Cable Car Track Brakes
The cable cars of San Francisco are fitted with mechanical track brakes, controlled by a large braking lever next to the grip lever. Pulling back on this lever forces replaceable pine wood blocks against the rails; as a result, a cable car descending a steep hill emits an odor of smoldering wood. These track brakes are routinely used many times while traversing a cable car route.
The true emergency brake on a cable car is known as a "slot blade," a steel wedge that can be forced into the slot-rail between the running rails by a strong spring. If a runaway car is moving fast enough that the slot blade is necessary, the friction has been known to weld the blade to the slot rail, disabling the transit line until the obstruction can be extracted with a cutting torch. The slot blade is controlled by the large red lever near the grip, and is not used except for emergency stops.
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Famous quotes containing the words cable car, cable, car, track and/or brakes:
“To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars.”
—Douglass Cross (b. 1920)
“To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars.”
—Douglass Cross (b. 1920)
“Raising children is a spur-of-the-moment, seat-of-the-pants sort of deal, as any parent knows, particularly after an adult child says that his most searing memory consists of an offhand comment in the car on the way to second grade that the parent cannot even dimly recall.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What blazed ahead of you? A faked road block?
The red lamp swung, the sudden brakes and stalling
Engine, voices, heads hooded and the cold-nosed gun?”
—Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)