[saganite]

It’s already being reported that firemen responding to a fire in one of the locomotives earlier in the night shut down the engine on that locomotive. It was running to maintain brake pressure on the air brakes on the train and the pressure bled off over time. The train rolled into town after that. There’s another thread posted earlier with details.

[Biggirl]

Please do look for the thread if you can. Thank-you.

[Justa]

Funny thing about air brakes is that without air pressure the brakes are fully applied.

[MRadtke]

I thought that air was needed to release the brakes, without air pressure the brakes would go on. Sort of a fail safe in case an air line broke or if a rail car somehow became uncoupled.

[mad_as_he$$]

Train brakes APPLY if there is no pressure. Unless someone has manually cranked them to the off position.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_air_brake

So “bleeding off” would of applied the brakes unless they were manually overridden.