Re: East/West ends [Was - Re: [Vic] Geelong Line CLOSED]

["chris 'fufas' grace" <chris@transdata.co.nz>]

Anamul wrote:
> 
> I was in the Cars Office when we did a move around the Reversing Loop.
> I was told it was becuase of access to shore power at some outstations.
> But then I don't always beleive what I am told! :))
> 

> On 10-Oct-2000, "Samuel Eades" <seades@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> 
> Snippage
> 
> > > This is the reason you once saw a Sprinter going around the reversing
> > > loop, because of an accident on the Newport line, and ARTC a sprinter was
> > > sent to Sunshine, change ends, and off to Geelong.  (so it ended up the
> > > wrong way around).
> > > Alas I think you can't join the No.1 end of one sprinter to the No.1 end
> > > of another sprinter (or maybe the cars office just doesn't want to).
> > I have never heard of this, and I can't see why it would be a problem, but
> > then again sprinters are turned so rarely that it could be possible... But
> > why would it be that way? Surely you would want your rail fleet to be as
> > versitile as possible....
> >

It really depends on the couplers and brake hoses. If they are
asymmetric around the centre line of the car the car becomes 'handed'
and csn only couple to a car of the opposite 'hand'.

When fully automatic Wedgelok couplers were introduced on the London
Underground they were handed. These couplers included electrical
contacts, one per circuit. If you think about this with one contact
per circuit there is no way you can arrange them without some being in
the left hand side and others on the right thus:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Now, if you reverse this coupler by turning the car round they become:

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

and you therefore can't couple ends together.

In the early days of automatic couplers like this they weren't that
reliable, so duplicating the connector studs (which would have made
the thing symmetrical) was a maintenance liability, and also involved
extra expense, so they didn't do it. This is why older London
Underground trains had A and D ends, denoted by little plates next to
the end door.

In addition the pipework  was asymmetrical, with the main reservoir
pipe on one side of the car and the brake pipe on the other. Thus if a
car got turned you could not couple the brake pipes without some
piping adaptors which crossed from one side to the other.

This was something unique to London Underground where they could not
have the pipes mounted centrally because the negative  conductor rail
was in the way. There are many stories about goods wagons shorting the
negative rail to earth with 3 link couplings.

The UK Southern Railway EMUs solved this problem by having central
brake pipes because they didn't have a centre rail to worry about.
They also duplicated the electrical jumpers on each side of the cab
front. Many of their services were circular and it was impossible to
operate a service where units didn't become turned, so they had to
invest in the extra cost of duplicated connections.

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