Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck: Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology: Paper 24White, John H.
History
Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck: Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology: Paper 24
White, John H.
Locomotives; Railroads -- Safety applications
The Rogers Locomotive Works in 1858 was one of the earliest builders to
apply the improved truck. By 1860 they had fitted many of their engines
with it and were endorsing the device to prospective customers.
In the same year the _American Railway Review_ noted that the truck was
in extensive use, stating:[10]
... the advantages of the arrangement are so obvious and its results
so well established by practice in this country and Europe that a
treatise on its principles will hardly be needed.
It is no longer an experiment; and the earlier it is applied to all
engines, the better the running and repair accounts will look.
The success of Bissell's invention prompted others to perfect safety
trucks for locomotives. Alba F. Smith came forward in 1862 with the
simple substitution of swing links (fig. 4) for the incline planes.[11]
A swing-bolster truck had been developed 20 years earlier for use on
railroad cars,[12] and while Smith recognized this in his patent, he
based his claim on the specific application of the idea to locomotive
trucks. That the swing links succeeded the incline planes as a centering
device was mainly because they were cheaper and simpler to construct,
and not, as has been claimed, that the V's wore out quickly.[13]
[Illustration: FIGURE 7.--Bissell's 2-wheel truck of 1858 as shown by the
drawing for British patent 2751, issued December 1, 1858.]
Smith's swing-bolster truck, with the heart pendant link, a later
refinement, became the dominating form of centering devices and was used
well into this century. It was to be superseded in more recent years by
the constant resistance and gear roller centering devices which, like
Bissell's invention, depended on the double incline plane principle.
The British-born engineer William S. Hudson, superintendent of the
Rogers Works and an early proponent of the Bissell truck, in 1864
obtained a patent[14] for improving Bissell's safety truck. Hudson
contended that since the Bissell arrangement had a fixed pivot point it
could traverse only one given radius accurately. 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.
[Illustration: FIGURE 8.--A 2-wheel Bissell truck installed on the
Pennsylvania Railroad's _No. 91_. This engine originally an 0-8-0 Winans
Camel built in February 1854, was rebuilt by John P. Laird in 1867, at
which time the Bissell truck was added. Note that Hudson equalizing
lever was not used. (_Smithsonian photo 46806-k_)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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