Finsishing up an article for the November-December issue of The B&O
Modeler on Class W-1 and subclass hoppers and came across some odd
trucks. I've uploaded a detail photo in the STMFC files section
titled "B&O 334344 Class W-1A Truck Detail.JPG":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/files

Anyone know the type of this truck? Thanks in advance!


Ben Hom

On Dec 6, 2006, at 3:16 PM, benjaminfrank_hom wrote:

Finsishing up an article for the November-December issue of The B&O
Modeler on Class W-1 and subclass hoppers and came across some odd
trucks. I've uploaded a detail photo in the STMFC files section
titled "B&O 334344 Class W-1A Truck Detail.JPG":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/files

Anyone know the type of this truck? Thanks in advance!

Ben, it's an arch bar truck with a Pilcher trussed side frame. See the 1922 Car Builders' Cyclopedia, p. 628.

Richard Hendrickson

I would defer to Richard on his truck identification here.


Yet B&O also had some proprietary truck designs that research is only
starting to uncover. Examples would be the Washburn truck and the
Tatum XLT truck. Until recently, they looked like plain old
archbars to everyone.

B&O also was nuts about recycling trucks (and other hardware) in
their rebuilding and new construction programs. So trucks out of era
would show up on B&O cars. Examples: the M-26 (plain) boxcars
inherited Tatum XLT trucks from scrapped hopper cars. O-41 gondola
cars (I think, I'm winging it here) got BR&P trucks. The surviving
gondola off the West Virginia northern stored at Tunnelton, WV is an
example of this.














--- In STMFC@..., Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...>
wrote:

On Dec 6, 2006, at 3:16 PM, benjaminfrank_hom wrote:

Finsishing up an article for the November-December issue of The

B&O

Modeler on Class W-1 and subclass hoppers and came across some odd
trucks. I've uploaded a detail photo in the STMFC files section
titled "B&O 334344 Class W-1A Truck Detail.JPG":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/files

Anyone know the type of this truck? Thanks in advance!

Ben, it's an arch bar truck with a Pilcher trussed side frame. See

the

1922 Car Builders' Cyclopedia, p. 628.

Richard Hendrickson

--- In STMFC@..., Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...>
wrote:

On Dec 6, 2006, at 3:16 PM, benjaminfrank_hom wrote:

Finsishing up an article for the November-December issue of The B&O
Modeler on Class W-1 and subclass hoppers and came across some odd
trucks. I've uploaded a detail photo in the STMFC files section
titled "B&O 334344 Class W-1A Truck Detail.JPG":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/files

Anyone know the type of this truck? Thanks in advance!

Ben, it's an arch bar truck with a Pilcher trussed side frame. See the
1922 Car Builders' Cyclopedia, p. 628.

Richard Hendrickson

Richard,

I don't have that CBC to compare the photos, but according to an
article in Railway Age (April 12, 1924) it describes the use of arch
bar trucks designed by Edwin C. Washburn, assistant to the president
of the B&O. The trucks were placed on new cars ordered in 1922 with
capacities of 40-ton, 55-ton and 70-ton. The class W-1a were rebuilt
by various car builders ~1922 for the B&O so there is a high
probability that the trucks used were of this Washburn design. The
illustrations of the side frame in the RA article appear very similar
to the one in the photo posted by Ben.

Bob Witt
Indianapolis, Indiana

On Dec 9, 2006, at 6:19 PM, rwitt_2000 wrote:

I don't have that CBC to compare the photos, but according to an
article in Railway Age (April 12, 1924) it describes the use of arch
bar trucks designed by Edwin C. Washburn, assistant to the president
of the B&O. The trucks were placed on new cars ordered in 1922 with
capacities of 40-ton, 55-ton and 70-ton. The class W-1a were rebuilt
by various car builders ~1922 for the B&O so there is a high
probability that the trucks used were of this Washburn design. The
illustrations of the side frame in the RA article appear very similar
to the one in the photo posted by Ben.

Bob, there is a drawing of the Washburn truck side frame in the 1928
Car Builders' Cyclopedia, as well as a photo of a very similar truck
identified as a "Tatum XLT Improved Arch Bar Truck Used on the
Baltimore & Ohio." Neither is the truck shown in Ben Hom's photo.
I'll stick with my original identification of the truck on the W-1a;
it's unmistakably a Pilcher arch bar truck. I will add that the B&O
was well known (one might even say notorious) for its determination
during the 1920s to keep using arch bar trucks of one design or another
at a time when virtually every other RR in North America was converting
to cast steel side frames. None of the improvements that originated in
the B&O's mechanical department overcame the basic weakness of the arch
bar design, which was that the nuts and bolts holding it together
tended to loosen or fail unless the trucks received regular and
frequent preventive maintenance – which, of course, couldn't be assured
on cars that traveled widely off-line in interchange service and might
not come back through the owner's shops for literally years.

Richard Hendrickson

In a message dated 12/10/2006 8:31:30 PM Central Standard Time,
rmwitt@... writes:

We have yet to find a company memo explaining and/or justifying the
expenditures to replace all those arch bar trucks.

Bob,

The justification for expenditures to replace all those arch bar trucks was
to conform with the AAR's ban on arch bar side frames in interchange (July 1,
1940).

Regards,

Guy Wilber
West Bend, WI

--- In STMFC@..., Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...>
wrote:

On Dec 9, 2006, at 6:19 PM, rwitt_2000 wrote:

I don't have that CBC to compare the photos, but according to an
article in Railway Age (April 12, 1924) it describes the use of arch
bar trucks designed by Edwin C. Washburn, assistant to the president
of the B&O. The trucks were placed on new cars ordered in 1922 with
capacities of 40-ton, 55-ton and 70-ton. The class W-1a were rebuilt
by various car builders ~1922 for the B&O so there is a high
probability that the trucks used were of this Washburn design. The
illustrations of the side frame in the RA article appear very similar
to the one in the photo posted by Ben.

Bob, there is a drawing of the Washburn truck side frame in the 1928
Car Builders' Cyclopedia, as well as a photo of a very similar truck
identified as a "Tatum XLT Improved Arch Bar Truck Used on the
Baltimore & Ohio." Neither is the truck shown in Ben Hom's photo.
I'll stick with my original identification of the truck on the W-1a;
it's unmistakably a Pilcher arch bar truck. I will add that the B&O
was well known (one might even say notorious) for its determination
during the 1920s to keep using arch bar trucks of one design or another
at a time when virtually every other RR in North America was converting
to cast steel side frames. None of the improvements that originated in
the B&O's mechanical department overcame the basic weakness of the arch
bar design, which was that the nuts and bolts holding it together
tended to loosen or fail unless the trucks received regular and
frequent preventive maintenance – which, of course, couldn't be assured
on cars that traveled widely off-line in interchange service and might
not come back through the owner's shops for literally years.

Richard Hendrickson

Richard, thank you for sharing your source material and noting the
differences in these truck designs. Yes, the B&O with Washburn and
Tatum tried to keep the arch bar truck alive. We have yet to find a
company memo explaining and/or justifying the expenditures to replace
all those arch bar trucks.

Bob Witt

Indianapolis, Indiana