images/NS5901km2.jpg

Has anyone built a loco with this kind of brake or any ideas for modeling one? 

[Leggy]

The Kato SD80s and likely the SD90s have an electric park brake mounted on the front bogie. Probably the only one I know of done by a mfger....


It's the part on the side of the bogie with the chain connecting it to the brake cylinder. Same thing on Kato's SD80 bogie.

[Rich_S]

Hi there, I don't think I've ever seen an electric brake in N Scale or even talked about.  Modern rebuilds often have the standard ratchet brake or brake wheel replaced with an electric brake, which does look similar to a ratchet brake.  Here is the best pic I could find of one. http://www.nsdash9.com/images/NS5901km2.jpg

Has anyone built a loco with this kind of brake or any ideas for modeling one?

Just a quick FYI, you can still apply the hand brake using the ratchet handle and manually release the hand brake using the release lever in case the electric side fails. This would be a nice detail item for modern locomotives along with the electric brake wheel type hand brakes used on GE and EMD locomotives. Graham White makes both the lever type and wheel type hand brakes for EMD locomotives under their SafeSet line.

http://www.grahamwhite.com/main/category.php?C1=15

As for the GE truck mounted hand brake, I think the name of the company was Knorr Morgan, but I'm not 100% sure. As for the GE electric brake wheel, It seems to me these kits come directly from GE. We've been replacing the truck mounted hand brakes with the Brake Wheel type hand brakes on the Dash 9 locomotives. So yes, I've installed and wired these on the prototypes, but I don't think anyone makes these yet for models? 

[Rich_S]

The Kato SD80s and likely the SD90s have an electric park brake mounted on the front bogie. Probably the only one I know of done by a mfger....


It's the part on the side of the bogie with the chain connecting it to the brake cylinder. Same thing on Kato's SD80 bogie.

Those are probably the worse truck mounted electric hand brakes ever invented. They are almost impossible to manually apply and they do not contain any limit switches, so you have to hold in on the button until the meter reads fully applied or fully released. Just a bad design all around. 

[High Hood]

I never noticed the detail on the truck.  I was actually asking about the brake lever on the nose, but it is interesting to learn about the different brakes.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

There are actually instructions on the use in the neat operator familiarization videos about the MACs:
http://thecrhs.org/ConrailEquipment/Locomotives/EMD/SD80MAC/Videos

[Rich_S]

There are actually instructions on the use in the neat operator familiarization videos about the MACs:
http://thecrhs.org/ConrailEquipment/Locomotives/EMD/SD80MAC/Videos

Ed, I had to laugh, I think the only time those hand cranks worked that easy was when the units were brand new.  I also like how they show within a couple of second the needle moving to the applied position after he pressed the button, in reality from fully released to fully applied is closer to 3 minutes, you start to wonder if the thing is working. The only ones that were worse were the Electric hand brakes they put on the Dash 9 front trucks.  But I think we are starting to suffer from thread drift   

 

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Lol. That's what I was guessing. Glad you enjoyed the videos though.