I took a photo of an old truck that has been sitting behind our diesel shop for a good while...
Now, she can see the bolster cup and pin that holds the truck in place.
The square looking channels out towards the end of the bolster are the pockets for the side bearings...
And a photo of an axel bearing...Mookie, the only thing that hold this in the truck is gravity...the weight of the car is enough to keep the wheel set in place, and the car on the truck.
There are a pair of bearing caps, the wedge looking things on top of the bearing, you would see if the wheels set was installed, but all they do is hold the bearing in alignment and keep the outer race of the bearing from spinning.
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Thanks muchly for the pics, Ed.
Many of us never never get an opportunity to see such things. Or have them explained to us.
Ed
Roller bearing adapters.(the old friction type had wedges in them )
You were close.
Ed - this is great! I almost missed it since I am gone over the weekend and the pages just roll along! And like you said about the coupler - it is simple and it works well!
Mook
She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw
The wedge thingies...with a white box that was supposed to have the words "wedge thingie" in it...oh well, I will have to get my 13 years old to show me, again, how to make that work...
But these, and the weight of the car are all that hold the axel ends and bearings in the sideframe.
Can snubbers be far behind?
"Wedge thingy" is so much more descriptive than "wheel journal adapter"....
Axel snubbers...see, I knew there was a name for them...
edblysard wrote: Axle snubbers...
Actually, I think axel snubbers are people who don't like figure skating...
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Dyslexia strikes again...
You know what Radar spelled backwards is...right?
Only if you're ex YVAN!!!!!
ARMY always gets it right.
Being Crazy,keeps you from going "INSANE" !! "The light at the end of the tunnel,has been turned off due to budget cuts" NOT AFRAID A Vet., and PROUD OF IT!!
You people are tempting me to open up the "yellow thingies" again..... (has anyone noticed they are not as visible as they once were. Do you suppose the railroads took them off after the forum fiasco?)
Those wedgies/snubbers are what's known as wrench-thingies. They look like adjustable wrenches........well, don't they?
Sorry Mooks, snubbers are more like shock absorber thingies.
Randy Stahl will be along shortly to put us all in timeout or send us to our respective rooms.... The official NFL roller bearing jokes will follow shortly.
Mookie..
Take a good look at the old BN emblem.
If you look at it sideways, its two monkey wrenches facing each other..
No, really, it is!
Dan
Yes, Ed's pictures sure show how it all works. I'd known that only gravity was involved in the car and trucks staying together; that's the clue that the car hanging off the track with the bridge washed away is a model - the truck is hanging up there with the car.
But I had always thought the pin was part of the car as in most models; the picture sure shows otherwise.
And I like Ed's way with words and his expressive vocabulary:wedge thingies. Very descriptive.
And this is a good a place as any to mention that his way of words was noticed by TRAINS, the mag, last month. After reading "Read the Rules" in the Railroad Reading section, I thought I recognized the author's name, Ed Blysard. Really enjoyed the prose and the lesson that it chronicled! Always save the best for last, and I barely got to the end before this month's issue arrived! Good work, Ed.
Art
Thank you, Art.
When I first hired out, I was amazed at how really simple a lot of the equipment is.
Crude, over sized, and heavy, when I was expecting a little more refinement in certain areas...but the longer I work with this stuff, the more the KISS principle makes sense.
Everything is designed so that repair is easy and simple, requires few tools beyond those that exert brute force, and most of the work requires no extensive training beyond teaching the shop crews safe work habits.
Take the truck show here.
Three contact points, the bolster cup and center pin, and two outrigger bearing surfaces.
No need for any more refinement, because as a trainmaster once pointed out to me, if you run over anything big enough to make this much weight get airborne, you are already in a train wreck!
--David
You say that to be a Carman it does not take much.
Its a 4 year course.A carman is a welder, fabricator,plumber,carpenter,AAR biller,etc.Also were the ones who operate the large cranes on train derailment after the road crew screws up and were called in the clean it up.We are also trained to run locomotives to switch the repair tracks(remote or 2 man crew )And yes we work outside with what ever mother nature brings us that day.I have worked in -70 to 120 degree weather ( comes with the job )
Sure the runnig trade does a pullby inspection but a carman can see and hear things that the running trades cant.
Most of the running trades workers went to that line of work because the could not cut it
in the mech dept.
Note that in the CN derailment photo that Datafever posted 3/1/07 there is a very good view of the railcar end of the truck pin/basket arrangement. See:
http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/1054082/ShowPost.aspx
dd
Railcar,
You are putting words in my mouth I never said...
Re reading my post, I can see where you would assume I was saying that carmen have no real skills, which is not true.
Most of them are accomplished welders, machinist, and fabricators.
What I was implying is that there is no requirement for a college degree.
That is not to say you guys are dumb, quite the opposite, most of the ones I know are very smart...they do what they do because they love that as much as I love T&E service.
Ed - I was going to help you out, but figured you could answer better than I could.
But this brings up - what types of things do Car Men do? ( I know some of them, but would be nice to have a short list and maybe a discussion on how/when and why...) C'mon people - this is a good chance to get away from the stock market drop and get into something interesting...
Can't speak for all railroads, but here on the Port, our guys inspect all inbound cars from our member lines, looking for any FRA defect.
Everything form worn missing brake shoes to bent hand holds, impact damage, bad bearings, worn or damaged wheels, open tank car lids and manway hatches, lose banding on loads, shifted loads, and just about any thing that can pose a safety hazard to either men or operations.
The car department has many responsibilities, they repair these damaged cars to specs, and they perform the initial terminal brake inspection, lace up the air hoses on outbound trains, give brake tests, and secure shifted loads if possible, or contact the owner to do so if they cant fix it them selves.
Our guys in the yard have scooters, 4 wheelers, to help them out, and all of them carry a spare knuckle pin or two and a box of brake shoes, and can fix smaller problems with the car in place.
I routinely call them when I find a thumper, a car with a flat spot on the wheel.
I can bad order a car for flat spots, but prefer to have the experts look at it first...something like a flat spot, where an inexperience eye might see only a flat spot that still is within limits might miss other, more serious damage.
So I let them make the call on stuff like that...gives me a better sense of security when someone who does this for a living says let it go, or put it in the rips...
I have a copy of the interchange manual, their book of what is and isn't a defect...the things is as thick as a bible, and requires them to look at things you would never suspect.
They are even required to visually check welds on certain cars, and one particular type of tank car requires them to inspect the welding bead along the coupler sill for fatigue and breaks.
Carmen are like switchmen, they don't get much press, because they are a part of railroading no one really thinks about...we put together the trains you see out on the mainline, and they keep the cars we switch out safe to use...but all the public ever sees is the engineer and conductor waving at the crossings, most folks never realize how many people have to do so many things just so you can watch the train roll past.
So a flat wheel....
They can pull the car for the rip track (I am so proud of myself - Repair In Place - RIP track!)
Then - how do they "unflatten" that wheel?
^?
They "unflatten" them by changing them out. Which is why that stuff in North Platte was so hot--no trips to the RIP for empty coal cars with flat wheels, no filling out the consists with empties to take their place, less downtime, and so forth.
Once the flat wheelsets are out, they can be turned (on a wheelset lathe, which usually only major car shops have) to give them a round profile again, up (or down, speaking of diameter) to a point, after which the wheels are condemned, and become just so much scrap. Axles can be reused.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
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