Rail roads and their tracks.

[oldtimer 66]

We were still suppling friction axles for some customers into the early 80's. A lot of times these orders were for overseas customers and or a special built locomotives/ mining and or switchers. There was also Hyatt design straight roller journal bearing/ oil lubricated/ which I think was a precursor to the Timken design. N&S held onto that Hyatt design for there locomotives into the early 90's. At that time the friction motor suspension was superseded to the rolling element/ opposed tapered rolling bearings. Part of the assembly of the rolling element axle required end holes in the axle so that the axle assembly could be picked up and built vertically. On the Hyatt design the end of the axle was the the thrust face for the Hyatt bearing and there could be no holes in the end of the axle for the Hyatt design. Therefore when N&S purchased locomotives that had rolling element motor suspension that included Timken, Brenco style tapered roller bearings. Just some history.

 

[ArlyA]

They were going west, probably from the port of Baltimore.

Gee, I thought everyone would have noticed the brake disk.

 

[oldtimer 66]

Yes I noticed the disk brakes. If I remember correctly there are other designs with a single disk brake, but I don't remember the RR's. Another interesting fact about transit wheel sets. The design shown has a inboard wheel and out board journal bearing. There are other transit wheel designs that have a outboard wheel and inboard journal bearing design. This is defined by the truck foot print. The first design, outboard journal bearing, the wheel is pressed on and then the journal bearing is pressed on and spiked as an individual component. With out board wheel the journal bearing is installed first and spiked against a shoulder. Then the wheel is pressed on at maybe 100 ton and then spiked against the journal at approx. 10 ton. A little more difficult to do when working with a 100 ton force. This is from my memory of about 30 plus years ago. Just for reference a locomotive wheel is pressed on at 105 to 155 tons referencing a 10 inch diameter. Rule of thumb is 13 tons per in of diameter. Just some details.

 

[BravoXray]

Speaking of Hyatt and Timken bearings on locomotive trucks, I took some pictures of a couple of NS SD40-2s that sat on a siding in town, idling all weekend. Both units were originally built in the late 70s, and looked like they have done a lot of hard work.
Loved the sound of those big 16 cylinder 645 EMDs idling.

One had an assortment of axle bearings.

View attachment 800511

 

[ArlyA]

Large weight cars. Never seen or head of Schnabel's before.

 

[gstrom99]

sat on a siding in town, idling all weekend.

That's alot of wasted fuel, and unnecessary emissions. No local/other rules about that?

 

[ArlyA]

Interesting composition showing the healthy winter ore stockpile at Lakehead in Duluth MN plus what I'm guessing was a bad order Minorca limestone cars there. May 11, 2023

 

[BravoXray]

That's alot of wasted fuel, and unnecessary emissions. No local/other rules about that?

I don't believe so.
It was pretty cold, so shutting them down could have made restarting them difficult. At least there was no visible smoke coming out of the exhausts.
Thing is, where they were parked, it is only about 10 miles from the NS Elkhart yard.

 

[BravoXray]

Large weight cars. Never seen or head of Schnabel's before.

I saw one many years ago come through town. I remember it had four two axle trucks on each end, and some kind of large piece of machinery suspended in the middle.

 

[bcp]

https://archive.epa.gov/midwestcleandiesel/web/pdf/switchers2.pdf

"Idling switchers use between 3 and Il gallons of fuel per hour depending on the ambient temperature. "
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and:

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Bruce