Thank you very much for your informative response, Peter. I am still trying to find a pic of the Sulzer engine diesel electric railcar set.
(Edit: I found it here: https://www.derbysulzers.com/manchuria.html )
By the way, I apologize for all the typos in my pervious post! )
A railcar of SMR built by Baldwin. Source: 『満洲鉄道写真集』
Thank you very much for your informative response, Peter. I am still trying to find a pic of the Sulzer engine diesel electric railcar set.
(Edit: I found it here: https://www.derbysulzers.com/manchuria.html )
DerbySulzers seems to have good information.
The Wikipedia site on the SMR based on Japanese sources suggests that four of six of the power cars were Sulzer powered, while other sources suggest only two had Sulzer engines. Wikipedia suggest the engine was a vee-type but Sulzer’s own records state that it was an inline six. At least two units had Niigata diesel engines, possibly four.
The Wikipedia entry suggests the trains were used after the war around Fushun. That is true, but they had been converted to overhead electric power, the diesel units having long been abandoned. They ran as six car sets with a former driving trailer at each end. It is possible they only used the two traction motors on the driving car, originally powered by the diesel. I saw these operating at Fushun in 1980.
Peter
That train is made up of the 25 series cars I used in 1980. The generator car is the second vehicle behind the repainted 22 series mail van. The paint on the mail van never did match the newer cars…
Peter
51 was built by Clyde Engineering in Sydney Australia, as were 52-55.
51 remains in Hong Kong in their railway museum, while the other four returned to Australia and worked for a few more years. All of them were fitted with a more compact muffler than the 55 gallon drums used in that photo. The drums worked, however…
I think some of the G16s came from GMD Canada. Locomotives built in Australia or Canada could be substantially paid for with Sterling funds, only the equipment built in the USA needing to be purchased with US Dollars.
51 and 52 had the D15 generator, standard on the G8, but these were the only two G12s with the D15, all the others all having the larger D12 (or D22 or D32). So those two had a rating of 1125 HP, while the others had 1310 HP. That probably lowered the price for the first two.
Peter
Info from Wiki in Chinese: “…The 25 series car was the 3rd generation Passenger cars in PRC’s rail system. PRC built 3 sets of consists, 40 cars in total specially for the “Canton to Kowloon (Hong Kong) Through Train Service”, the first lot were using 25.5 meters long, used UD5 bogie, design top speed was 100mph. In 1980, newer car was built and used 206 series Truck, The air conditioner was changed from PRC product to Japan Mitsubishi model, top speed was tuned down to 75mph…”
The truck you mentioned in pervious post was really a big improvement from the early lot, Air Bag Suspension for passenger car was not even a common thing in a developed region like Hong Kong, before the electrification of KCR and building of MTR(underground train). I think that the livery of the train was tried to mimic the Shinkansen of Japan.
Interesting! In 1966, KCRC ordered 4 EMD G16c, 3 of them were built in the States, some very reliable and tough engines. I love their sliver roof and dark green livery, looks classy and sharp. 
I find this one on on flickr by lan Lynas.
Trains from a communist country run in a capatialist region regularly, only in Hong Kong (Now a Special Administrative Region of PRC). The Engine DF3 " was a copy of the Soviet 2D100 design, itself a copy of the Fairbanks Morse 38D8 ¾. (Wiki) " A single unit DF3
I will let Peter comment more thoroughly as he’s a real expert here. But I would note from the pictures that the 206 represents an implementation of many of the ‘revealed wisdom’ design features applied to what looks like very much the same basic truck architecture of the 202.
Let’s look: (1) radius rods with elastomer bushings from the bolster to the carbody; (2) individual hydraulic dampers of reasonable size on the flexi-float axleboxes, perhaps ‘one per end’ instead of just one per axle as on the EMD dash-2 trucks; implementation of the air bag in place of springs in an outside swing hanger.
