Happy New Years!

I am looking for a source of information that will give me the
appropriate freight truck types that were in use from 1900 thru
1941. Can anyone help me?

Tom Makofski

NorthEastern Wisconsin Free-mo
Total Membership of 5 and Growing!

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Railroad Prototype Cyclopedia No. 4 is a great resource for freight car
trucks for in that time frame. Unfortunately it is sold out at the
publisher. They may be some left at various hobby shops thatothers may know
of. Publishers website is below.

http://www.geocities.com/rpcyc/home.html

Brian J Carlson P.E.
Cheektowaga NY

On Jan 1, 2008, at 4:06 PM, Tom Makofski wrote:

I am looking for a source of information that will give me the
appropriate freight truck types that were in use from 1900 thru
1941. Can anyone help me?

I can give you a quick and dirty answer, Tom. For more detail, see my
article in Railroad Prototype Cyclopedia #4.

By far the largest number of freight cars on the North American
railroads around the turn of the century rolled on one version or
another of the diamond arch bar truck. Typically, turn-of-the-century
arch bars had 5'6" wheelbase, but some shorter wheelbase trucks from
the 19th century were still in service. Arch bars continued to be
applied to new cars, though in diminishing numbers, even into
them1920s, but were banned in interchange in 1941 because their bolted
side frames tended to loosen up and fall apart.

Around the turn of the 20th century some RRs adopted pressed steel
pedestal-journal type trucks, the Fox truck being the most widely used
of several similar designs. But there weren't many of them to start
with and most of those were replaced in the 1920s when it turned out
that the journal boxes were prone to sticking in the pedestal jaws.
Few lasted into the 1930s.

Also around the turn of the century several different types of trucks
with one piece cast steel side frames began to appear. The most common
was the Andrews design with separate bolted-in journal boxes, first
with L-section side frames and later with U-section side frames;
U-section Andrews were applied to all of the thousands of USRA standard
freight cars built during the World War I period. Less common but
widely used on some RRs were Vulcan trucks, which also had separate
journal boxes bolted in to pedestal jaws; as with the Andrews trucks,
early Vulcans had L-section side frames, later ones U-section. The
first trucks which had journal boxes integral with the side frames were
Bettendorf T-section, which also first appears around the turn of the
century and were widely used by some car owners (e.g., NYC, SP/T&NO,
PFE, DL&W). Most of the cars that had them kept them through the
1930s, though they were often replaced after WW II.

Cracking problems at stress points on the Bettendorf T-section side
frames led to the development of U-section side frames in the 1920s,
and at about the same time some trucks initially developed by the
Pennsylvania RR influenced the development of ARA standard trucks which
had integral journal boxes and U-section side frames. Similar trucks,
all with spring planks, were made by all of the major truck
manufacturers in the 1920s and '30s, and increasingly they were used
instead of earlier designs on new freight cars. Riding problems, which
became more problematic as car weights and train speeds increased, led
to a search for better riding freight car trucks, and one result was
the Dalman truck, basically an ARA truck with more and softer springs.
Dalman two-level trucks were widely used in the mid-to-late 1920s, and
the Dalman one-level truck enjoyed some brief popularity in the early
1920s. The Pennsylvania RR and some truck manufacturers approached the
problem from a different direction by using a combination of coil and
elliptical leaf springs (the leaf springs being self-damping) in
otherwise standard ARA type trucks. Another development to improve
riding qualities which was widely used in the 1920s and '30s was the
Barber lateral motion device, inserted between the bolsters and
springs, which provided limited self-centering lateral compliance.

The 1930s introduced several more sophisticated truck improvements, all
applied to what were otherwise essentially standard ARA designs.
National Type B trucks came along in the early 1930s and were widely
used on some RRs. Later in the decade the Barber Stabilized truck used
spring-loaded friction snubbers to control excessive oscillation. The
same basic principle was later adopted in the ASF A-3 "Ride Control"
truck and in similar trucks made by other manufacturers, but WW II
delayed the introduction of those designs until the mid-1940s.

In the early 1930s all of the truck manufacturers combined forces to
improve on the basic ARA design, and what resulted was a self-aligning
spring-plankless design which, though similar in appearance, rapidly
began to replace ARA trucks with spring planks (some of the latter
continued to be made through the 1940s, however). Most of the
(incorrectly) so-called Bettendorf trucks in HO scale actually
represent self-aligning spring-plankless ARA-type trucks. Another
improvement for added strength was the double truss side frame in which
the lower chords, instead of being U-section, were boxed in and had a
shallow strengthening rib extending down onto the spring seat.

Hope this helps.

Richard Hendrickson

Thanks guys. . . guess I'll be hunting for a copy of Railroad Prototype
Cyclopedia #4!

Tom

I devote a chapter to freight car trucks in my new book, Coal Cars: The
First Three Hundred Years, which has just been released.

