High adhesion railway power truck with body spring-supported on the

Abstract

A railway power truck has a rigid frame resiliently supported on its axles and intermediate its axles has a bolster supported on the sides of the rigid frame by longitudinally oppositely inclined elastomeric pads whose normals converge near rail level. At the sides of the truck, the bolster mounts springs which directly support the vehicle body and are yieldable horizontally as well as vertically to accommodate swivel and lateral movements of the body with respect to the truck. For transmitting longitudinal tractive and braking forces between the truck and body and preventing tipping of the bolster about a transverse axis with respect to the body while accommodating lateral and swivel movements of the body with respect to the bolster, while providing clearance at the level of the truck frame for structure such as radial axle linkage, the body rigidly mounts at the center of the truck a depending cylindrical post and the post swivelly mounts a generally diagonally extending lever, to the opposite ends of which are pivotally secured vertically spaced pairs of parallel longitudinally extending links, the links at opposite ends of the lever extending in opposite longitudinal directions and being pivotally connected at their ends remote from the lever to the bolster, thus maintaining the bolster parallel to the body irrespective of longitudinal tipping movements of the truck frame, the latter being accommodated by the inclined bolster mounting pads whereby to cause transmission of tractive forces to the body effectively at rail level and thereby minimize axle-to-axle load transference.