Air bags have comparatively little advantage over properly-specified ‘spring nests’ in OSH trucks; they have no inherent spring-rate characteristic and they can be motorized to equalize ride height from light to heavy loading so there isn’t a problem with platform-edge mismatch on Continental platforms. There’s a problem in the design shown here, which is there is very little inherent lateral stability (it can even be metastability) furnished by the bag, which gives nasty little lateral wandering motion if the track is not well lined and surfaced or if the wheels or railhead wear in certain ways. This was a particular issue with early Amfleet cars, complicated dreadfully by the motion inducing creaking and ‘giggling’ in some of the interior plastic pieces. In those days before noise-cancelling headphones and reasonable portable entertainment systems, that could make your ride unpleasant. Not as unpleasant as encountering early sections laid with concrete ties, of course; that felt like high-speed derailment. (And yes, I’m familiar with what high-speed derailment feels like…)
And yes, I’m familiar with what high-speed derailment feels like…)
Care to enlighten us?
I remember when the first general HSR were not introduced between the border of Hong Kong and Guangzhou aka Canton, when the Railroad of China was one of the military department, DF4B was used to haul SYZ25B Double Decker which used a similar truck with suspension air bag (209PK Truck), (Translated by Google from Chinese: 209PK bogie (P stands for disc brake; K stands for air spring), equipped with labyrinth axle box, elastic positioning sleeve and positioning box positioning device; lateral oil pressure shock absorber is installed between the upper part of the bolster and the frame. The second spring is an air spring to adapt to th
I’ve pulled out a book I picked up in China in August 1980. This is basically a Chinese version of the “Carbuilder’s Cyclopedia” and provides a lot of detail on every aspect of freight and passenger rollingstock.
The truck under the early 25 series coaches was type KZ2. This is most easily described as the equivalent of the familiar light weight truck under the Amfleet cars, except that it has outside frames and bearings. The primary suspension was not, as I recalled swing arms and coils, but rubber pads in compression inside cylindrical guides. These are offset, with the outer pads above the axle centre and the inner pads below the axle centre. The secondary suspension is air bags spaced widely outside the wheels. Traction rods are provided between the bolster and the frame, but a conventional pivot centre is shown between the truck frame and the bolster. The wheels are 840mm diameter and the wheelbase is 2200mm.
Considerable detail is provided on the standard trucks used on the Type 22 vehicles.
The first type is the 201, generally similar to the more common 202 but fitted with full elliptic secondary springing rather than the coils with damper on the 202.
The 201 dates from 1956 and was used on the oldest RW 22 (First class sleeping) cars, being replaced by 202s on later production. The pedestal primary suspension seems to be based on Swiss Schlieren designs from the mid 1930s. The type 201 had twin self aligning spherical roller bearings in each axlebox (like those made by SKF) The bolster swing hangers were located inside the truck frames.
The 202 had the swing hangers moved outward to below the truck frames, and some additional friction damping was provided inside the primary coil spring nests. As mentioned, secondary suspension was provided with coil nests and a hydraulic damper in place of the full elliptic springing. The 202 was used on YZ 22 and YW 22 cars (economy sitting and sleeping), RZ 22 and RW 22 (First sitting and sleeping). The h
A YZ21 (Built in 1953 to 60), the original truck reminds me off PRR 2DP5 truck.
I don’t see the photo of the YZ 21. Could you check the link?
The YZ 21 is a development of the South Manchurian standard passenger cars. The truck design is known as Type 101 in the Chinese system and appears to be a direct copy of a 1920s era USA two axle passenger car truck. Incidentally, this type of truck is known as the “Pennsylvania” type in France. Variations were used on Wagon Lits sleeping and dining cars, including most of those on the Venice Simplon Orient Express today.
Peter
Thank you, Peter. This is the Pic of the YZ21:
The truck also reminds me of MILW’s “homemade trucks” used on the early Hiawatha :
Well, I can now see the YZ 21.
To return to the Chinese standard trucks:
It appears that the 202 had a heavy duty version , the 205.
