Hot off the factory floor

Here are two pre-production photographs for our 2nd batch of 70-ft heavyweight baggage-express cars.  Enjoy and have a great Easter weekend!

Don't Forget . . .

New Announcement from Wheels of Time

Wheels of Time is happy to announce the Piggy-Packer.  It's a huge tractor that lifts truck trailers and shipping containers on to railroad TOFC-COFC flat cars.  In the months ahead, I will keep you abreast of our product develpment of this popular model which can be seen everywhere in intermodal railroad yards.   Here is a builder's plate that I took.  Enjoy.

A Matter of Time ... Standard Time

Wheels of Time is in the midst of developing new railroad cars and vehicles for this year and next. It has me in a reflective mood, and I have been thinking about 'time'. Today, we take time for granted. However, there is one single event that has had profound and continued influence on the way we experience time: November 18, 1883 marked the beginnings of "Standard Time."

Before that fateful day in November, each town and every farmer kept their own time. 12 noon was defined when the sun crossed the meridian, an imaginary line in the sky running from north to south. Sun dials work this way ....  But by this measure, noon is different in every longitude on Earth: starting in New York City, noon comes 1 minute later for about every 13.5 miles that you travel westerly.When the railroads made it possible to travel from New York City to Philadelphia in hours instead of over the course of a day, it became important to be able to synchronize clocks so you could get picked up at your destination. 12 noon in NYC was 11:55 am in Philadelphia, 11:47 am in Washington D.C.  Illinois alone had 27 different local times. Wisconsin had 38.

In 1872, the Time-Table Convention (which would later become the Association of American Railroads) was founded to come up with a solution. Charles F. Dowd, principal of Temple Grove Seminary, suggested a system of time zones. Sir Sandford Fleming (representing a Canadian railroad) argued for a similar scheme at the American Society of Civil Engineers. Congress resisted for years.

So the railroads acted on their own initiative, and in 1883, with William Allen of the Official Guide of Railways, developed the idea of four time zones -- Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific.  Each was centered on the 75th meridian of longitude at the cities of Philadelphia, Memphis, Denver, Fresno. The system was immediately adopted by all railroads, the city of New York, and the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory - the nation's official timekeeper - ignoring the U.S. Attorney General's protests in Washington that it shouldn't be adopted since it needed congressional approval. The rest is history.

The Anatomy of A Heavyweight Baggage-Express Car

1. Fowler buffer spring. This is the upper buffer spring. The lower buffer is above the coupler.
2. Since the invention of light bulbs and "newer" ventilation systems, the clerestory roof design became obsolete. The arched roof provided a better seal from moisture from inclinent weather than the clerestory.
3. Garland roof vents: Designed to provide negative pressure so inside air is exhausted when train is underway. Air exits along the opening parellel to the sides of the car. Air enters on either side, depending on direction of travel.
4. A "star" denotes (upgraded) facilities for the baggage/express attendent, including washstand, hopper, desk, and sometimes even a stove.
5. Rivet heads - 1/2" to 1" in diameter. Rivets attached the steel side plates to the frame.
6. Inside: floors at the ends of cars are typically equipped with "fish racks." These are raised wooden slats that keep goods from getting wet on a moist floor.
7. I.C.C. Safety Appliance requirement: Stirrups and grabs.
8. Double-wide doors for ease of loading extra wide cargo.
9. Dynamo: A belt-driven generator that takes power from the wheel axle.
10. 30-volt, 25 cell, 150 AH batteries, typical.
11. The Railway Express Agency was a contractor retained to operate package freight business. The REA operated nationwide and seemlessly between connecting railroads. It was the forerunner of today's UPS and FedEx. Canadian National and Canadian Pacific did not contract with the REA but each had their own internally operated LCL-packaged-business unit.
12. Built-up fishbelly main girders: originally a Pullman Mfg. Co. idea that was copied by ACF, Standard Steel and others. PRR, SP, UP avoided this design due to the heavy dead weight and the inability for carman to see the other side of underbody equipment. The advantage was that it was cheap to fabricate.
13. Westinghouse or New York UC brake valve became standard in 1914. On modern passenger cars, its D-22 and then D-26 brake systems.
14. Ply-metal or Met-L-Wood modernized doors replaced the original all wood ones. Essentially they are plywood doors encased in metal. It provide durability and relatively lightness when sliding the door open and close.
15. Truck springs: the combination of elliptical and coil springs eliminated harmonic bouncing motion.
16. Bolt on pedestals on a Commonwealth frame. It's old school.
17. Belt rail provides structural integrity between the lower and upper side plates.
18. End sills: specifications were usually taken from either "over the end sills" or "inside of the end sills" - making the definition of the 70-ft measurement different depending on how it is defined (it's never the actual length of the carbody).
19. 36" diameter Wrought Steel Wheels were the standard.
20. Diaphragm: provides protection for personnel when traveling from car to car.
21. Brake wheel or brake lever. In this design the brake wheels were located on the outside and in the inside of the car connected by a short shaft, and located on both the A & B ends of the car.
22. Clasp brake shoe, sometimes called tread brake shoe.