What kinds of brake systems do IR coaches and freight cars have?
In older stock, both passenger coaches and freight wagons, the continuous braking system consists of vacuum brakes. Newer stock is almost always air-braked. The guard often has mechanical brakes acting on his van. In addition, each piece of stock has mechanical parking brakes. Continuous brakes were tried out by the various railway companies in the late 19th century. North Western Railway was the pioneer with trials of continuous vacuum braking in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Vacuum brakes were chosen for the simplicity of design and lower cost. They also did not have coupling cocks that could fail mid-train. Early examples of the use of air brakes on IR include the Metro Cammell EMU stock delivered between 1951 and 1953 (and similar stock later delivered by other manufacturers), which featured the Westinghouse twin pipe air brake system and electro-pneumatic application (the 1924 and 1928 EMUs (CR and WR) were vacuum-braked). In the 1960s, the Deluxe Exp. (25 Down) and the Frontier
