Where to attach the Breakaway Cable
Where is the best place (appropriate/correct) place to attach the breakaway cable? I don't know why, but this is like an internet mystery and I cannot find simple instructions anywhere. My cable i...
Forum Discussion
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On a heavy trailer, I would be surprised to see electric brakes fully lock up on dry pavement. I do believe they would lay a patch of rubber down while still turning somewhat slower than roadspeed. I also think dry drum brakes actually can initially grab more because of superior surface contact area over that of discs. Drums just don't work well under sustained moderate braking (ex: downhill) because of hot liner material gassing, which causes fade. Discs cool better, their prime advantage.
A bit of trivia:
I used to work on a railroad, and our rail-car brakes could occasionally lock a wheel if empty. Steel wheels, on steel track, have less traction than rubber on asphalt. The situation was common enough that we were forbidden to use too much braking, especially an emergency air dump, unless we had a good reason. Some light-weight aluminum coal hopper cars even had a load-sensing device that purposely reduced braking when unloaded.
Early locomotives (and cars) had cast iron shoes which could lock up at slow speeds, but became marginal at high speeds, making downhills chancy. Later locomotives had non-fading composition shoes and the max brake settings alone seemed unable to lock them, even when warm (the trade-off for non-fading was the brakes absolutely had to be warmed about 15 seconds to start fully working). However the later dynamic braking occasionally skids a wheel and newer locomotives can still be frequently heard to have flats spots which hammer loud enough to hear for some distance (and can be felt in the cab).
Modern locomotive air brakes and dynamic braking have a complicated computer control to balance total braking effort and it doesn't always work perfectly to this day yet. Locomotive and train air brakes are mostly separate, with separate air controls.
Wes
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On a heavy trailer, I would be surprised to see electric brakes fully lock up on dry pavement. I do believe they would lay a patch of rubber down while still turning somewhat slower than roadspeed. I also think dry drum brakes actually can initially grab more because of superior surface contact area over that of discs. Drums just don't work well under sustained moderate braking (ex: downhill) because of hot liner material gassing, which causes fade. Discs cool better, their prime advantage.
A bit of trivia:
I used to work on a railroad, and our rail-car brakes could occasionally lock a wheel if empty. Steel wheels, on steel track, have less traction than rubber on asphalt. The situation was common enough that we were forbidden to use too much braking, especially an emergency air dump, unless we had a good reason. Some light-weight aluminum coal hopper cars even had a load-sensing device that purposely reduced braking when unloaded.
Early locomotives (and cars) had cast iron shoes which could lock up at slow speeds, but became marginal at high speeds, making downhills chancy. Later locomotives had non-fading composition shoes and the max brake settings alone seemed unable to lock them, even when warm (the trade-off for non-fading was the brakes absolutely had to be warmed about 15 seconds to start fully working). However the later dynamic braking occasionally skids a wheel and newer locomotives can still be frequently heard to have flats spots which hammer loud enough to hear for some distance (and can be felt in the cab).
Modern locomotive air brakes and dynamic braking have a complicated computer control to balance total braking effort and it doesn't always work perfectly to this day yet. Locomotive and train air brakes are mostly separate, with separate air controls.
Wes
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