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The Rio Tinto Railroad is concerned about wasting time and effort by setting handbrakes unnecessarily.  Their rules call for setting handbrakes on a train after its motive power has been cut off for over an hour with air brakes left holding the train.  Their rules also call for setting a specific number of handbrakes to hold trains on grades.  So they decided to see if they could fine-tune their handbrake requirements to save time and physical exertion on employees.  They had two objectives: 1)      To extend the one-hour limit to trains being held only with air brakes. 2)      To reduce the number of handbrakes applied to hold trains on grades.   So, they conducted testing on their ore cars to learn exactly what the falloff rate of brake application force is over time.  Ultimately, they were able to increase the one-hour interval to six hours.  They also conducted empirical testing on trains to find the exact number of handbrakes needed.  This test was called the “Handbrake Holding Capability Trial.”  This testing found that the number of handbrakes needed was considerably fewer than what the operating procedures called for. The overall objective of this testing was to reduce the time spent in setting handbrakes, and to reduce the chance of personal injury involved with setting handbrakes. Here are the details:  <a href="http://www.ceed.uwa.edu.au/ceed_seminar_proceedings?f=306870">http://www.ceed.uwa.edu.au/ceed_seminar_proceedings?f=306870</a>   It is not clear in the document, but I get the impression that Rio Tinto does not rely on an empirical push-pull testing, but rather, relies on a formula for setting a specific number of handbrakes that has been found adequate through extensive company research and testing.  If so, that would differ from U.S. and Canadian practice.  However, it might be the case that they are able to take the formulaic approach because they run captive rolling stock which they can maintain to top quality standards for brake systems. It seems to me that handbrakes would need to be in near perfect condition in order to dispense with relying on train crew discretion through a push-pull test, and rely instead on the purely formulaic approach.  It would not work to tell trainmen how many handbrakes to set if say half of the handbrakes were only capable of producing a portion of their full potential, and there was no way of knowing this by how they felt when being set.
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