An excellent 16 page, heavily illustrated article by Richard Hendrickson on freight car trucks appeared in Vol. 4 of the Railway Prototype Cyclopedia, (RP CYC 4). The article spans the 1900-1960 time frame and includes high speed and heavy duty trucks. In addition to trucks, the book also provides photographically illustrated, prototype coverage of such subjects as box car lettering practices, Northwestern Refrigerator (NWX) 40 foot AC&F wood reefers, 70 ton phosphate hoppers as used by ACL, SAL, and SHPX, in Florida’s Bone Valley. Wabash also purchased 45 of these cars to haul locomotive sand. The final 11 pages are devoted to the third installment of the quite lengthy, and profusely illustrated article on the AAR twin, offset side hopper as offered in HO by Kadee and, Intermountain, covering cars operated by the C&O, B&LE, Pittsburg & Shawmut, Montour, Cambria & Indiana, NKP, W&LE and P&WV. A LOT of prototype information between two covers.
The trouble with era’s with American rolling stock and their trucks is so much was still allowed on home roads, just not interchange and as railroads combined, the home roads got larger and larger.
I’ve been working to expand on Richard Hendrickson’s 2012 work combined with the Model Railroad article from Jeff Smith, to produce a history/HO scale truck comparison in Word. I offer it freely to anyone who would like to use it, expand on it, correct it, whatever. Thanks for the warning about the term “friction bearing” hah, if Hundman failed we’re all goners.
But also truly thank you for the Hundman article references. He was always so thorough, and greatly missed as a fountain of rail history. See attached Word file.
This file includes freight trucks, solid bearing and roller bearing, as well as passenger trucks, tender trucks, and steam loco trailing and leading trucks. I have decided to split out locomotive and traction trucks into a separate file and will post that when I get to that point. Take it for what its worth as a work in progress.https://1drv.ms/w/s!AnQGfXsAb08ehMVEUGdzZ9L_4gyXyQ?e=XjgeCV
You may want to take a look at 1950’s Feight CAr Color Guide, vol. 1., Boxcars. All of the photos are contemporary to the ime period and cover (alphabetically) Ann Arbor to Norfolk and Western. It’s a bit pricy but there’s a lot of good information as to which cars had which trypes of trucks. Realized how old I am by recalling seeing a lot of these road names on trains back in the day (lol)
Hope this helps.
work safe
As a young lad in the early 70s my neighbor got me into the PC kinsman yard as an oiler. During my training they were referred as JOURNAL BRASSES or bronzes. The waste was called either rags or sheepskin. One important thing that was drilled into me was to use your sense of smell before flipping up the lid. And feel the top of the journal. If the bearing was hot the sudden influx of air could set it ablaze and shoot out lava like burning sheepskin at you. It wasn’t to be a career for me. The shoestring broke and a lot of people were let go. Even my neighbor who spent thirty some years as a railroad dick (cop). A blind man could see the PC was not doing to well and things were falling apart quickly.
Pete.
I have always heard the term “plain bearing” for this type of bearing. Everytime I read “friction bearing”, I cringe.
-Kevin
I had to zoom in to see it, sure enough, Timken called them “friction bearings” in the text.
I would be amazed if there was something from the manufacturers of smooth bearings using this term to describe their offerings.
-Kevin
Madison Avenue’s finest hour.
Timken must have had some of the best marketing people in the business. Scantily-clad women tugging on a rope to pull a 200 ton locomotive. The idea of “Roller-Freight”. And, yes, getting the “seed” planted into the minds of the railroad purchasing agents that “friction = bad news”.
Of course there are huge advantages to the roller bearing over the plain bearing. But there’s no doubt that Timken’s marketing strategy paid off in huge dividends and market share.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timken_1111
Timken Roller Freight by Edmund, on Flickr
Good Luck, Ed
Here is some good information from the spookshow site.