Our diesel shop, (actually Motive powers shop) are rebuilding and repairing these for the Galveston Railroad museum to go under their Alco switcher, a S1 or S2 if I remember correctly.
Timing is perfect, as Motive Power is just beginning a rebuild program for the trucks on our MK1500Ds.
Ours ride on Bloomberg trucks off of EMD F units.
Cool. Sort of like getting a “visible man” kit to see inside something we normally don’t see.
Of course, I have a picture in my mind of the switcher up on blocks with various captions, ranging from Redneck front yard to daggone kids stole the trucks off the switcher.
Thanks for grabbing the shots and sharing with us.
Those are Blunt Trucks off an Alco S-1 s-2 or earlier (HH600 or HH660/900/1000), all made 1930- 1950. After 1950, Alco went to the AAR Type A truck universally in use by EMD and everybody else. I’m told they rode like lumberwagons (and the wagonmakers were offended).
They look like they ride hard.
Note the brake shoes wrap around the entire wheel, not just riding on the tread but over the flange also.
Our shop forman said it is made that way, the shoe “grinds” the flange and keep it blunt.
Was supposed to keep the flange dull so it wont pick switch points.
Whats on there now are cast iron shoes…so far thats what is going back on, and they are exploring using the original style of journal box babbit/friction bearing on the wheels.
Yup. I had a switching session in the cab of a GTW S2 (8100) once. Certainly different, and I could tell that even though I was just a kid. Although I loved the sound of Alcos (especially switching Alcos!), I don’t know if I could have stood this one bopping along the line at 35 m.p.h.!
Thanks, Ed, for taking and sharing these. Wish I knew more about the mechanical side of these things so that I could appreciate and take advantage of this opportunity better.* Anyway, let me take a stab at this - and thanks to mudchicken for the initial ID, because I wouldn’t have known otherwise . . .
There are several major subsystems to these (in no particular order): support of the switcher’s weight through the bolster, equalizers, and spring rigging to the journal bearings; traction motor support and gearing; and the air brake cylinders, rigging, and brakeshoes.
Notice in the 2nd and 3rd photos how the brakeshoes appear to wrap-around and bear on the flanges as well as the wheel treads - I’ve never seen that before.
Those photos also show the horizontal brake levers at the bottom under the brakeshoes, so the vertical pieces are just to hold the brakeshoe and support its weight. That horizontal assembly is pretty substantial and complicated, too.
Each truck has 2 brake cylinders, one mounted on top of each of the sideframes - but notice that in the 3rd photo, the left one has had its ‘cover’, piston, and associated levers removed (see also the right side of the 2nd photo).
The 1st photo shows that each end of the brake cylinder is connected to a lever. Tracing the lever system seems to indicate that the brake shoes applied only to the outside of the wheels, not to the inside - no ‘clasp’ system here.
In the 2nd and 3rd photos, the driven gear is pretty obvious - but note that while it’s on the right side of the closest axle, it’s barely visible on the left side of the far axle (which would be the right side if viewed from that end). Maybe makes sense if you think about it, to be symmetrical - on the other hand, might that arrangement induce a torque that would tend to skew the truck to one
Is that before either the “dreaded yellow machines”, the fence construction bubbas or the landscape contractors come to destroy the stakes or corner???[:-,]
…Does that driven gear on the axle run outside in the elements, or…when a traction motor is in place, is it covered…?
I have always been a truck fan. Locomotive trucks especially are marvelous contraptions. I have always thought that the Blunt trucks were the most ungainly lookning of all locomotive trucks, although they do look mighty impressive when displayed in the above photos. Paul, wrapping the brake shoes around the wheel flange in addition to bearing on the wheel tread is common with steam locomotives. Although I have never seen that type of brake shoe on diesels, and was not aware of it being used on the Blunt trucks. It must be an ALCO holdover in thinking from their steam locomotive business.
I can’t say I understand how those Blunt trucks are mechanically arranged. It looks like the side frames are case integral with the truck bolster as Paul mentioned. But then it looks like the ends of the side frames move up and down in slides relative to the journal boxes. So there must be some kind of a sub frame in hidden in there that ties the four journal boxes together.
One thing to consider is that the traction motors have to be mounted directly on the axles. Parts of the truck are on spring suspension relative to the wheelset, so the traction motor cannot be mounted on that suspended structure and be geared to the axle because the gear mesh would not be maintained. So there are bearings in the traction motor frame and those bearings run on those shiny spots on the axles near the wheels. Then a part of the motor bears in a floating relationship with part of the suspended frame in order to force the motor to turn the axle rather than turning itself.
There is a steel cover shell around the gear, it bolts to the traction motor face and keeps pretty much all debris out of there.