Brake van

For the analogous vehicle used on North American railways, see Caboose.

Brake van and guard's van are terms used mainly in the UK, Ireland, Australia and India for a railway vehicle equipped with a hand brake which can be applied by the guard. The equivalent North American term is caboose, but a British brake van and an American caboose are very different in appearance and use. A brake van usually has only four wheels, while a caboose usually has bogies. Further, cabooses are not used to provide braking on a train, but instead once served as a mobile office for the conductor and the brakemen who helped monitor the train. German railways employed brakeman's cabins that were combined into other cars.

Many British freight trains formerly had no continuous brake, so the only available brakes were those on the locomotive and the brake van. Because of this shortage of brake power, the speed was restricted to 25 mph (40 km/h). The brake van was marshalled at the rear of the train so both portions of the train could be brought to a stand in the event of a coupling breaking.

When freight trains were fitted with continuous braking, brake vans lost their importance, and were discontinued by many railways. However, they still continue on some important railways, such as the Indian Railways, besides the heritage railways.

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