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68: The simplest way to get roller bearings was to
retrofit them in existing trucks, as the Union Pacific
did on their DLS stock cars. As the bearings were
invisible inside the original journal boxes, the journal
box covers were painted aluminum so carmen would
know not to pour journal oil into them.
68
Following the war, roller bearing manufacturers engaged in
a vigorous promotional campaign to market their wares to
the railroads, even going so far as to describe roller bearings
as "anti-friction" bearings in contrast to "friction" (i.e., plain)
journal bearings. This terminology was nonsense, of course;
all bearings have friction, and though roller bearings have less
resistance to starting and at low speeds, their advantage was
relatively slight at normal train speeds.
In any case, railroad officials weren't inclined to spend money
putting roller bearings on cars that spent much of their life
off-line in interchange, so the relatively few cars that received
roller bearing trucks were in assigned service and seldom or
never left their owners' rails. One such example was the Union
Pacific's DLS livestock trains from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles;
in this case, roller bearings were fitted to existing trucks, and
the only evidence of their presence was aluminum-painted
journal box covers (68). Another was a small number of Akron,
Freight Car Trucks - 24
index contents
MRH-May 2013