Looking for info on rebuilding Baldwin and Brill electric trucks. Are manuals available?

What sort of truck work are you doing? In the case of not having manuals most of the truck work done these days is by way of reverse engineering or relying on past experience.

What Tom said. I would encourage you to reach out to our British and Australian brothers in the business who seem to have done a far better job of preserving information as well as hardware than we have.

This might be an ideal section for the 'best practices' work-in-progress that Becky Morgan and others proposed a few years ago. Assembling all the information in one place or repository is a good, long first step toward effective manuals...

I’m trying to replace the leaf springs on what I believe is a Baldwin 84-60AA. Truck is out of car & disassembled. I did not do the disassemble. ID is based on research of original car equipment and existing truck may be different. Car is a South Shore interurban Pullman. Proper ID and repair / part replacement info would be appreciated.
I would like to find or create a database for truck ID and repairs for all electric trucks (trolley, streetcar, etc) pre 1950 starting with Baldwin and Brills.

I'd start with the assumption that the pre-existing springs taken out of the truck when it was dissasembled had sagged from what was their 'as-built' arch, temper, and by derivation spring rate.

Measure the components to determine what the loaded ride height would be, and have a competent leaf-spring supplier design the 'correct' spring to reach that height with the car's load on it.

The material thickness and other characteristics of the spring will in part be dictated by how closely the fully-laden height and suspension cheracteristics compare with the empty car weight loading...

.

For post-1940 or so Baldwin steam locomotive drawings the Pennsylvania State Archives has a large collection. That might be a place to check. The challenge will be determining which spring drawing is the correct one and you will probably need a truck assembly drawing to find the number.

For the leaf springs for Alaska Railroad #557 we had to go to the U.K. because the several U.S. and Canadian suppliers we contacted didn't have access to the right thickness of material or just didn't reply to our inquiry. It was very comforting when we sent them a drawing and they came back with, "That looks like it's for an S-160."

Try looking at the Electric Railway Dictionary, Electric Railway Journal, Brill's Magazine and other industry publications. I don't know if the American Electric Railway Association ever compiled an equivalent to the Locomotive Cyclopedia but the Cyclopedia were compilations of information extracted from their monthly journals. Looks like drawings of Baldwin and Brill trucks of some configuration can be found here.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/El ... frontcover

I seriously doubt you will find a "rebuild manual". What you can find are standards and best practices for parts and materials. Using standards for spring material standards of the time, weight of the car, etc, you should be able to figure out what the springs you have actually are and what they should be. If they're not broken, they're probably exactly what you want.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Th ... frontcover

Brill put out parts lists and service bulletins for their trucks. Many of these were reprinted by ARM.

On the Baldwin Electric Railway Trucks I am not aware that there was anything similar done. The Baldwin MCB style trucks are reconditioned using standard shop practices. A few comments on working on these trucks. To remove the leaf springs, with the trucks out from under the car, first lift the truck bolster off the springs. There is usually a couple of safety straps holding the bolster in place. If the bolster is up hard against these straps, they needed to be removed before the car body weight was removed from the bolster. With the bolster removed the leaf springs are either loose, or they are not. If they are still tight a spring compressor is needed. A design for a leaf spring compressor was reprinted by ARM. I think it was from the private car operators group or Amtrak. With the springs compressed they can be removed out the side of the side frame.

Lifting the side frames should free the coil springs. Then the spring seats can be lifter off the equalizers. Then the equalizers can be lifter off the journal boxes. Equalizers can be replaced using 572 grade 50 steel plate. The rolling direction needs to be the in line with the length of the equalizer. The edges need to be ground and polished smooth. With some of the more modern plate cutting methods, this should not be to difficult. The condition of the parts on top of the box that the equalizers run against will have to be addressed. There may also be a sheet of Gatkee material in there that needs replacing. The Baldwin leaf springs should have an ID number stamped into them. Standard Steel was Baldwin’s spring manufacturing company. The springs were made at a plant in, I think, Latrobe. Last I heard they still make springs. The staff at the Standard Steel plant in Burnham should be able to provide better information on this.

