Baldwin specification 43-F-19 for the Alaska Railroad's USATC Consolidations gives the brake specifications as "Westinghouse-American outside equalized, combined automatic an straight air brake, Schedule 6-ET, N140-81, and 1212, on all driving and tender wheels, with train connections front and back."

For the foundation brakes the various Lima and Baldwin drawing indexes list either WABCO or American Air Brake Co. drawing 2132-B.

I have had good luck in acquiring drawings, but brakes is an area that I have struck out. For the War Department Consolidations, the builders apparently bought the brakes as a design and parts kit from Westinghouse. Neither of the three archives that have Lima and Baldwin drawings have turned up anything on the WABCO brake equipment for the locomotive.

Does anyone have any of the relevant drawings or tech data that they would be willing to share?

The "Schedule 6ET" is the air brake valve system - one of several you can use to control the flow of air in the system using the same mechanical components.

If you look at the stuff that's under your engine now, you will, find correspondences between the spacing of the holes in the levers and the locations such that by varying the location of the holes, certain percentages of the braking power are applied to equalize it between all axles. If the pulling rod is equally between holes, the same power is applied to both the pulled rods - if it is twice as far from one as the other, one gets twice the power - you have 4 axles actuated by one brake cylinder (or one per side, depending, the principle is the same) so you want to arrange the levers so the first in the line gets one fourth the power and sends three fourths to the other axles, the second gets one third of what comes to it and sends two thirds down to the next which divides it evenly between the last two. The old cyclopedias have some good drawings of generic arrangements for consolidations that show it clearly. Mechanical advantage of levers - the longer the lever the more power, so the longer distance between holes transfers more power than the shorter distance.

The big screw-ended thing goes where the lever actuated by the cylinder starts the process - it is how you take up the slack as the shoes wear, with one adjustment for each side usually.

The car arrangement for the tender trucks is like every other freight car arrangement - dividing the power between two trucks then each truck has its own adjustment and provision for equalizing power between both of its axles.

I bet somebody running one of these can help you with some photos.

Dave

Dave - thanks for the response. We already have some generic information and I have a couple of New York Brake Company foundation brake diagrams for larger eight driver locomotives that I will send to the person going through the brake systems.

I've exhausted every place I can think for the specific foundation brake drawing. He specific request to me was for some things I haven't looked for. His note said, "If there is a copy of this (information identified in the BLW specifications) in some archive somewhere. we can figure out exactly what items were in the system, such as an Emergency Relay Valve, or any other item that we may be missing."

We are fortunate that our locomotive is as it was when removed from service nearly 50 years ago and we have done a good job of documenting the disassembly and marking the removed parts, so the task of overhauling it and returning it to original condition is a lot less daunting than for many restorations. (However, some of the things the ARR did to the locomotive while it was still in service leave us scratching our heads.)

The drawing may not exist, so you have to do what you are doing - and the 6ET system is well known and documented. You guys are doing a great job and have good advisors, you won't go wrong. Since the RR already sacrificed "perfect" for what really worked, don't sweat the details. Back to "Like it was" in service condition is more historically relevant than some guys scratches on a drawing board anyhow. I hate to see locomotives look cleaner and smoother in historic service than they ever were in reality, context (and understanding) is lost.

Dick: You said, " For the War Department Consolidations, the builders apparently bought the brakes as a design and parts kit from Westinghouse." I'm guessing this didn't apply just to War Dept. locomotives.

I'm working an a 1929 ALCO 2-8-2T (Coos Bay Lumber Co #11) and have a "complete" set of ALCO drawings, including an index book, for that engine (4 or 5 drawings missing out of over 600). But, there is nothing at all in regard to the brakes. The only mention of brakes are drawings for the bracket that the air pump mounts to and supports for the air reservoirs. No brake rigging or valve/pipe drawings.

The drawings for the frame shows 4 "fillings." ALCO part numbers are given for 2 of them, for the other 2, there is a note, "Filling furnished by brake co." So, I'd guess the purchase order would have specified something like, "Brakes supplied by WABCO."

My 1930 Locomotive Cyclopedia has a drawing titled "Foundation Driver Brake Gear, Style WN, for 2-8-2 Locomotive, American Brake Co." Looks just like what is on #11.