Brakeman's cabin

Brakeman's cab is the name of a mounted at the end of a railroad car weather protection, in which the control device is a manually operated brake. It was built around the original unprotected brakeman's seat in passenger cars from 1880 to about 1910 and for wagons to about 1950.

Depending on the conditions of the route and the speed of the train some or all brakeman houses were occupied by a brakeman before the introduction of air brakes in a train. The communication between the engineer and brakeman was carried out by whistle signals, which required a partial openness of the design. The service in the brakeman's cab was dangerous, especially in winter, as it often sometimes even came in the unheated and drafty cabins during limited mobility staff frostbite and freezing to death, thereby the safe braking of the train has been compromised.

Brakeman's cabs were the introduction of the continuous air brakes partially redundant. The introduction of the air brake was in Germany at a through train late 19th century, passenger trains in the early 20th century and freight trains from about 1925.

Freight wagon with brakeman's cab were observed still regularly in Germany until the mid- 1970s, especially in the Italian freight cars. Some railway companies, so the Italian FS and the Swiss SBB they stayed in some cases even up to the nineties.