Bob Karig

--- In STMFC@..., Richard Hendrickson <rhendrickson@...>
wrote:
Richard,
Thanks for your typically thorough answer. I have the RPCYC issue
with your article and have studied the pictures and text but I'm
still not sure what is meant by the term "spring plankless". What is
a spring plank and what was it's purpose? From your response below,
it seems somehow related to bolster/sideframe alignment and lateral
stability? I can understand why this was a concern but how did spring
planks address it? Can you please elaborate?

Thanks,
Tony Higgins


<<snip>>

In the early 1930s all of the truck manufacturers combined forces

to

improve on the basic ARA design, and what resulted was a self-

aligning

spring-plankless design which, though similar in appearance,

rapidly

began to replace ARA trucks with spring planks (some of the latter
continued to be made through the 1940s, however). Most of the
(incorrectly) so-called Bettendorf trucks in HO scale actually
represent self-aligning spring-plankless ARA-type trucks. Another
improvement for added strength was the double truss side frame in

which

the lower chords, instead of being U-section, were boxed in and had

a

shallow strengthening rib extending down onto the spring seat.

Hope this helps.

Richard Hendrickson


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I think there was a typo in Richard's response.

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

Dalman two-level trucks were widely used in the mid-to-late 1920s,

and

the Dalman one-level truck enjoyed some brief popularity in the early
1920s.

The Dalman one-level truck actually succeeded the two-level design
(which wasn't called a two-level until the introduction of the one-
level).
Production dates for the Dalman one-level truck, that I know of,
covered 1929 to 1931.

Brian Leppert
Tahoe Model Works
Carson City, NV

The spring plank was used to hold the two side frames together. It ran between the two side frames beneath the bolster. The springs sat on the spring plank and the bolster sat on top of the springs. The bolster rode up and down on the springs and was held in place by the column guides.

With spring plankless trucks, the spring plank was removed and the column guide/bolster interface was designed to hold the trucks in alignment in much the same way that scale trucks are held in alignment.

One of the problems with the spring plank was that it held the two side frames too rigidly together. The twisting stress on the truck as it entered turns caused the joint to loosen and allow the trucks to move out of alignment. With the spring plankless/self aligning truck, the truck was allowed to flex going into a turn and return to its normal alignment on straight track.

Bob Karig

Tony Higgins wrote:

I have the RPCYC issue with your article and have studied the pictures and text but I'm still not sure what is meant by the term "spring plankless". What is a spring plank and what was it's purpose? From your response below, it seems somehow related to bolster/sideframe alignment and lateral stability? I can understand why this was a concern but how did spring planks address it? Can you please elaborate?

Tony, Richard is on his way to Cocoa Beach today and won't be replying, but I'll see if I can help. The spring plank was under the springs and ran across between the two sideframes, providing a second transverse connection in addition to the bolster. You can imagine how this helped keep the truck "square" -- and originally it really was a wooden plank. They became steel channels early in the 20th century.
When well-designed and machined sideframe-bolster connections came into use, constraining the sideframe movement to a vertical plane, the spring plank was no longer needed and could be dispensed with.

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

--- In STMFC@..., "Tony Higgins" <earthman92853@...> wrote:

...What is
a spring plank and what was it's purpose? From your response below,
it seems somehow related to bolster/sideframe alignment and lateral
stability? I can understand why this was a concern but how did spring
planks address it? Can you please elaborate?

Thanks,
Tony Higgins

The spring plank is/was a channel section that runs between the bottom
of the side frames, each end located directly under the spring seats.
These were sometimes made from structural channel, sometimes from a
steel pressing, and were originally a wooden plank, thus the name.

In the old time swing motion trucks this plank actually hung free of
the truck frame and held the springs the bolster was supported by.
When swing motion freightcar trucks fell out of favor (too much
complexity, too many wear points) the spring plank was retained with
so called rigid frame trucks, which is what almost all cast sideframe
freight trucks are. The purpose for retaining the spring plank was to
keep the bottoms of the sideframes in line. However, improvements to
the form and fit of the gibs that hold the bolster in the sideframes
made the spring plank unnecessary, and the use was dropped shortly
before WWII again to reduce weight and complexity.

Most one piece model trucks don't attempt to model the spring plank
between the sideframes, due to the complexity it would cause to the
part. Typically, only the ends are modeled where they show under the
springs on the outside of the sideframe; both the Accurail
"Bettendorf" and Andrews trucks have this detail. One could, of
course, fit the spring plank between the sideframes, but then getting
to the truck screw would be problematic.

Dennis

FYI,
IN "O" scale 5 out of 6 truck styles I have built have spring
planks.
Rich Yoder
7 Edgedale Court
Wyomissing PA 19610-1913
610-678-2834 after 6:00PM est until 10:00PM
www.richyodermodels.com