Hello all:
My uncle, since passed away, worked for the Soo Line. As a young lad I seem to recall him telling me about packing journal boxes on freight cars with a substance called “oily waste.” I believe it was a stringy substance soaked in oil to lubricate the bearings and prevent “hot boxes.” Does this ring a bell with anyone or am I barking up a tree?
the goat 
Could be, I’be always heard it referred to simply as waste. Toward the end of friction bearings, the loose waste had been replaced by something like a spong.
Nick
That is exactly what was packed in the ‘friction’ bearing journal boxes! The waste was soaked with oil, and it transfered the oil to the brass bearings. Carmen would ‘oil’ the waste during inspections(that ‘cover’ on the trucks). Sealed roller bearings have replaced friction bearings now.
Jim
I believe that the “waste” was a byproduct from the cotton mills that couldn’t be used for thread. It may have also included recycled rag material that was cheap and could be used to pack journals with oil.
Will
i have experience using waste to lubricate bearings
in a railroad journal box the axle shaft is steel and the bearing is usually brass
the brass sits on top of the axle and is held in place by a carrier, the whole assembly is housed in a box
the bottom of the box, called a cellar, is stuffed with waste which is twisted by hand and laid in the cellar until the waste touches the bottom of the shaft. Then the cellar is filled with light oil called HD 57 where i work now we use a texaco product called journalTex. At a place i used to work we used Mobil’s All Season Fleet Oil which had the same characteristics
when the shaft rotated the oil was carried up under the brass and lubricated the bearing surface. Most bearings of this type have been replaced by roller bearings.
waste is a byproduct of cotton yarn which we got it in bales. Periodaclly we had to add waste to the boxes. Waste got used for everything including cleaning. We used waste with HD 57 for cleaning the locomotive jacket and it was about the only thing that would take soot off the lead cars in the consist. Once oiled, waste was kept in a steel can with a tight metal cover, as it had a habit of catching fire for no reason. I don’t remember that we ever threw any out. When it got too dirty for cleaning the hostler would use it for starting the fire in the locomotive. He’d stuff paper trash into the firebox, throw in some wood and douse it with accelerator, then light a wad of waste with a striker (like you would use for an acetelyne torch), and toss it in the fire box
I can remember when I was a young boy, maybe 7, and was given some “wipey” to clean my hands of some journal grunge when I was taken on a tour of a servicing facility for rolling stock and engines in Peru. Every yard worker, every engineman, they all had a rear pocket stuffed with a sizeable wad of wipey. It was thousands of twisted fibres, such as might be extracted mechanically from old denim. It was used to wipe surfaces clean, to clean one’s hand before touching a control on the engines, and as described above, to provide a medium of delivery for the lubricants in journals.
Every workshop, garage, and layout room should have a barrel of the stuff.
I remember the stuff, and the smell and I cannot think of the name we used to call it, I do remember when this stuff caught on fire, anyone remember a ‘HOT BOX’ ??
I believe the accepted name was (surprise!) COTTON WASTE.
The usual cause of a hot box was that a thread or two of the waste would get between the bearing brass (which was a cap, not a complete circle) and the axle journal. Friction would ignite it almost instantly. Then the burning oil and the loss of lubrication would heat the axle and brass, causing the bearing to sieze. In extreme cases, the journal would burn completely off, but it wasn’t necessary to have that happen to cause a derailment.
The biggest reason for watching the train from the caboose was to spot the plume of smoke (and/or catch the distinctive aroma) of a hot box, hopefully before the situation reached disaster status.
Many years ago, a photo was published (in Trains, I think) of a flatcar load of timbers that had been ignited by the heat of a hot box. The crew cut the car out of the train, but couldn’t save the lading.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)