Barber High Speed Trucks in HO?

[gmpullman]

Hello, All

I have been going over my roster of New York Central Pacemaker box cars, weeding some out, renumbering some duplicates and generally giving the fleet an upgrade.

While sorting through some photos of the variations of the cars in service I came across some photos of the cars equipped with what appear to be a Barber High Speed truck:

NYC_Pacemaker-crop by Edmund, on Flickr

I'd like to change out some of the trucks under my Pacemaker cars with these for a little added variety.

Does anyone know of their availability in HO?

Thanks, Ed

[BigDaddy]

They are listed in the KD catalog

https://www.kadee.com/htmbord/truck.htm

[wp8thsub]

BigDaddy

They are listed in the KD catalog

Nope.  Kadee has more typical Barber S-2 trucks of other designs, but not the high speed trucks.

[dknelson]

The old Red Ball line had Barber stabilized timkin trucks which were somewhat similar looking but had roller bearings rather than solid bearings.  Not available for years of course. 

Intermountain has or had the somewhat similar looking Symington high speed trucks.

Dave Nelson

 

[doctorwayne]

gmpullman

While sorting through some photos of the variations of the cars in service I came across some photos of the cars equipped with what appear to be a Barber High Speed truck:

At first glance, I mistook those for a version of Allied Full-Cushion trucks, but a quick check revealed my error.

I'm curious as to what constitutes a "high speed" truck.  The car in the photo below started life as a regular 1924-design  X-29 boxcar, but it was later re-built (I checked underneath the car, and the frame was not the 1924  version) and further modified for express service.  This included steam and signal lines, an enhanced package of sill steps and grabirons, quick action braking system, along with "high speed trucks with locking centre pins"....

  (The latter quote is from a description of the car's features given by the GM of the shortline owning the car, at that time in-service providing HEP power for a tourist train.)  Whle the trucks are obscured in the shadows, their appearance in no discernable way differed from those on an ordinary freight car.

After a little searching, I came across this site, and if you scroll down to page 3-4, there are a couple of interesting drawings of trucks, shall we say, "behaving badly" at high speeds.

The article goes on at some length, and eventually seems to wander off topic somewhat, but I found those drawings (and the conclusions drawn from them) rather interesting.

I also found photos of U.P. boxcars in express service, one a 40' doubledoor boxcar with Symington-Gould double truss high speed trucks with roller bearings.  They appear quite similar to those in Ed's photo, except, of course, for the bearings, and minor differences in the shape of the sideframes.

There were also lots of 50' wood reefers in express service, all with four-wheel trucks with drop equalisers, similar to those used under smaller passenger cars.

Wayne

 

[gmpullman]

Thank you, everyone, for the great suggestions and research.

Thanks to Dave's suggestion and another from a member via PM, I decided to look at the Symington truck which I had on-hand from an Intermountain Milk Refrigerator car I have.

NYC_Pacemaker-XMc by Edmund, on Flickr

Until a decent Barber High speed truck is manufactured (perhaps not in my lifetime?) A few of these will make a pretty good stand-in.

NYC_Pacemaker-XM by Edmund, on Flickr

doctorwayne

After a little searching, I came across this site, and if you scroll down to page 3-4, there are a couple of interesting drawings of trucks, shall we say, "behaving badly" at high speeds.

Thank you for that link, Wayne. I will refer back to it as there is some very good information there. I have a few photos of Pacemaker cars with an ordinary Bettendorf-style truck but with an addition of a "shock-absorber" like snubber attached between the bolster and the sideframe. Some railroads installed one or more leaf springs or other snubber type spring packages I presume to reduce the bounce that seems prevalent at higher speeds.

I did consider the Allied Full Cushion truck for a moment, then backed away as they are just too distinctive and easily spotted as "incorrect".

The Fall 2018, Classic Trains magazine has a short article on the special research train that American Steel Foundries (as in ASF Ride Control) used to study train dynamics at speed. One of the "Rolling Laboratory" cars had openings in the floor so engineers could study the properties of running gear first-hand.

