the operating equipment, specifically the brakes and sandboxes to improve traction, were located in the open area of the brake van. Brakes were normally controlled using a hand wheel mounted within the veranda, although some early designs continued with an externally mounted shaft. To improve the guard's visibility, many were fitted with look-outs on the roof, but side look-outs (termed "duckets") were the more common. The North Eastern Railway, Great Central Railway, London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway all built brake vans with a raised look-out at one end of the roof. Two issues always added to brake power, the purpose of a brake van: wheels, and weight. Hence, many companies tried both approaches to improve their brake vans. Brake vans often had a significant amount of ballast, in the form of concrete, cast iron or water tanks built into their structure, to increase the available braking effort. Whilst most brake vans had two axles with four wheels, many railway companies built brake vans with three axles and six wheels. The Great Northern Railway built a few eight-wheelers for very heavy coal trains, the only rigid eight-wheeler brake vans built in the UK. In the 1930s, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) built three bespoke twin-bogied vans (four axles, eight wheels), for use on a particular branch line, where they replaced pairs of four-wheeled vans. The design covered the entire chassis length, with two extended verandas on either side of a cabin equipped with twin duckets. To improve braking further, some LMS and LNER brake vans were fitted with vacuum brakes in addition to their normal brake, which could be operated by the guard. Almost all War Department brake vans were fitted with vacuum cylinders, as they were exclusively used on ammunition trains. The Southern Railway built some twin-bogie brake vans on redundant electric locomotive chassis, termed the "Queen Mary" brake vans. Designed for high speed operation on milk and parcels trains rather than stopping power, they had a lengthened cabin, but did not cover the entire twin-bogie chassis. Equipment carried aboard the brake van, which had to be checked by the guard before the train's departure, consisted of a shunting pole (a wooden pole about 6 feet long with a twisted hook on the end which was used to couple and uncouple 3-link and instanter couplings without the guard having to position