Air hoses.

I was having a beer or two with some mates and a question was raised, no one had a definitive answer. Were air hoses (in Aust.) always red and blue? If not, when did they become so?

....Hi mate .. just ask my Sons about this topic .. the old black straight air lines are totally the way to go with an old Prime Mover resto. "suzy coils" only came about in the mid/late 1970's (at least in Australia) AFAIK, co-inciding with more acceptance of the quick release Male/Female (emergency/service) ends...

.... Back in the day when the turntables were fixed, they just clamped the hose ends truck to trailer, but with the QRTT, the need for quick release hoses became more of a necessity. Glad Hand connections came first (a throw back to the Westinghouse train braking set-ups) and Mack Trucks also used 'em for years into the 1990's, followed by what we have today....

Thanks Phil, totally surprised glad hands were still in use 20 years ago. Then again, they must have been dedicated truck/trailer units.

6fir36 (= not bad in nz)

We have used glad hand cuplins since 1960
the PBR snap on did not supply the volume and also would cum un dun causing much drama
yes az defective sez tiz all thro back to Westinghouse train cuplinz
we stihl have a few <BW> air fittings th@ have a barbed shape olive with a ferule nut
to squash it up into the fitting....... FWIW wen uncuplin trains they never did disconnect
the air line manually but they simply shunted off n they disconnect them selves

cya