Steam engine drive wheels

[Modelcar]

....Yes and the faster it goes it looks like it would do it quicker...! I just can't imagine how the bearings and journals holding heavy side rods stand the loading when an engine is at speed. What a tremendous amount of energy trying to effect it to fly apart.

[jchnhtfd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar

....Yes and the faster it goes it looks like it would do it quicker...! I just can't imagine how the bearings and journals holding heavy side rods stand the loading when an engine is at speed. What a tremendous amount of energy trying to effect it to fly apart.

And yet hold together they did[8D], mile after mile after thousands of miles. One of the really great triumphs of Man the Builder[:)]. A great testament to the men who designed them, who built them, and who ran them. Other than sailing ships (I don't mean yachts), I can't think of anything else quite on that plane.

[Modelcar]

....And just think of the oiling system on some of the units...Done manually with an oversized oil can. Something as important as journal bearings to keep all that heavy stuff rotating and not freeze up and fail...was at the mercy of being lubed by someone remembering to do it....Not automatically...!

[kenneo]

Once in a while the main rod would come off a 4-6-0 and come up through the cab. Ten-wheelers with the firebox dropped between the middle and rear drive axels were very prone to this. The rod that did this was the one between the 2nd and 3rd axel and sometimes it would be a bearing failure and at other times the rod would simply break. Eventually this got fixed, but it was bearing related.