Re: Uintah 50

Ted,

The undercarriage of the car was quite the endeavor. One of the two last big projects I was a part of at CRRM (the other being the 491's cylinder jackets - though I didn't get to see those finished before I moved back to Seattle).

I hope the world famous Jeff Taylor doesn't mind if the lowly diesel foreman shares a few pictures...

Jeff came up with the overall design of the draft gear (we needed to be compatible with our standard 26" coupler height, the Uintah ran with 30" is what we figured out...) and I crunched the numbers and came up with drawings. It was a bit of an adventure to come up with the correct coupler height, shank length, and placement to ensure the couplers had enough travel but also would not contact the truck body when pivoting (it turns out they had the couplers up so high so they would not be foul of the trucks when they went around their famous 66 degree curve...).

The drawing, revision 1:



Here's us roughing in the baggage end's draft gear:



I also came up with the drawing package for the spring plank and side bearing extension bolsters based on an old black and white photo.



Here's the exploded view of the assembly:



And here's the spring plank:



How do you make a speed bump for a train? Lots of heat... ( 3 rosebuds at once, for the most part... Using 52 lb rail, if memory serves - we matched the rail from the photo).



The finished bolster assembly (sans the actual bowl itself):



Test fitting onto the truck:



Checking our clearance with the truck under the body:





Overall, it was one of the coolest projects I got to be a part of. It was a real culmination of my engineering studies at Mines and the fabrication work I got to help with at CRRM. Rubber meeting road, if you will. I have the template we burned out to match the rail curvature sitting on my mantle at home...

Mark Huber
Hyce on YouTube