Testing vaccuum brakes away from a loco.

Morning all.
I am currently attempting to get our fleet of dogfish into sone semblance of working order ready for ballasting in the near future. As a result I am grappling with both brake rigging and the vaccuum system. As they are located a fair old distance from the main sheds, I was wondering if there was a unit that can be used to replicate a loco being attached and forming a vaccuum? Failing that I may have to speak nicely to one of the engine crews....

Cheers!

 

Ah thought as much, got a couple of days of freeing things up with 'applied force' and penetrating oil before then I think.

 

At Tenterden we had a Vacuum unit that we used to test coaches as part of the 18 monthlys, not exactly portable unless the rake was next to the shed and we has long enough extension hoses, best option would be to ask a friendly loco crew,
have you had any of the vacuum cylinders off to check for rings etc? checked pipes valves , hoses, because if they have not i would expect you to have a few leaks

 

The vaccum cylinders seem to working fine although the connections between each wagon have seen batter days. The main problems seem to be the bell cranks beneath the cylinders getting stuck in the on position.

 

If you have a small portable compressor. preferably reciprocating but not necessarily so, you can cheat by simply piping it up as an exhauster. Couple the compressors air inlet to the vacuum system and the outlet to frsh air and you should be able to create sufficient vacuum quite easily. If you are using a non recip compressor, you need to check that you aren't upsetting the lub system by doing this. Depending how sophisticated, you want it to be, you can add in a vac relief valve, non-return valve and a ball valve to provide an application valve.

 

On the Gwili we use a vacuum pump borrowed from a friendly fridge engineer. Whilst this lacks a gauge it does the job of testing functuanlity of the cylinder.

 

Due to the amount of Air braked vehicles we have now in the civils fleet on the NYMR we have just built up an Air brake test cart for test purposes.
Reservoir, Gauges, Application valves and various connections all working off a 240v Machine Mart compressor.
Seems to work and hold pressure OK.

 

You can build a full test rig to check the cylinder off the vehicle, this needs a smaller exhausted and test weights to load it with. Anothero option is to get an exhauster from an 08 connect a motor and away you go. The quick option is to get a loco though for a one off.