Am I right in assuming Air Brakes should be used as standard on both passenger and freight trains? I'm asking as I went to do a service in the Class 40 today with a rake of empty TEA oil tankers from Manchester to Huddersfield, switched to the "air brake - goods" on the selector... Started to notice the pressure increasing on its own, to the point where the train just ground to a halt after a few hundred yards.... Switching back to either vaccum brake remedy's this, but as far as I'm aware air supplanted the vaccum brake in the 1900's...
Yes, the TEAs should be air and the brown vans are vac braked. The change over valve should not be moved after the train has started moving. If you change it you need to do a full brake test and overpressure the brake system to rest the pressure. This process can take a few minutes. Even today here in Ireland over half our freight wagons in service are vac braked. All our ore wagons and container flats built in the mid '70s are vac. Only our container pocket wagons and 60ft flats for logs are airbraked as they were bought in the early 2000s and converted around the same time respectively.