I've got about 40 or so Pacemaker box cars of different eras, manufacturers and paint variations on my roster so I was simply looking for one more way to add a little variety to the fleet. The Symington trucks work well, with a little underframe trimming (?) so I can have a nearly-prototypical fleet.

Thanks again, Folks.

Regards, Ed

[SPSOT fan]

Those trucks look fine to me, I honestly can’t see how the prototype differed from those fptrucks you’ve got on the model, and I usually spot that kind of stuff pretty quick. I would go so far as to say you may not really need to replace them someday, they look fine to me just as they are!

[gmpullman]

SPSOT fan

Those trucks look fine to me,

Thanks, yes I agree they are very close. Again I'm just looking for some "plausible" variety here.

Thanks again, Ed

[Digitalfreight]

@gmpullman  I know this post is a couple of years old, but I've been working diligently to produce a comprehensive table containing HO scale freight trucks current and past in order to identify and find plausible replicas for HO models.  As noted the Intermountain 'Symington' Truck under their express cars is a close match.  Two other alternatives if you're in desperate need. Here's a comparison photo from my database: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnQGfXsAb08ehY80kfWIeJEBkqlWPw

I think the truck's formal identity is a Barber S-2-P.  I don't know if P is for passenger, but my guess is that it is because of course the passenger trains towed along many of the express cars.  But there is a similar truck that was tested in 1939 by the A.A.R. called the Barber S-1.  Here is a picture from their report: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnQGfXsAb08ehY8zle9dnoyjgG2yuQ 

Besides the Intermountain truck, the two that match pictured above, are a brass truck imported by Beaver Creek Model Co under their UP express cars, and a less detailed truck that is available in a "sprung" version by TMR distributing of Canada or directly from Precision Scale #32030. 

Here is an updated link to the whole freight truck database (a work in progress), enjoy.

HO SCALE FREIGHT CAR TRUCKS 2.docx 

[Digitalfreight]

gmpullman

Hello, All

I have been going over my roster of New York Central Pacemaker box cars, weeding some out, renumbering some duplicates and generally giving the fleet an upgrade.

While sorting through some photos of the variations of the cars in service I came across some photos of the cars equipped with what appear to be a Barber High Speed truck:

NYC_Pacemaker-crop by Edmund, on Flickr

I'd like to change out some of the trucks under my Pacemaker cars with these for a little added variety.

Does anyone know of their availability in HO?

Thanks, Ed

 

I had identified these as a Barber S-2-P and speculated that the P stood for passenger (express) trucks.  Not true, according to Railway Age, Dec. 18th 1948 pg 59 the S-1-L-P, which looks like the same truck we're talking about, has the same dampening components as the Barber S-2 or S-1 presumably.  It's the pedestal, or sideframe, that is different.  And that may actually be produced by Symington, since Intermountain and Precision Scale identified them as such.

[NHTX]

     There is/was a firm by the name of Tahoe Model Works that produced an extensive line of HO freight car trucks from the steam era.  They never had a web site and if my memory serves me correctly, their product line could be accessed through the Sunshine Models site.  Unfortunately, Sunshine has been a victim of the passage of time, since the passage of time caught up with them.

      I am not an e-Bay customer but, a lot of Tahoe trucks seem to be available there, and maybe they have the trucks in question.  Good luck!

[doctorwayne]

Tahoe Model Works

is alive and well.

I've bought several of their nicely-done freight trucks, although they don't show anything similar to those in Ed's first photo of the Pacemaker boxcar.

Wayne

[gmpullman]

Thanks for the updates here, everyone.

I need to contact Intermountain for some spare parts and when I do I'll ask about the trucks they used on their express cars.

At last count I have 45 Pacemaker box cars from I-M, Trix and a few MTH. I weeded out all the Blue-Box Athearns that were on the roster.

Some of them got a little weathering:

NYC_Pacemaker-weathered by Edmund, on Flickr

I've seen some pretty rough ones in my time but these lasted into the '70s. The examples above are about the "roughest" looking ones out of the bunch.

Cheers, Ed