Roof-mounted Handbrake Wheels


Roof brake wheels disappeared when air brakes were invented..The vertical roof wheels were so that brakemen could walk along the catwalk partially applying the brakes as each car crested a hill, to hold cars back as train began down hill, so as to not push engine into a slide, especially in wet/icy weather. This was a very dangerous and sometimes deadly job.
When airbrake lines throughout entire trains came into being, and especially after the Westinghouse triple valve was invented, roof brake wheels began disappearing.
 
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There was no specific date where they were "banned" except that in 1966 high mounted handbrakes on new cars were banned and later all high mounted handbrakes (1980's) were banned.

Vertical staff brakes (the "ones on the roof walk") were phased out on new cars with power brakes (the ones with the wheel on the end or a lever on the side) back in the 1930's just as technology changed. But it was a gradual thing.

Vertical staff brakes were not phased out when air brakes were installed, that was in the 1900's, vertical staff brakes continued to be used into the 1950's or 1960's. And brakemen still had to walk along the roofwalks, even with power brakes instead of vertical staff, because they had to manually set and release retainers in mountainous territory. They still have to set retainers in some territories, but it is done with the train stopped and from the ground now.
 
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