A brakeman's cabin (also brakeman's cab) or brakeman's caboose (US) (German: Bremserhaus) was a small one-man compartment at one end of a railway wagon to provide shelter for the

brakeman A brakeman is a rail transport worker whose original job was to assist the braking of a train by applying brakes on individual wagons. The earliest known use of the term to describe this occupation occurred in 1833. The advent of through brakes, ...

from the weather and in which equipment for manually operating the wagon brake was located. They were built in the days before continuous braking was available and the locomotive brake needed to be augmented by brakemen applying the wagon brakes individually.

History

In the early years of the railway, brakemen just had an open seat. The first cabs appeared around 1880. The number of brakeman's cabs occupied in a given train depended on the conditions of the route and the speed of the train; on some trains all the cabs might be occupied. Communication between

engine driver A train driver, engine driver, engineman or locomotive driver, commonly known as an engineer or railroad engineer in the United States and Canada, and also as a locomotive handler, locomotive operator, train operator, or motorman, is a pers ...

and brakemen was by train whistle signals which required the design of the brakeman's cab to be partially open to the elements.

Risk

Working in brakeman's cabins was dangerous, especially in

winter Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures ...

because the cabins were unheated and draughty and there was little room to move around and keep warm. As a result brakemen frequently froze, sometimes even to death, placing the entire train at risk due to lack of braking power.

Decline

Germany

Brakeman's cabins became superfluous with the widespread introduction of compressed air brakes. In Germany, such brakes first appeared on ''

D-Zug A ''Schnellzug'' is an express train in German-speaking countries, where it refers to trains that do not stop at all stations along a line. The term is used both generically and also as a specific train type. In Germany and Austria it is also ref ...

'' (express) trains at the end of the 19th century. The building of brakeman's cabins stopped on German passenger trains in the early 1900s and on goods trains around 1925.

Gallery

Image:Bremserhaus01.jpg, Brakeman's cabin on a German

goods wagon Goods wagons or freight wagons (North America: freight cars), also known as goods carriages, goods trucks, freight carriages or freight trucks, are unpowered railway vehicles that are used for the transportation of cargo. A variety of wagon type ...

built around 1920 Image:Preuss Abteilwagen C3 P9030010.JPG, Prussian

compartment coach A compartment coach is a railway passenger coach (US: passenger car) divided into separate areas or compartments, with no means of moving between compartments. The compartment coach should not be confused with the corridor coach which also has ...

with brakeman's cabin File:Auschwitz II-Birkenau - Death Camp - Railway Carriage on Siding - Oswiecim - Poland.jpg,

Cattle wagon A cattle wagon or a livestock wagon is a type of railway vehicle designed to carry livestock. Within the classification system of the International Union of Railways they fall under Class H - special covered wagons - which, in turn are part of th ...

with brakeman's cabin on Siding near the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

- Oswiecim - Poland.

References