Am I correct in my understanding that this first picture is a [Bettendorf] friction bearing truck and the second is a roller bearing truck?
The friction bearing trucks came out in the early 1900s. When did the roller bearing trucks start coming available and how soon would they have been found on a caboose?
Thanks for any input…
Tom
Tom,
The one on top appears to be a friction bearing truck of the Bettendorf design. This had a silod cast side frame with integral wheel bearing units.
The lower picture is a friction bearing truck of the Arch Bar design. This is a bolted-up design that pre-dates the Bettendorf design. The downfall is that the bolts become loose, and everything ‘wears’. In 1940, the original order banning Arch Bar trucks was issued. This was extended several times due to the traffic needs of WWII.
A roller bearing freight trucks looks similar to the Bettendorf design, but has roller bearing journals rather than the square ‘lids’ that accessed the oiled waste of the friction bearing design. Roller bearings started to show up on passenger cars in the 20’s, and were standard on most passenger cars by the late 30’s. Freight cars started seeing roller bearing in number in the late 40’s/early 50’s, and became the standard on new freight cars by the 60’s. Ny 1972, roller bearings were required on interchange cars.
Jim
The transition and subsequent truck design is going to be difficult to pin down. Reason being modern trucks have a distinctive round bearing cap where the lid is on a friction bearing. During the interim many railroads modified friction bearing trucks to accept roller bearings in the previous friction bearing area while retaining the lids. Some railroads removed the lids but some did not. the cost to replace the sideframes would have been prohibitive so a car with a closed lid could have had either during the tranistion.
I think the lower picture is not an arch bar truck but an early version of what we modelers call a Bettendorf type truck, but with T shaped cast metal – so I think the friction journal boxes are integrally cast with the T shaped frame. It has leaf springs so is likely to be a caboose or steam locomotive tender truck.
Dave Nelson
The second example is indeed what came to be called a T section Bettendorf used by the thousands under PFE reefers,a unofficial de facto standard if you will. Eventually these too were banned in interchange by the mid fifties due to corrosion developing within the tee frame although waivers could be obtained as in the case of the PFE. With those leaf springs, these would suffice for use under tenders and cabooses. SP was late to adopt roller bearings on freight cars, however, UP re-trucked it’s S class stock car fleet with roller bearings beginning in 1953, the now surplus orginals were then resold to the PFE which allowed replacement of the now forbidden T section!
Dave
Dave,
You may very well be right about that lower truck. The Bettendorf T Section and L Section trucks were banned from interchange service in 1953, followed by the U Section variation in 1954. The remaining Bettendorf design(sort of a back to back U) had a much heavier side frame and lasted through the 70’s.
Jim
The truck in the lower photo also has cast iron wheels, which were outlawed many years ago.
The waiver granted the PFE expired in 1955 and was not renewed as PFE was retiring in mass a good precentage of the fleet with over 15 years of service by that year. In house forces had developed a stringent inspection and renewal program for the T section that exceeded FRA inspection standards thus their longitivity in PFE use. PFE abandoned the use of cast iron wheels (and archbar designs) in the early twenties about the time the T section was adopted, this posed no end of grief to mechanical forces as these cars could not accept the T section due to the center plate and bolster design thus the temporary use of various Andrew designs which PFE tested, but never adopted. PFE retired or sold off these cars in the early thrities as cost to rebuild exceeded the cost of purchasing new.
Dave
The technical name for the bearing is a “plain bearing” rather than friction.
Roller bearings tend to have a round end on the axle.
Actually the plain bearing goes back to at least the 1870’s based on my experiences of actually oiling them on V&T locomotives and cars at the Nevada State Railroad museum. As for when the plain bearing was completely removed for service… I went back into my railfanning photos from the 70’ and 80’s and found my shots of a catastrophic wreck on Conrail in Collegeville Pennsylvania in October 1979 and sure enough an old Pennsy 3 bay hopper in the foreground of one shot clearly shows plain bearing bettendorf trucks. So we can figure…they were used at least til then. I’m guessing that I got one of the few remaining at the time.
Mark H
I noticed a couple of active air dumps on CPR last year (2012) still running on plain bearings. Because they are only used in OCS duties within CPR the interchange rules do not affect them. I did wonder if there were enough old carmen around who understood the maintenance requirements.
