Looking into roller bearing history, Timken was selling roller bearings for horse-drawn equipment in 1893. Their bearings were incorporated into automobiles quite early, and into machine tools before World War I. (Timken began to call their product an "anti-friction" bearing around 1910.) It is an indication of the conservatism of railroad mechanical people that railroad applications came as late as they did.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history