Early cars of that 1900-1914 or so period had some rather peculiar primitive braking systems.
i once drove a 1910 Panhard London taxi for a London Polytechnic couple's wedding. I was seriously instructed by the owner that to stop the cab, you used only the handbrake, never the foot brake while moving.

The reason for this was that fabric couplings on the transmission shaft were apt to break with a sudden 'grab' of the footbrake, which worked on the transmission shaft, this causing a long halt and having to fit a new one in situ on the road.
The handbrake, just to keep things interesting, worked 'back to front' in that you pushed it away' to brake, not pull it towards you, Just to keep you on your toes, the three speed gearbox had no neutral positon between gears, only between forward and reverse.
We managed to drive through the Saturday afternoon traffic after the ceremony,from Hampstead Registry Office to a service flat in the Tottenham Court Road at a steady about 10 mph.
It is therefore very likely that the steering wheel in the railed car illustrated would just be disconnected, simple as that.
G.

On 19/08/2017 3:13 PM, Tony Gallowayarg@... [TramsDownUnder] wrote:
> Indeed Roger, a pertinent question. But, maybe it isn’t as it seems. It could well be a wheel operated throttle/controller fitted to this fine machine, of the sort found on French locomotives and Swiss trams. The large diameter of the wheel is obviously necessary for precise regulation of the enormous power and torque produced by the prime mover - either that, or they hadn’t got around to cutting the damned thing off before the photo was taken.

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> Tony G

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>> On 19 Aug 2017, at 1:37 pm, 'Roger Greenwood'efftech@... mailto:efftech@bigpond.com [TramsDownUnder] TramsDownUnder@... mailto:TramsDownUnder@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

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>> Tony Galloway’s post of Aug 17^th included the caption <*/Open wagons are so primitive when there’s a high-tech self propelled option/*> beneath a photo of a primitive open wagon.

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>> But since it runs on rails I’m intrigued to know the function of the steering wheel.

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>> Roger Greenwood

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>> https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient Virus-free.www.avast.com https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient

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