Air Hoses on Locos

[narrowminded]

A quick question that I think can be put to bed quickly.  I have some understanding but would like to have it clarified for certain.  What are the multiple air hoses  that hang down right and left of the coupler on loco ends.  I know that they are for air brakes but why so many? (5-6?)  I suspect train brake vs: engine brake for multiple units might have something to do with it and would account for at least two.  Is there more to it?

[Curtis Kyger]

The air brake hose is one larger diameter hose with a silver glad hand at it's end; as viewing the car or locomotive it is located on the right side close to the coupler.
The multiple hoses your referring to are for electrical control of multiple locomotives.  There are electrical connections for speed, braking, et.al....

[mu26aeh]

Pulled from a quick web search, seems legit.  Others may correct as needed

"The three hoses you speak of are for locomotive air brakes. On a 26L air system (pretty much standard these days) starting at the center are main reservoir equalization, actuating, and independent apply-release. The main res hoses tie all the main reservoirs in a loco consist together, so you have all locos air capacity to charge the trainline. Actuating is used when an engineer wants to use the train brakes while keeping the slack stretched, an engineer will set the train brakes and then actuate, or "bail off", the engine brakes. Independent apply-release works the engine brakes on a consist.

All hoses are set up the same way, the main res hose gladhand is actually 'backwards' from the other two, so you don't get main res air straight to the engine brakes and destroy anything. Only three of the hoses are needed to make everything function, however, some railroads during certain times of the year require all hoses to be connected, the best reason I can think of is for quicker recharge on the main res hoses, and to keep snow and ice out of the gladhands (I have had to try to melt ice out of these hoses before, not fun).

Not mentioned here yet is the 27-pin jumper cable that controls electrical functions of the loco consist (throttle, power/dynamic brake, sanders, headlights, and so forth). These are the same on all units now, usually there is one live outlet, and one or more dummy outlets."

[narrowminded]

The air brake hose is one larger diameter hose with a silver glad hand at it's end; as viewing the car or locomotive it is located on the right side close to the coupler.
The multiple hoses your referring to are for electrical control of multiple locomotives.  There are electrical connections for speed, braking, et.al....

Ah, OK.   So it wasn't crazy to wonder why so many air hoses.  It's because there aren't so many air hoses.   I knew they needed control hookups but at a glance those bits sure looked like air hoses to me.  I see the one with the Wabco valve on it, clearly an air hose, and I guess that's it.  Thanks!

[narrowminded]

Pulled from a quick web search, seems legit.  Others may correct as needed

"The three hoses you speak of are for locomotive air brakes. On a 26L air system (pretty much standard these days) starting at the center are main reservoir equalization, actuating, and independent apply-release. The main res hoses tie all the main reservoirs in a loco consist together, so you have all locos air capacity to charge the trainline. Actuating is used when an engineer wants to use the train brakes while keeping the slack stretched, an engineer will set the train brakes and then actuate, or "bail off", the engine brakes. Independent apply-release works the engine brakes on a consist.

All hoses are set up the same way, the main res hose gladhand is actually 'backwards' from the other two, so you don't get main res air straight to the engine brakes and destroy anything. Only three of the hoses are needed to make everything function, however, some railroads during certain times of the year require all hoses to be connected, the best reason I can think of is for quicker recharge on the main res hoses, and to keep snow and ice out of the gladhands (I have had to try to melt ice out of these hoses before, not fun).

Not mentioned here yet is the 27-pin jumper cable that controls electrical functions of the loco consist (throttle, power/dynamic brake, sanders, headlights, and so forth). These are the same on all units now, usually there is one live outlet, and one or more dummy outlets."

OK, so there are multiple hoses.  I should believe my lying eyes.   Thanks for that info.

[peteski]

This info looks useful:
http://www.trainweb.org/sp5623/detail1.htm

[mu26aeh]

This info looks useful:
http://www.trainweb.org/sp5623/detail1.htm

Specifically this one

[cv_acr]

The air brake hose is one larger diameter hose with a silver glad hand at it's end; as viewing the car or locomotive it is located on the right side close to the coupler.
The multiple hoses your referring to are for electrical control of multiple locomotives.  There are electrical connections for speed, braking, et.al....

No, they're air hoses not electrical cables. There's only one large electrical cable which plugs into the socket just above or just below the anti-climber at the top of the pilot.

[Hawghead]

All hoses are set up the same way, the main res hose gladhand is actually 'backwards' from the other two, so you don't get main res air straight to the engine brakes and destroy anything. Only three of the hoses are needed to make everything function, however, some railroads during certain times of the year require all hoses to be connected, the best reason I can think of is for quicker recharge on the main res hoses, and to keep snow and ice out of the gladhands (I have had to try to melt ice out of these hoses before, not fun).

The part about the gladhand being backwards is incorrect.  You can cross connect the main reservoir air to the other air hoses, other than the trainline hose, which is larger. (ask me how I know  )
I'm not sure what the fourth air hose in the picture is for, I've never seen a motor with four of them, but I would guess it's not for sand as the sanders on every consist I've ever used worked (when the motor actually had any sand in it) without that fourth hose.

Scott 

[nkalanaga]

From the EMD GP38  Operators Manual, the 4th hose is for "sanding", and has this note:

NOTE: If the consist is made up of older units that are equipped for only pneumatic control of sanding, connect actuating pipes between all units in the consist.

So, apparently the "sanding" hose isn't needed on "newer" units, and if the GP38 qualifies as "newer", there likely aren't too many "older" units still in MU service, at least on the major roads.

[Hawghead]

Yeah I was just all over wrong with that post.  Just goes to show I should never post before coffee.  The gladhands on the main reservoir lines are backwards, I checked yesterday.  I have crossed the hoses before but it had to have been the other two.  Now I grab the hoses at each end connected to the engine and run my hands down the length of the hose to the glad hand to make sure I have the same one on each engine.

nkalanaga,  I'm sure that's what the manual says, I've just never seen a fourth hose on an engine before, that includes GP-38s, GP-35s and SD-9s.  Perhaps they were removed at some point during overhaul.

Scott

[Ed Kapuscinski]

What is that pilot photo of?

[mu26aeh]

What is that pilot photo of?

SP 5623

[nkalanaga]

Probably were, if they no longer had to work with units needing them.  I have no idea how far back EMD meant by "older", so it could be quite a ways.  And, even if SD-9s were included, they could have been upgraded at some point.  I doubt that it would be hard to do.  If so, the fourth hose was probably removed, as I doubt that they're cheap.

From a photo book on the early years of the BN, their units still had all four hoses at least until 1974.  By 1980, the photos show only three.  The book doesn't have enough good photos of the ends of the units between 1974 and 1980 to tell when the change occurred.  Around 1980 they purged a lot of their first generation road power, so that's probably when they removed the fourth hoses.  Since the BN was still running a lot of first generation power in the late 70s, the change may have happened later than on some roads.

[fire5506]

When I started we had GP9s, GP38s and GP40s. We had 4 mu hoses on each side. The outside 2 were for the sanders and both had to be hooked up as the one side did the front sanders and the other side did the rear sanders. After we sold all the GP9s we took the sand hoses off of the GP38s and GP40s had electric connection through the 27 pin MU cable so the sand hoses we no longer needed.
 The main reservoir hose has a different glad hand than the Actuating and release hoses. I think the sand hoses used the same glad hand as the actuating and release hoses. One is an L glad hand and the other is an H glad hand.
 The train line is an F glad hand.