Truck Identity

[adari]

Anyone know what kind of trucks these are? I have been looking for information for a really long time!

Yes I have searched google, but without a exact name, I have no clue.
Also if anyone knows who makes them in HO scale, that would be great!
Thank a lot,
Adam

[richg]

You might try the Trains.com, Model Railroader, General forum. Many, many brass experts/owners there.

Rich

[Len]

The NMRA has a data sheet on various freight, caboose, and tender trucks at:

http://www.nmra.org/member/sites/default/files/datasheets/Rolling/d5a.PDF

None of them look like the ones in your picture though. They may be 'freelanced', or a type unique to a specific railroad.

They sort of look like Commonwealth trucks, but the lower support structure is missing if they are.

Len

[adari]

These trucks appear on Atlantic Coast Line P5 pacifics. Otherwise known as a USRA light pacific.
I am doing a ACL project for a friend. After days of researching tender trucks, I cannot find a thing!
Adam

[Len]

Here's a picture of an ACL USRA Pacific tender. Note the lower portion, similar to a Commonwealth truck, that is missing in the OP picture.

So far, I can't find anything like the trucks in the original picture. Which makes me think they are either free-lanced by the model builder, or specific to a particular railroad's shops.

Is there anything on the loco's box regarding the railroad & class of loco it's supposed to be??

Len

[MarkInLA]

Am thinking, if brass loco comes from Japan maybe trucks are a Japanese RR prototype which got fitted to this tender before it got here somehow. Never saw anything like these. With leaf springs maybe they're off a caboose ...Mark   

[Len]

I'm pretty sure the trucks pictured are 'free lanced' by whoever made the loco. I pulled out my scrap book of JNR 'C' class steam loco pictures, and there's nothing even close to those trucks.

The picture in the OP has enough resolution I was able to copy it, crop it down to just the trucks, and blow it up x300, then again x200. What pops out is these are very poor quality brass castings. The journal boxes are rounded blobs, and very distorted. And the brake shoes hang directly off the body of the truck frame casting, rather than the inner side where they might actually come in contact with the wheel tread.

These castings aren't anywhere near being in the same league as Precision Scale truck sideframe castings. If they are based on a prototype, it's not any U.S. or JNR tender I can find.

If that were my tender, I'd pull the sideframes for use as a scrap load, measure the wheel base, and get a set of Precision Scale tender truck side frames to match the road I was modeling and install them.

Len

[adari]

Hey Guys,
So I found some photos of the real thing. A little blurry, but you see them clear as day.

Atlantic Coast Line 4-6-2 USRA Light Pacific Steam Locomotive # 494, Class P-5, as built by ALCO, at it's Richmond plant by alcomike43, on Flickr

Click on image for full quality.
These are really strange trucks!
Adam

[Len]

Ok, with the additional information included with the prototype pic I've been able to dig a bit deeper. I found some interesting infor regarding USRA Light Pacifics over on the American Society of Mechanical Engineers web site.

Those original style trucks, whatever they're called, are the "As built" equipment from ALCO's Richmond plant. Apparently the USRA specifications only applied to the loco and the tenders fuel & water capacity. Not the actual hardware on the tender. The tenders on the USRA Light Pacifics out of Baldwin's shops had completely different, and more typical, truck assemblies.

Apparently ACL didn't care for those trucks, as when the 1500 series P5's went in for major shop jobs the tenders came out with different trucks. Most commonly Commonwealth types more suited to high speed passenger service.

So whatever they're called, those oddball trucks appear not to have stuck around long enough to be commonplace and given a name.

Len