A modified version appeared as the types 206 and 207. This had longer travel secondary coil srings and longer swing arms. To acheive this, the truck frame was notched at the bolster to allow the bolster to project over and beyond the frame, with the swing hangers attached to brackets on the outside of the frame. Of course the notches in the frame were a weakness and a source of fatigue failure.
So a modified version, types 208 and 209 was developed. This retained the original frame shape of the 202 and 205, but had a complex bolster shape that projected under the frame but joggled up to above the frame top to allow the use of the long travel bolster springs and long externally attached swing links.
As at 1980, none of these trucks had external dampers on the primary suspension. I guess air secondary suspension was added to the 209 version used on the 25K cars.
Peter
The Milwaukee and Carl Nystrom in particular did a lot of interesting work on high speed trucks. The later design attached the bearings to what had been the equalising beam and removed the axlebox guides. The lower assembly was located by traction rods. This was thought very highly of in France where it was known as the “Milwaukee” bogie.
Developments of this truck were used on the Mistral and Capitole trains which were regularly run at 125 miles an hour. Having tried these trains and the TGV sets at slightly higher speeds, I’d go with a slower journey on the much more comfortable and well equipped conventional trains. It was like comparing a ride in a Bentley with a very fast bus.
Peter
It is such an amazing thing that an early 30s design from MILW affected the design of TEE of France 30 years later! I note that Mistral’s passenger car trucks were changed to a much complicate design, I guess it was because the older design unable to provide a better ride quality at high speed!
Venice-Simplon Ori
One important recognized issue with Nystrom’s development was that high-speed trucks rode smoothly at ‘design’ high speed, but not nearly so well at lower speeds or over less perfect trackwork. At the time I believe Nystrom said this was inherent in the physics of high-speed car design.
It’s interesting to compare priorities in the current high-speed trucks that stress reduction of unsprung mass, and the last generations of outside-spring-hanger equalized trucks (such as the one John White illustrated from one of the last New Haven orders in The American Passenger Car v.2).
I am still not quite certain how the beam-equalized trucks under the NYC jet RDC ran adequately for 183 safe mph, without a great deal of stuff being done to them. Or how one gets the GSC trucks under the Metroliners to run reliably at anticipated speeds without knocking track mechanics like crazy. (Or why the first-generation Waggon Union trucks on Superliners had so many weird issues…)
Photographs of models are more readily obtained today. They may not always be accurate or show a particular time period.
The Mistral car does show one of the derivatives of the Milwaukee bogies as discussed. This is one of the earlier “Mistral 1956” cars wheras I was referring to the later “Mistral 1969” cars that I had travelled on in 1974. I think the basic design of truck was the same, although the later cars were allowed 200 km/h while the earlier cars were limited to 160 km/h. Both types were air conditioned. I travelled from Strasbourg to Paris on a TEE which had both PBA 1964 and Mistral 1956 cars owing to heavy traffic. The PBA 1964 cars were generally similar to the Mistral 1969 cars. We ended up in a non -TEE car, a stainless steel A9 fitted with pressure ventilation (and a thin red stripe above the windows). I took advantage of the trip to walk through the train and compare the different accommodation provided.
I don’t recall any problems with riding at any speed with the Milwaukee derived bogies, although the French track was pretty good on those routes that allowed 200km/h.
Indeed the VSOE has changed the bogies, from the Pennsylvania type to a design seen on the SNCF Corail cars and the Eurofima standard UIC-Z cars. I think the models above represent cars owned by the Italian railways after the CIWL fleet was split up between the state railways.
Peter
Let me take a wild guess. (since it’s free [:P]) The Truck design for high speed train in the past didn’t have the ability to adjusts the softness or hardness of the suspension components, like the air bag, mechanically. Thus it remains in a harder state even running on lower speed or on the tracks for lower speed. Like some automobile, driver could adjust the suspensions hardness when he wants to “step on it”…
[quote user=“Overmod”]
It’s interesting tocompare priorities in the current high-speed trucks that stress reduction of unsprung mass, and the last generations of outside-spring-hanger equalized trucks (such as the one John White illustrated from one of the last New Haven orders in The American Passenger Car v.2).