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57: Commonwealth, primarily a maker of passenger
car trucks, offered this high-speed truck whose
drop equalizers and combination of coil and elliptic
springs gave it the appearance of a short wheelbase
passenger car truck.
High-speed trucks
In the 1930s, as a number of railroads began using box and
refrigerator cars in passenger express service, freight car trucks
began to be developed for operation at passenger train speeds.
The ASF Simplex truck, with its long and flexible leaf springs,
was an example of a truck developed for this purpose (54).
Other efforts to produce a high-speed freight car truck resulted
in the Barber S-5 and Gould trucks with sprung journal boxes
in side frame pedestal jaws (55 and 56). Commonwealth also
offered a short wheelbase passenger-car-type truck with drop
equalizers which had both coil and leaf springs (57).
The Allied Full Cushion truck, introduced in 1940, provided a
better ride at higher speeds and was applied by a number of
railroads to freight cars in passenger train service, as well as to
a large number of freight-car-based troop sleepers and kitchen
cars built during World War II for the federal government
(58). However, it turned out that Allied trucks had derailment
Freight Car Trucks - 21
57
index contents
MRH-May 2013