Otherwise, plain bearings on new-built cars ended in the 1960s, earlier on more innovative roads. By now even those cars will be something like 50 years old and thus banned in interchange. But they could still be found in revenue service into the early 1990s.
John
Here is a link from the NMRA.
http://www.nmra.org/member/sites/default/files/datasheets/Rolling/d5a.PDF
After the arch bar there were many manufactures of freight car trucks. Andrews, ASF, Barber, Betendorf, National, Symington and Dalman just to name a few. Some railroads also made their own trucks too. The PRR is one. http://prr.railfan.net/diagrams/PRRdiagrams.html?sel=ftk&sz=sm&fr=
Modelers guide to freight car trucks.
http://mrr.trains.com/~/media/import/files/pdf/4/c/c/mr_pi_5-06_freightcartrucks.pdf
Common misconception is the rib back wheel verses the flat back. The rib back chilled wheel was banned from interchange in 1970. They were banned on new cars in 1957.
There was a kit available to retrofit a roller bearing axle into a friction bearing side frame but it did not take off. Here is the patent on it. http://www.google.com/patents/US2802705
Happy reading.
Pete
I forgot to add that cars in interchange service with odd trucks can be delayed in transit if the need arises for service. Many of the truck manufactures made replacement parts for all the common trucks. When we call a truck an Andrews it actually could have been cast and machined by National or Bettendorf. Railroads could not have a loaded car waiting weeks for a part to be delivered to get it going. The major reason the PRR switched to Buckeye 3 axle trucks on their heavy flats and well cars.
Pete
one great advantage of the roller bearing is often overlooked. there is no brass for the local thieves to steal and sell for scrap. swiping brass was really pretty easy once the technique was learned. all you need is a concrete block, a sturdy 4x4 hardwood timber and little regard for your fingers. if you are worried about your fingers, then you may want a hook and tongs also. empty cars make much better targets. they are easier to pry up that loads.
charlie
To answer Tom’s question, the first application of roller bearing trucks to a freight car was in 1923, a W&LE boxcar.
Industry-wide, the change didn’t occur until January 1st, 1972, when all cars having journals 6 1/2"x11" or larger were required to have roller bearings. Later, in January 1974, all cars with a gross rail loading of 55,000 lbs. or more per axle had to be roller bearing-equipped.
As for cabooses, new ones at that time would likely come equipped with roller bearings but I’d guess that many cabooses never got them. In most cases, they were not interchanged, and, as non-revenue cars, probably didn’t warrant the expense.
Wayne
As the railroads or car owners updated friction bearing cars to roller bearing the cover on the bearing box was most often removed and a hole was cut into the outside of the box where it curved from vertical to horizontal to prevent water accumulating in the old box after a roller bearing axle was installed. Even if the box covers were retained they all had the circular cut on each box which made identification easy.
Worked on Penn Central from 1/71 to when Conrail took over. Back then Penn Central had 125,000 employees, now the railroads nationwide barely have 125,000 employees in the entire country.
I remember seeing LOTS of those conversions in the '70s.
AFAIK, Rapido is the only manufacturer to offer the “retrofit” trucks. Are there any others?
http://rapidotrains.com/ho-scale-freight-car-trucks/
(Third photo down)
Regards, Ed
What year were roller-bearing trucks introduced on the railroad?
There is a famous Timken ad picture of - to the best of my recall - 4 young women each pulling a rope attached to a big steam loco. Yes, they were moving it because it was equipped with the new Timken roller bearings. I believe the add was from 1944, and there were 4 women doing the pulling (but could have been 6).
By far, the best US railroad timeline is this one from Bluford Shops:
http://bluford-shops.com/bluford_93_024.htm
extracting bearing information (paraphrasing):
1948–roller bearings slowly start to show up
1964–friction bearing use on new cars plummets
1968–last new car with friction bearings
1991–friction bearing banned on many tank cars
1994–friction bearings banned in interchange
There’s sorta two classes of cars in any year: new. And not-new. If you’re running a newly delivered car in 1965, it will likely have roller bearings. If you’re running an “old” 40’ box, it won’t.
I like the Bluford timeline so much, I made a PDF of it, with a big empty space on the right side. When I come upon timeline info not noted in the chart, I add it on the right.
Ed