When rebuilding trucks, one of the wear areas that needs to be addressed is the journal box/ pedestal interface. There is a common set of three gauges used to build these areas up to the proper dimensions. One is an H shaped gauge that sets the distance between the pedestals and the thickness of the pedestals. There is a rectangular gauge with two rounded corners that sets the distance between the gibs on the journal box. The third gauge is a U shaped gauge that fits over the journal box to control its width. The dimensions for these gauges can usually be picked up on the unworn portions of the pedestals, if they are not known. Wear in this location is repaired by welding, or welding or bolting in wear plates. There should also be wear plates that need to be welded up or replaced between the bolster and transom. The swing motion pins and mating surfacing may also have the wear needing to be addressed.

The journal box roofs and the wedges need to be gauged and repaired or replaced following the AAR guide lines. Brake rigging contact points may also have wear that has to be addressed. There may also be wear in the traction motor nose mounting contact points. This will vary depending on the style.

Baldwin trucks were assembled with fitted bolts. If these are loose or have been removed, new bolts will have to be made and installed. There is a special set of reamers needed to restore the hole for the tapered bolt. The bolt is driven in the last 1/4” or so. I think we made the bolts out of pre hardened 4140 hex stock. When built, Baldwin had standard tapered bolts and reamed to fit. In repairs we ream the holes to clean them up and made bolts to fit. This is the same technique that Baldwin used to build steam locomotives. Help in this area from an experienced steam locomotive rebuild crew may be required.

Prior to reassemble, the wheel set condition including wheel tread, journal size and condition, and motor hanger journal condition all need to be addressed. Also, journal brass may need repair or replace.

Much of what I describe above is still common practice in passenger truck shops.

David J.: Thanks
My life’s work was moving / rigging heavy equip and cert. welding.
Time to go to school on trucks.
This spring job has been put on hold. Maybe after swapping wheels / axles on another car I’ll be back to the springs.
Is a picture of the compressor a available?

Which car are you working on? I can probably supply a illustrated parts for the compressor.
Provide your address and I will send it to you.

Springs need some sort of damping once they start "bouncing".

Leaf springs are self-damping in that the leaves rub against each other as they move, and this friction retards the bouncing action. So if you take apart a leaf spring bundle to clean the leaves, do not apply lubricant to them before (or after) reassembly of the bundle. Paint the bundle only after it has been reassembled.

Damping for coil springs requires a vibration dampener because the spring material and geometry of the coil have virtually no internal friction. On automobile coil springs, dampening is provided by "shock absorbers", which is actually a bit of a misnomer. With coil spring suspension and no or non-functioning shock absorbers, you will bounce off the road at 25 mph. Leaf springs, being self-dampening don't have this problem.

With RR trucks, the interface of journal box/pedestal guide friction provides the dampening force for the coil springs (same for the truck bolster/bolster guide interface). Sometimes this is supplemented by vibration dampeners (which look like automotive shock absorbers on steroids). All too often I've seen railway museums and tourist lines lubricate pedestal guides with oil, grease, or graphite, the intent being to cut down on wear. The main downside to doing this is that it reduces the damping action on the coil springs, which ruins the riding quality of the truck. When total pedestal jaw-journal box guide clearance (cumulative, the sum when measured on both sides of the box) approaches 3/16" or greater, ride quality begins seriously deteriorating.

A trick for installing fitted bolts is to pack the bolt in dry ice for a few hours, then heat the area where it is to go just hot enough that it's uncomfortable to touch, take the bolt out of the dry ice and immediately drive it into the hole. For truck work, a large Boyer rivet hammer works wonders.

MT: I bet 1/2 our trucks have ill applied grease. Thanks
David J.: would you like my email address posted here or is there an offsite personal message on this board? Truck came from 1922 Cincinnati Car Co. / Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee RR , Merchandise Car #228. I will take better pictures next week & try to find a youngster that can teach posting images here.

Dave, great info as always!

Making custom bolts with hex heads is a common museum need. Do you prefer taking the interrupted cut on the length of hex stock to starting with oversized round stock and then machining the hex as the final operation?