How much employees does it take to perform an air brake test on longer trains? I think it would take really long for just one person to do it, while it's enough on most European railroads.
Minute 6:12, why can´t you have cars with inoperative brakes in a train ? Wouldn´t that make any difference in perfomance on a 100-car train if one or two cars would have no brakes.
denzzlinga no it really wouldn't make a difference for that many cars. these rules were made by people behind computers and lawyers with no train knowledge.
Where I live it's normal to have some cars with no brakes when the sparks/temperature from the braking operation is dangerous for the cargo (i.e. the traincar is loaded with High Explosive/Ammunition). But if you have a train that's carrying only this kind of cargo, every other traincar will be a flatcar with working brakes
Its the same in germany. You have to have a train consisting of at least 3 vehicles to carry one with inoperative brakes in the middle. Then breaking abilities will be kind of bad of course, but the rules allow it to operate a train like this.
I think it should be okay to have inoperative brakes on some vehicles, but the vehicles without brakes should be flagged and taken out of service at the earliest convenience.
