On Nov 23, 2007, at 11:35 AM, Dan Gledhill wrote:

Would anyone on this site know just exactly what was entailed when a
railroad serviced a car and stenciled on the REPKD.plus date ,location
and road abr.name?Most early stm.era truck journals used oil for lube
with some form of cotton waste material to transfer the oil and wipe
it on the journals,so where does the" repacked "come into it.Were
journals checked routinely on cars from foreign roads and how and when
would this be done.Obviously the early style brasses would have needed
much more attention than todays fit it and forget it roller
bearings.So how was this managed for a car that was 3000 miles from
it's home road?

In the 1950s, various types of patented journal lubricating devices
began to appear, and the use of these became widespread in the 1960s.
Prior to that, however, journal lubrication was accomplished exactly as
Dan describes. Periodically (typically, about once a year) the cotton
waste would pack down and deteriorate to the point where it needed to
be replaced, and the carmen who inspected and lubricated journals would
remove the old stuff, put in new stuff, and fill the lower part of the
journal box with oil. The old repacking data on the car would then be
painted over and new data stenciled on.

Richard Hendrickson