What is the Triangle Symbol on Hoppers

[NW Mailing List]

These pads were not limited to hopper cars.  They applied them to box cars, gons, you name it.  I’ve seen these triangles on the ends of tenders that used the pads.  

The pads were an improvement on waste packing; waste could travel up the side of the journal and catch under the brass, causeing a lack of lubrication in that area and thus a hotbox.  The pads bridged the gap between “friction” journals and roller bearings, which started to come in about 1960.  N8w was hell on hotbox elimination; anything that stopped a train got into the Gross Ton Miles per Train Hour and was thus undesirable.

Working in Shaffers Crossing Car Department, there was a lot of pressure about hotboxes on eastbound coal trains; the speeds were higher and that increased the possibility of hotboxes.

BTW – I hold the record for the number of hotboxes on a four-axle freightt car, and it will never be broken.  Eight.  I still remember it and will tell anybody interested how it came about.

- Ed King

From: NW Mailing List 
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2020 2:41 PM
To: N&W Mailing List 
Subject: Re: What is the Triangle Symbol on Hoppers

The lettering in the triangle said, BOXES PACKED WITH PADS. 

Stencilling was on the upper left corner of car sides, as I recall. 

That was applied when lubricating journal pads came around.  The lettering was used in the 1950s and 1960s.  Once all the friction bearing cas had journal pads, the triangles went away.  Of course, by the 1960s, roller bearings were coming on the property in increasing numbers. 

-- abram burnett 
Puh-sizhun Sked-youled Turnips 
  


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