Johnson bar

johnson bar or trolley valve are trailer brake handles usually on the right side of the steering collum or up on the dash. its just a trailer brake handle general used to check the trailer brakes and that your coupled. works like the foot brake but only for just the trailer and isn't meant for use while driving down the road.

 

True, but I can remember when I first started out all the really old timers would tell you different. They would tell their war stories of flying down the interstate on the verge of jack-knifing and a quick jerk on the handle would straighten the trailer right up.

 

Well Iam not an OLD TIMER...LOL

But Everyone up here at our Terminal calls it a Johnson Bar

I think it has many names (some good & some bad)

 

Another name for it is "Broker Stick". As an owner-operator pulling piggy-back trailers owned by the railroads, I generally used only the trailer brakes on an off-ramp. After nine years and 920,000 miles, I sold my tractor. It still had the original brake shoes and drums.

 

Purely for historical reference, but in railroad terms, on a steam powered locomotive, the large bar that the engineer used for controlling the engine was known as a johnson bar. It's connections went into the steam dome above the boiler where it controlled a valve that allowed steam pressure to be diverted into the various systems, allowing the train to go ahead, or diverting steam into the opposite system, providing braking power. Over the years, the term transferred into our field of endeavor.

 

It's known as a trailer brake up here. Boring, eh? LOL

 

Well, yes. If you Canadians want to get with the program, you are going to have to come up with some new and exciting slang terms for things or history will just pass you by.

 

Jhonson bar = Spike? (or "trailer spike").... Or atleast thats what Ive been told to call it...

 

Well i guess this reneck need to get with the times too--i was taught that is was "trailer brakes". Never heard it called a johnson bar either! LMAO Man i need that slang dictionary for truckers!