journal boxes and the yellow dog line..

[cabforward]

**of course, journal boxes went out with tv sets with no remote, but why are the wheels/axles on pass. trains different than freight? journal boxes were an obvious feature on cars; now roller bearings spin on the axle-end.. pass. wheels show a different configuration--the wheel, without anything that looks like something on the axle-end..

anybody remember the yellow dog line in miss?
i think it was where the sou crossed either the ic or gmo, or another r.r...
would like more info on the subject..

also, years ago, freight cars had stenciling for computer scanning of the car #.. it was a black painted square with coding like upc scanners in stores.. maybe the coding was in colored bars.. it looked like it was applied after the car was in service, as an upgrade to a new system..
haven't seen it lately.. was there an improvement from the car code stencils to something else?

[edblysard]

Hi Train,
Journal boxs used brass bearings, with a wick to lube the bearing from the box reservoir. Often mislabled as friction bearings, they were really sinctered babbit bearings, slightly tapered in. As to passenger cars today, they have roller bearings, but on the inside of the wheel, due in part to the design and width of the trucks. The lable you speak of was just that, a laser scanner read it, but with the amount of dirt a car gets on it, after a few months of service its so dirty the scanner cant read it. Whats used now days is the AEI system. Automated Eletronic Information. Ever wonder what thoses little gray rectangles at chest hight on the sides of cars and locomotives was? Its a small transponder, activated by a weak raido signal from a scanner, the tall tapered box at the edge of tracks in yards. The scanner sends out a weak raido/microwave signal, and when the AEI tag gets within ten feet or so, it responds with the cars reporting marks. Because it uses part of the "power" generated by the scanners radio/microwave signal to respond, the AEI tags requires no power source of its own, no battries and such. It requires no maintainance, except to be replaced when the tag get knocked off. You still see some of the barcode lables on older cars, and their still as filthy and impossable to read as they were at the beginning.
With todays technology, and the lessening cost of eletronics, some cars, new reefers in paticular, now have a simple GPS system. Some newer locomotives have it also, to inform the mechanical dept of fuel use, engine performance, diagnioses of engine problems, and scheduled maintainance.
Ed