# Slip Coaches -- Ever used in the US?



## Ispolkom (Mar 30, 2011)

I was looking through the "Oxford Companion to British Railway History," and came upon an article on slip coaches. A Web site devoted to them is here. In short, the practice was to drop off a carriage or carriage at a station without stopping the train. The brakeman would disconnect from the end of the moving train and coast into the scheduled station. Apparently this continued through 1960 in Britain.

It sounds like a dangerous procedure to me, but a) what do I know about railway safety, and b) definitions of safety have changed over the decades. Were there ever slip coaches in the US, or was it not possible, perhaps because of the different couplers used?


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## the_traveler (Mar 30, 2011)

I doubt those were ever used here in the US, due to (as you said) the couplings being different. But I'm just wondering how the removed coached stopped at the platform in the right location?




If it "coasted" to a stop too far or too short for the platform. I'm sure you could not get out and push in to the station!


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## The Davy Crockett (Mar 30, 2011)

The website you have the link to is great. In its index they have a couple of articles on American trains, one of which is on the Comet, a streamliner that was developed with $$$ from the Feds,    It broke speed records for New England railroading during a test run in April, 1935, with a top speed of 110.5 miles an hour over a one-mile stretch near Kingston, Rhode Island. The train "was built by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railway Company, to carry 160 passengers between Boston and Providence (R.I.), a distance of 43.8 miles, with a stop at Back Bay Station, Boston, in forty-four minutes."

I wonder if The_Traveler remembers it? :unsure: hboy: :lol: :blush: :huh:


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## PerRock (Mar 30, 2011)

the_traveler said:


> I doubt those were ever used here in the US, due to (as you said) the couplings being different. But I'm just wondering how the removed coached stopped at the platform in the right location?
> 
> 
> 
> If it "coasted" to a stop too far or too short for the platform. I'm sure you could not get out and push in to the station!


Based off the little bit from the the site I read & a picture, there is a brakeman on the cars that applies the brakes at the right time to stop the cars.






peter


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## The Davy Crockett (Mar 30, 2011)

PerRock said:


> the_traveler said:
> 
> 
> > I doubt those were ever used here in the US, due to (as you said) the couplings being different. But I'm just wondering how the removed coached stopped at the platform in the right location?
> ...


Kind of like landing a glider or the Space Shuttle... one chance to get it right!

The page states: "With the vacuum brake, the guard admits air to the train pipe for a brake application ; to release brakes, he puts his handle to "release," which immediately connects the train pipe with the highly exhausted vacuum cylinder. This extracts the air from the train pipe, and the brakes become released. As the slip-coach has neither air pump nor vacuum brake ejector, this could not go on indefinitely, but three or four applications can be made. This, however, is rarely necessary, as the slip guards are usually as "handy" with their brake valves as the engine driver."


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## George Harris (Mar 30, 2011)

the_traveler said:


> I doubt those were ever used here in the US, due to (as you said) the couplings being different. But I'm just wondering how the removed coached stopped at the platform in the right location?
> 
> 
> 
> If it "coasted" to a stop too far or too short for the platform. I'm sure you could not get out and push in to the station!


From a simple coupler perspective, it would be easier to do with a US knuckle coupler. However, you would have to have some way to isolate the brake lines and have a lever that could lift the couler pin from inside the car rather than from a position on the ground beside the car. (If you don't isolate the brake lines, as soon as the cars get far enough apart to uncouple the brake hose, the brakes would go into emergency on both the train and the detached car.)

For the hook and screw with buffers type coupler used in England and Europe in general, it would be interesting to see the system they used to lift the link.

I could see the ICC safety guys going absolutely berserk over the whole idea of slip coaches. There would be a resounding NO said so loud you would not need a telephone to hear it no matter where you were in the US.

Yeah, stopping where you ought to? You get exactly one bite at it. It is like a space shuttle landing.


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## the_traveler (Mar 30, 2011)

The Davy Crockett said:


> I wonder if The_Traveler remembers it? :unsure: hboy: :lol: :blush: :huh:


I was resting inside my mom's tummy then!



Besides I did not move to KIN until 2000!

But I grew up about 35 miles away from the old ALCO shops in Schenectady, NY. Although it too was before my time!



(FYI - the Adirondack passes by the old plant just after departing SDY on the left side northbound. I think the main building now says "Schenectady Steel"!)


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## The Davy Crockett (Mar 30, 2011)

the_traveler said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > I wonder if The_Traveler remembers it? :unsure: hboy: :lol: :blush: :huh:
> ...


A nice area to grow up in!  I use to live about an hour or so east of Schenectady, and still miss it. I've never taken the Adirondack, but have been seriously thinking about a trip in May on it - earning triple AGR points, no less! - if I do I'll listen for the ghost of steam engines past just after leaving SDY!


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