Brake van requirements

June 18, 2010, 06:07:11 pm

Brake van requirements.

Some goods wagons seem to have them, others don't.

I'm not actually 100% sure which vehicles should require brake vans. The first brake van available seems to be 1847, so I guess goods vans from before then shouldn't require brake vans. That would mean the requirement would start after the 5t vans. With the brake van law repealed in 1968, I suppose that wagons introduced from 1968 onward shouldn't require brake vans either, though apparently brake vans remained in common use throughout the 70s and were still seen in the 80s.

Based on that I'm pretty sure these two should have brake van requirements:
wagon-long-20t.dat
wagon-tanker-rch.dat

And I wonder whether the following should have brake van requirements:
wagon-cartic.dat
wagon-haa.dat

A more subtle question is whether there are p****enger vehicles which should have a general brake van requirement (ones which don't already have specific consist rules). The list of potentially suspicious vehicles (filtering out those with specific consist rules, and obvious guard and brake vans, and the ancient LMS 4-wheeler) is:
br-mk1-bc-bg.dat
br-mk1-bc-cc.dat
br-mk1-bc-m.dat
br-mk1-bg-bg.dat
br-mk1-bg-cc.dat
br-mk1-bg-m.dat
br-mk1-guv-b.dat
br-mk2a-bso-bg.dat
br-mk4-dvt-ic.dat
gwr-autocoach.dat
lms-2007.dat
sr-maunsell-parcels.dat

I'm guessing most of these do in fact have brakeman's compartments, but I thought it was worth posting the list in case there was an oversight there.

Re: Brake van requirements

Reply #1 – June 19, 2010, 07:43:49 am

Regarding the p****enger (and parcels vehicles). If you look at the first set of letters after mk1 you can see the type of coach - the following are all brakes:
bc = brake composite
bg = Brake Gangwayed
bso = Brake Second Open
(Not sure whether these are expanded in translations)

In addition the following wouldn't need brake vans:
dvt - Driving Van Trailer, thesehave a cab and are used when the train is being driven with the locomotive at the rear.
autocoach - used on rural branchlines as part of a push-pull service.

Not sure about maunsell-parcels, lms-2007 or guv, I'm pretty sure guv are used without brake vans though.