Our Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum has several older all aluminum low profile Simplex A5 track jacks which are in need of new pawl springs. I say older as these jacks have been around the museum since I have been around which is 19+ years. They are still in good shape, but the pawl springs have broken so the retainers no longer hold the jacks as they are lifted.

I am looking for a source for new pawl springs for this type of jack. I was given a few springs for Duff-Norton high track jacks, but they just don't seem to fit the Simplex jacks. A5 The springs I have are a one piece spring that in the Duffs, fit over round discs cast in each side of the jack. The Simplex springs appears to have a wire end that fits in a hole on either side of the jack.

I called Simplex once a few months ago when I first looked into this, but they told me just to call one of their resellers. Alas, none in my area carry track jacks and it doesn't appear Simplex makes the A5. I may try again. I did see a company called PowerJacks, but they are based out of Scotland with no US distributor. They do seem, however, to make an A5 jack that looks just like the ones we have.

Any help would be appreciated. If I can find an old spring from one of our working jacks, I will post it. It will be a few times.

Thanks!

Regards,
Chris Hauf
Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum

Try This Guy,

John The Jackman
112 W Stafford Rd
Stafford Springs, Ct 06076
(860)684-3545

From what I have been told, he can get almost anything (either OEM or replicated).

Regards,

Rich C

Rich,

Thanks for the lead. John The Jackman was a great help and very easy to deal with. They had some of the parts we needed and was able to order some from Simplex they did not have. Turns out, you can still order from Simplex although I was led to believe from a person I talked to there that you could not. They do have a $50 min order and since John The Jackman needed some parts and we needed some parts, we were able to make the $50.00 min with ease.

Now off to fix those jacks and thanks again for the help! And thanks to RYPN for continuing to provide this service to the railroad preservation community.

Regards,
Chris

Glad it worked out. Figured if he didn't have them (which it seems is rare for him) he would no where to get them.

Have fun,

Rich C.