John H. White

Name: Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck
Author: John H. White

Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck

Summary

“Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck”, is a work by John H. White. It explores elements such as truck, Bissell and locomotive.

Quotes from Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck (John H. White)

John H. White, Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck

“ But as the decade advanced, the need grew for heavy freight engines that could be safely run at speed. Without a pilot truck, the leading driving axle of the freight engine was generally overloaded. While the application of a 4-wheel truck reduced this front-end overload and permitted faster running it materially reduced the traction of the drivers by bearing too great a portion of the total weight. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John H. White, Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck

“ Designed for well-ballasted track with large-radius curves and gentle gradients, they all too frequently left the rails, and the unsuitability of the essentially rigid British design soon became apparent.
The challenge posed by the American roadbed was met by American mechanics. By the mid-1830’s a distinctive American locomotive had evolved that might best be described by the word “flexible.” The basic features of its running gear were a bar frame and equalizing levers to provide vertical relief and a leading truck to provide lateral relief. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John H. White, Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck

“ This action can be more easily understood from reference to Bissell’s patent drawing in figure 2. For example, let us say that an 8-wheel engine, fitted with a center-swing truck, enters a right-hand curve. The left truck wheels bear hard against the left rail. The drivers jam obliquely across the track, with the right front and left rear wheels grinding into the rails. As a result, the locomotive tends to leave the track in the direction of the arrow shown on the figure (bottom drawing) . It will be noted that the truck center pintle is in fact the fulcrum for this leverage. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John H. White, Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck

“ In running on either a straight or curved track one of the truck wheels often breaks off, and the truck swivels around on its center pin in consequence, and throws the engine off the track, but with my device one wheel, or even the two wheels on the opposite sides diagonally of the truck might break off and still the truck would not run off, because its position is set and it has no axis of motion around which it could swing.... ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John H. White, Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck

“ Hudson made use of this same device but in a more practical manner. He found that while the Bissell pony truck could satisfactorily adjust itself laterally and could lead the locomotive around curves, it could not handle the varying loads imposed upon it by the rough trackage typical of American railroads. At one moment an undue amount of weight would fall upon the truck because the drivers were over a depression in the roadbed. This condition overloaded the truck’s springs and also resulted in a momentary loss of adhesion, causing the drivers to slip. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John H. White, Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck

“ He proposed to replace the fixed pivot with a radius bar (see fig. 5) one end of which was attached to the locomotive under the smoke-box and the other to rear of the truck frame, at the same point of attachment as in the Bissell plan. Thus, according to Hudson, the pivot point could move laterally so that the truck might more easily accommodate itself to a curve of any radius. He further claimed that a better distribution of weight was effected and that the use of the radius bar relieved the center bearing casting of much of the strain of propelling the truck. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John H. White, Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck

“ Bissell proposed to correct the faults of the conventional truck by fitting the locomotives with his invention, the first practical safety truck to be patented. Since the primary requirements were to keep the leading wheel axles at right angles to the rails whether on a straight or curved track, and to allow the driving axles to remain parallel, or nearly so, to the radial line of the curve, he moved the center pin to a point behind the truck and just in front of the forward driving axle. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John H. White, Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck

“ In those pioneering times the demand for new roads left little capital to improve or expand existing lines; therefore equipment was needed that could accommodate itself to the existing operating conditions. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John H. White, Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck

“ The Gazette of May 29, 1875, carries a protest of the Company against the Manchester Locomotive Works for unlicensed use of Smith’s patent of 1862. In the issue of August 28, 1875, is reported the Company’s success in establishing the validity of Smith’s patent:
Some important settlements for the use of the patent have lately been made with the company, one of them being with the Western Railroad Association, whose headquarters are at Chicago, which includes the principal western roads. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John H. White, Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck

“ Probably the best features of the design was the transverse H-beam that connected the spring hangers to the truck frame, which in this case also served as the equalizing lever (note that the ball “C” acts as the fulcrum) . ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John H. White, Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck

“ The position of the inclines is such that the blocks [V’s] rest in the lowest part of the double inclines when the engine is on a straight track, and on coming onto a curve the inertia of the engine ... is expended in going up the inclines, as the truck moves laterally toward the inner part of the curve ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John H. White, Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck

“ John L. Whetstone on April 10, 1860, obtained U.S. patent 27850, which strikingly anticipated the plan Hudson was to develop four years later.22 Whetstone did not use a Bissell truck and was in fact more concerned in relieving the excess weight, often a 50% overload, from the front axle of 0-6-0 locomotives and in distributing a portion of that weight to a pony truck. His arrangement may be readily understood from the patent drawing in figure 9. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John H. White, Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck

“ Figure 10.—The Hudson-Bissell truck permitted the introduction of Mogul and Consolidation type freight locomotives. This drawing shows a typical installation for a Consolidation of the 1880’s. Item A is the equalizing lever which connects the truck to the springs of the front driving wheels. ”

John H. White

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