Adjustable bracket assembly for a rail car coupler

Abstract

A rail car coupler, with the shaft thereof bearing against a coupler carrier, is vertically adjustable by means of serrated lock plates intermeshing with similarly serrated coupler carrier brackets. A minimum adjustment is therefore made possible equal to the size of a tooth of the serrations. Opposed bearing surfaces of the coupler carrier respectively lie in planes containing a trough between a pair of adjacent teeth of the bracket serrations and containing an apex of one of the teeth of the bracket serrations so as to permit a further relative adjustment of the planes containing the bearing surfaces by an amount equal to at least one-half the size of a tooth of the serrations when the coupler carrier is inverted 180.degree.. Serrations may be provided on opposed surfaces of the bracket to facilitate a half-space adjustment by inverting the brackets. In another embodiment, the respective bearing surfaces lie in a plane containing a trough between a pair of adjacent teeth of the bracket and in a plane containing a tooth portion spaced from an apex of one of the teeth of the brackets and lying between the trough and such apex, so as to facilitate a shifting of the planes by an amount equal to the distance that such tooth portion is spaced from such apex, when the brackets are inverted.