Freight car hand brakes - 6
22
23
22. Universal “One-Hand”
brake wheel marketed
throughout the 1930s.
23. Universal model
M2049 – throughout the
1940s. Note how high it is
mounted on the car end.
Universal Railway Devices Co.
The five angled spokes on Universal’s model M1138 brake wheel
make it easy to identify (21).
Introduced in the late 1920s, the M1138 was replaced in the
early 1930s by Universal’s “One-Hand” brake that had five short
spokes and the outline of a human hand cast into center hub
(22). The long gear case extending below the wheel also helps
identify Universal hand brakes. The company’s principal brake
wheel during the 1940s was the model M2049 (23). Note the
similarity to the Jemco (10 prior pages) and Ureco (26) wheels.
24. Ureco – from the late
1920s.
25. Ureco – mid 1930s
through WWII.
26. Ureco model U528 –
mid ‘40s to mid ‘50s.
24
25
Ureco - Union Railway Equipment Co.
Ureco’s initial vertical brake wheel introduced in the late 1920s,
was a basic 22-inch cast malleable iron wheel with six spokes
emanating in a spiral from a medium-sized hub (24). A more dis-
tinctive design came in 1936 with the introduction of the model
U498 brake wheel (25) that resembled a flying squirrel. After
World War II, Ureco began selling brake wheel model U528 (26)
that had five straight spokes, a plain rim, and an equally plain
inner ring midway to the hub.
26
MRH-Nov 2013
