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[quote user="Ulrich"]Tying down a train by having someone climb aboard each locomotive and car to turn  a hand brake sounds like something out of the dark ages. In this day and age can't that somehow be done by  flipping a switch in the locomotive?[/quote] All that is needed is a way to guarantee that air brake leak-down cannot release the brakes. I would accomplish that by adding a form of deadbolt or cam action to the linkage system coming out of the air brake cylinder. To set the parking brake, you set the air, and then set a mechanical lock to hold the linkage in the set position. This mechanical lock could be held in release by the air, and set by spring force. That way if you are running the train, and the brake lock release air fails, and the spring tries to set the lock, it can only insert the lock when the air brakes are fully set. It cannot insert the lock when the air brakes are released and the train is underway. So there is no way that an inadvertent setting of the brake lock can cause a derailment by locking the brakes when they are released. So this would be a spring activated locking mechanaism that would hold the air brake cylinder when fully applied, and keep it applied even if the air pressure in the cylinder leaked off.  This locking device would be pneumatically powered.  It would have to be explored further to see if it could be powered off of the train line as a normal part of the brake function.  I am thinking that it would need a separate train line.
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