Freight car hand brakes - 5
16. Miner 22-inch model
D3279 – from 1936 to the
‘50s.
17. Peacock model 320 –
throughout the 1930s
18. Peacock – late 1930s to
early ‘50s.
16
17
18
featured a scalloped pattern with six spiral spokes and 18 small
openings in the rim. For customers preferring a 22-inch wheel,
Miner offered model D3279 in 1936 (16). The design of the
D3279 looked much like the standardized wheels that would not
appear for another 20 years.
Peacock and Champion – National Brake Co., purchased the
Champion brand in the early 1950s.
Peacock’s model 320 malleable iron wheel first appeared in the
early 1930s (17). It was similar to Jemco’s (10) except the spokes
were in a spiral pattern. Beginning in the late 1930s and con-
tinuing through the end of the 1940s, Peacock offered a 22-inch
wheel with five straight, slender spokes and distinctive anti-slip
finger grips on the inside edge of the rim (18).
In the early 1950s National Brake Co. acquired Champion and
merged it with its Peacock brand of brake equipment. This
resulted in the 1953 introduction of the Champion-Peacock
model 285 brake wheel (19).
Superior Hand Brake Co.
Superior’s model V53 cast malleable iron brake wheel (20) was
in introduced in the very early 1930s. The highly-stylized 22-inch
wheel incorporated five spiral spokes with a scalloped rim that
had 15 small rectangular holes. A smaller inner ring midway to
the hub repeated the scallops of the outer rim. Subsequent ver-
sions of the V53 manufactured after the mid-‘40s did not have
the small holes in the rim.
19
20
21
19. Champion-Peacock
model 285 – from the early
1950s.
20. Superior model V53 –
1940s and ‘50s.
21. Universal model M1138
– from the late 1920s.
MRH-Nov 2013
