InterMountain RW Cars

ok, maybe this has been asked before but I couldn’t figure what to search for?

I had to take a truck off today as the coupler box came unglued. I noticed there are these little “deals” that are behind each axle that move and they have a stub on them. Are they supposed to be up/down/sideways or what. The truck that I didn’t remove had one up (outside axle) and the inner one was sideways.

So my question is what do they do? and which way are they supposed to be?
Do they help the car from swaying?

Steve